“Good man, Richard. Worried about you being out there alone.” Mr. Duggar tapped his computer screen. “That's why I installed the night vision cameras. Got quite a collection of extensive footage over more than a decade or so. Been uploading the footage to the cloud. Who knows when I might catch a ghost.” Mr. Duggar winked at Savanah.
“An entire decade?” Jacob asked in disbelief.
“It’s amazing what technology will let you do nowadays.”
Mason stepped forward. “You think you got the vandals?”
“Only one way to tell.” He scribbled something on a notepad. “Here's the log-in information. Rather not watch it myself. These old eyes aren't what they used to be.”
Jacob took the paper. “I'll start reviewing it right away.”
“Take your time.” Mr. Duggar settled back in his chair. “Ten years of footage. It might take a while to find what you're looking for.”
“I’m going to step outside. I need some air.” Savanah stepped out onto the porch, processing the revelation about Richard. All this time, she'd thought he didn’t believe her.
“You okay?” Mason asked softly, appearing next to her.
“I don't know.” She looked across the street at the cemetery. “Nothing's quite what I thought it was.”
“It's all starting to make sense now. Someone is methodically recreating and exposing the original crime to vindicate you. They're forcing the town to acknowledge what happened, trying to rewrite your history. The killings, the symbols, your name at both scenes… It's all designed to validate what you saw as a child. Someone's desperate to make them believe you, probably in hopes that you’d return home.”
23
“I can start going through the footage,” Jacob said as they pulled up to the motel. He already had his laptop open on his knee. “Might take a while to sort through ten years' worth of video, but I have a feeling our killer is somewhere in there. I’ll start with the latest feeds.”
“Let us know if you find anything,” Mason said.
Jacob nodded, climbing out of the car. “Don't worry about me. I've got plenty of coffee and leftover donuts to hold me over.”
Savanah watched him disappear up the stairs of the motel. “Coffee actually sounds perfect right now.”
“Yeah?” Mason smiled. “I know just the place.”
They found a small café downtown, away from the diner and its ghosts. Morning sunlight streamed through wide windows, painting everything in soft gold. The place was mostly empty, just a few comfortable regulars scattered at corner tables.
“This is nice,” Savanah said, settling into a booth. “How'd you find it?”
“Asked the motel clerk for the best coffee in town that wasn't the diner.” He shrugged. “Even though it’s still open with thehusband trying to run it, I figured we could both use a change of scenery.”
A waitress brought menus and took their coffee orders. Savanah traced the worn edge of her menu, not really seeing it.
“You're thinking too loud,” Mason said softly.
She looked up, meeting his eyes. “All this time, I thought Richard was watching me because he didn't trust me. Because he thought I was crazy or dangerous or...” Her words trailed off.
“And now?”
“Now I don't know what to think.” She wrapped her hands around her coffee mug when it arrived, letting the warmth seep into her fingers. “Seems like I was wrong about everything I believed about why he left, about what he thought about all of this, about me.”
Mason studied her over the rim of his cup. “Would that be so bad?”
“What do you mean?”
“Finding out someone cared more than you thought, not less.” His voice was gentle. “Learning that you weren't as alone as you believed.”
The waitress returned to take their orders. Savanah used the interruption to gather her thoughts.
“When I was little,” she said after the waitress left, “before we moved here, my dad used to say that seeing ghosts was a gift. That it made me special.” She smiled sadly. “Then we moved here, and suddenly it made me different. Dangerous. The girl who cried murder.”
