“Mara Dwyer. She’s been missing six months. Vanished from her apartment in Spring Hill. No signs of struggle. No leads.”
Charlotte felt the hairs on her arms rise.
“She’s not showing any awareness of basic needs,” Alex said, glancing at her. “She won’t even use the bathroom without assistance. She's being evaluated at the Blackwell Institute.”
Charlotte gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “Ward wasn’t working alone.”
“No,” Alex said. “He wasn’t.”
She nodded slowly. “His last words… He looked me in the eye and said, ‘It’s not me. It’s them.’ Then he died.”
Alex said nothing.
“We searched the cell,” she went on. “Warden swore there was nothing there, but Graham and I went in anyway. Underneath the top bunk—he had the bottom—he’d written everything. In blood, or something like it. A message.”
“What kind of message?”
“Like a journal. A guide. He listed his methods. And thirty-eight names.”
Alex turned his head slowly. “Thirty-eight?”
She nodded. “We need to run them down. Byron wasn’t on the list.”
Alex leaned back in his seat, jaw tense. “Then that’s where we start. After the task force briefing. We take that list and start finding out who’s still breathing—and who’s not.”
Charlotte pulled into the college parking lot. The building was already swarming—marked cruisers, unmarked SUVs, officers coming in and out with laptops and evidence boxes.
She parked and shut off the engine.
“You ready?” Alex asked.
Charlotte looked at him. No. She wasn’t. Not for this. Not for what they might uncover. Not for the truth she'd buried when she walked away from the county police department.
But she nodded. “Let’s go.”
Charlotte and Alexwalked into the conference room, the door swinging closed behind them with a soft thud. Alex carried a box, worn and taped at the edges, full of the Ward interview tapes, films and files—each one a fragment of the case that had clawed its way under their skin.
Noah, Brad, and Ethan were already there, each posted up in a corner with their own version of control: notebooks, printouts, laptops glowing with half-written thoughts. They’d staked out their space like they knew the work ahead would get messy.
And then there was Graham Cullen.
He was sitting beside Ethan, speaking low, gesturing with one hand like he was trying to thread a needle through facts too tight to tug apart. His presence wasn’t expected, and Charlotte stiffened the moment she saw him. Alex caught it—just a flicker in her posture, but he kept his expression flat, his own thoughts filing themselves away in the background.
Ethan looked up as they entered. A quick nod to both, eyes sharp but unreadable. He walked to the head of the room, and just like that, the low hum of conversation dropped out.
“Alright, let’s get into it.” Ethan’s tone was clipped, all business, something tight in his delivery—like he was keeping things close to the chest. As he went through updates and new directions, he finally mentioned the list of names—ones Grahamand Charlotte flagged during their death bed visit with Gideon Ward.
But that was all he said. No breakdown, no process, no explanation. Just a brief nod to the work, and then he moved on.
Alex felt it immediately. The omission. The distance.
Ethan didn’t want him involved in that side of things. When he started handing out assignments, the message got clearer. “I want Brad and Alex on Mara Dwyer.” He stepped in close enough to keep the conversation private. “Brad, your temperament—your presence—it might break through. Alex’s initial report said she appears like everything has been wiped clean. I spoke with Tristan; she seems incapable of any task. I would love to give her all the time in the world to heal. We just don’t have it.”
Brad nodded, arms crossed, giving a short grunt of agreement.
Then Ethan turned to Alex. A glance, a beat longer than needed. “You good?”
Alex didn’t answer right away, then gave a simple, “Yeah.” It wasn’t defensive, but it wasn’t open either.
