Charlotte nodded but didn’t move until she heard his footsteps fade down the stairs. Then she shut the door behind her, kicked off her boots, and pulled her phone from her pocket. Her thumb hovered over the screen before she finally scrolled to a number she hadn’t used in over a decade.
Graham Cullen.
They hadn't spoken since she was promoted to deputy chief. Nine years of working side by side unraveled in the tension of that shift—when her rank rose, and their friendship fractured. He saw her rank rise as his stalled. And after she retired ten years ago, that silence stretched wider.
But now she needed him.
She paced the length of the room and hit "Call."
It rang twice.
They had worked the Gideon Ward case together. She needed his help now. Maybe his old notebooks held a clue. She had to get home. Did the intruder get the tapes?
Charlotte pressed the phone to her ear, pacing the length of the guest room. The call rang twice before a groggy, irritated voice answered, "Yeah?"
"Graham, it’s Charlotte."
A long pause. Then a sigh. "No shit. Thought you were dead, Everhart." His tone was sarcastic as ever.
"Nice to hear your voice too, Graham."
He let out a low chuckle, but there was no humor in it. "You’re retired. Figured you be off sipping margaritas somewhere, not calling me in the middle of the night."
"I need to talk."
"Uh-huh. You sure? ‘Cause last time we talked, it ended with you icing me out and pretending we never spent eight years watching each other’s backs."
Charlotte exhaled sharply. "That’s not how it was."
"No? Then how was it? Because, from where I stood, you got your shiny new title, and I became dead weight."
She pinched the bridge of her nose. This was exactly why she had waited so long to make this call. "I didn’t call to fight with you, Graham. I need your notes. From the Gideon Ward case. You kept them, didn’t you?"
There was a long silence. Then a shift—rustling sheets, maybe the creak of a chair.
"What the hell do you care about Ward now? That case is a ghost."
"I need your help.”
Graham scoffed. "You really think you can just call me outta nowhere, at three o’clock in the morning, after fifteen years—well, less if you count the disciplinary report—and I’ll just hand you what you want?"
"Damn it, Graham."
"No, you damn it, Everhart. You walked away. From the job. From me. From everything. And now you wanna dig up old bones?"
Charlotte closed her eyes, steadying her breath. "I wouldn't call if it wasn’t important. You know me."
A beat of silence. Then another.
“Someone broke into my house a few days ago and left me a note that said, ‘They are not finished.’ And then someone broke into my house tonight," Charlotte said, her voice low. "Ransacked it. But this wasn’t a robbery. It was a message."
"What kind of message?"
Charlotte looked out the guestroom window. Her reflection looked older in the glass. More worn. "They left Henry Byron on my back porch. Barely alive. His chest was tagged with a photo of me and him—one that should’ve been sealed. In his hand, a note: 'We knew you didn’t forget. They hid him well.'” She exhaled. “He was in the same condition as some of Ward’s victims who succumbed quickly.”
Graham was silent again. "Henry Byron? The kid from Waverly County PD a year before we arrested Ward?"
"Yeah. Promoted to corporal the same time I made detective."
