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Serena: I’m aware.

Calla: Just… be careful, okay?

Lila: Please.

Serena: I will.

Calla: I love you.

Lila: Me too.

Serena: Thank you.

11

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

BARYN

Ihunch over my desk with my headphones clamped over my ears, listening to myself be an asshole.

Specifically, B.R. Slate circa four years ago, back when I apparently believed every sentence needed to be delivered like I was personally lowering the listener into a shallow grave.

The question isn’t whether Stillwater has secrets.

I close my eyes.

The question is how many people had to keep them.

I pause the episode. “No.”

The silence that follows is merciful.

I’ve been working backward through old episodes of Casket Case for the better part of an hour, looking for anything I might have dismissed the first time around. I covered Casey’s disappearance years ago as part of a cold case series, back when Stillwater was just another town on a very long list of places where someone had vanished and no one could explain why. Names that didn’t mean anything yet. Details I couldn’t connect. Interviews I conducted before I knew which questions I should have been asking.

Unfortunately, this requires prolonged exposure to my own voice.

I hit play.

Past Me immediately resumes being insufferable.

A sudden, erratic pounding cuts through the muffled barrier of my headphones, fast and desperate against the solid oak. I yank them down around my neck and head for the door, willing my pulse to settle. I expect the innkeeper.

When I pull it open, my mouth falls open.

Definitely not the innkeeper.

Serena is standing in the hallway, looking like she was unearthed from a dig site. A thick coat of red dust clings to her skin, flushing her features, and has matted her hair into a tangled wreck. Even the stark white section of her hair—usually so distinct—is choked with the dirt, dulling it into a rusted orange.

She also, inexplicably, still looks hot. This feels like useful information about the severity of my problem.

Apparently, being coated in several pounds of quarry is not enough to make my dick reconsider its position on Serena Harper.

She doesn't even say hello.

She pushes past me into the room, and immediately begins pacing the small space between the bed and the desk.

"Close the door, Baryn," she all but demands.