“Always.” The word carried weight that had nothing to do with solving cases.
Vivienne leaned her head against his shoulder, too tired to maintain the careful distance she usually kept. His arm came around her, holding her steady as emergency personnel moved through the cave, coordinating the evacuation.
Outside, the storm was beginning to ease. The worst had passed. Dawn would come eventually, bringing light to spaces that had hidden in darkness for too long.
But for now, in this cave with rain falling and the sound of the ocean roaring below, Vivienne let herself rest. She’d earned it. They both had.
The dead could finally rest in peace. And maybe, for the first time in years, so could she.
TWELVE
brooks
The clockon his phone glowed two-seventeen a.m. Sleep wouldn’t come.
Case files from Melissa Clarkson’s disappearance spread across his kitchen table—photos and witness statements that should have held his attention. Instead, every time he closed his eyes, he saw Vivienne in the flooded tunnels, facing off with Gerald and Jeremy, refusing to back down. The way her knees had buckled when the adrenaline finally wore off. He’d caught her before she hit the water, half-carried her through the rising tide to the cave entrance where paramedics waited.
The image wouldn’t leave him: Vivienne soaked and hands trembling from cold and exhaustion. Scared and more worried about Melissa’s well-being than her own.
Case files blurred as exhaustion set in. He reached for his coffee mug, found it empty, and instead picked up the photograph of Traci Washington that he’d pulled from his wallet. Her smile in the picture looked forced now that he knew what to look for. The same expression Vivienne wore when she was maintaining her spiritual boundaries during intense contact—the look of someone managing overwhelming input while trying to appear composed.
Brooks reviewed the case timeline, cross-referencing every piece of information Vivienne had provided through her abilities with the physical discoveries they’d made. The scientific part of his mind still resisted accepting her abilities as real, but the detective in him couldn’t ignore results. Lily’s hidden camera in the secret chamber. The customs inspector’s badge from 1923. The financial ledgers in the lamp room documenting forty years of smuggling operations. Her accuracy rate was over ninety percent.
Three months before the warehouse raid that ended everything, Brooks and his partner Traci Washington had been working a human trafficking case that would have made their careers. The kind of case that got you promoted, got you noticed, got you interviewed by the media about how good police work saved lives.
“Something doesn’t feel right about this,” Traci had said, leaning back in her desk chair and studying the informant file. They’d been partners for two years, long enough for Brooks to know that when Traci Washington got that look on her face, she was processing information in ways that had nothing to do with proof.
“Define ‘doesn’t feel right,’” Brooks had replied, not looking up from the financial records they’d subpoenaed. “Because the money trail is solid. Twenty-seven shell companies, offshore accounts, transaction patterns that match everything our informant described.”
Traci tapped her pen against her teeth—a nervous habit that preceded her most accurate hunches. “Miguel Santos walks into our station after two years of hunting him, offers to hand us the biggest trafficking ring in East Austin, and asks for nothing in return except witness protection.”
“Maybe he grew a conscience.”
“Or maybe someone’s playing us.” Traci stood and walked to their case board, covered in surveillance photos and financial charts. “His story’s too clean, Brooks. Real criminal operations are messy. This feels rehearsed.”
Brooks looked up from the documents. His partner stood five-foot-four in her sensible flats, her dark hair pulled back in the bun she wore on duty. Traci Washington was the mother of two teenage boys, married to a high school football coach, and had never fired her weapon in twelve years of police work. She was also the best detective he’d ever worked with, because she trusted instincts that went beyond normal investigative procedures.
“You’ve closed more cases with gut feelings than most detectives close with proof,” Brooks admitted. “But we can’t ignore solid intel because of intuition.”
“One day you’ll have to trust instincts without proof, Harrington.” Traci’s smile was tired but genuine. “Hopefully that day won’t be the one that gets us killed.”
Two weeks later, their informant Miguel Santos provided detailed intelligence about a warehouse operation on Austin’s east side. Shipping schedules, security protocols, the exact number of guards and their rotation patterns. Information so precise it could only come from someone with inside access.
Traci had paced their office while Brooks reviewed the operational plan with their captain. “The timing feels forced,” she’d said when they were alone again. “Why now? Why this warehouse? Santos has been off the grid for two years—how does he know operational details down to the minute?”
“Because he’s been planning this,” Brooks replied, spreading architectural drawings across his desk. “He wants revenge on his former partners. Criminals turn on each other all the time.”
“Or someone wanted us to have this information. Someone who knows how we’ll respond.” Traci studied the warehouseblueprints with the expression she wore when pieces weren’t fitting together. “Santos knows too much and asks for too little. That’s not how desperate criminals behave.”
Brooks had looked at his partner—really looked at her—and seen the exhaustion around her eyes, the tension in her shoulders. They’d been working the trafficking case for eight months, following leads that led nowhere, watching proof disappear, losing witnesses to intimidation or worse. The Santos intelligence was their first real break.
“We can’t pass up the biggest bust of our careers because of feelings, Trace.”
The words hung between them, and Brooks watched something shift in his partner’s expression. Not hurt, but disappointment. The same look she gave her teenage sons when they made choices she’d warned them against.
“It’s not feelings,” Traci said. “It’s pattern recognition. It’s experience. It’s the same instinct that told me the Henderson case was domestic violence before we found the insurance policy, that warned me about Officer Garrett before Internal Affairs discovered he was selling drugs from the locker.”
“And you were right about both those cases. But you also had proof to support your hunches.”
