But giving up wasn’t an option. Not this time.
At two a.m., she slipped down the hall and pushed open the heavy door to the security room. The night clerk barely looked up from her crossword puzzle before nodding Isabel through. Inside, the wall of monitors flickered, rows of grainy black-and-white feeds looping the day’s movements.
Isabel slid into the chair, her pulse sharp with adrenaline. She keyed in the timestamp from when the evidence had supposedly been checked out under her name and fast-forwarded the tape, her eyes narrowing. One by one, she marked down each person who entered the evidence locker hallway.
Most were routine—detectives with sealed envelopes, clerks with boxes, a uniform dropping off a bagged knife. All by the book.
Then she saw Darcy.
The first time, Darcy carried nothing in. She came out with a slim folder clutched tight under her arm. Isabel frowned and jotted it down.
Minutes later, Darcy appeared again. In with an empty tote bag. Out with it lumpy and half-zipped.
Isabel’s frown deepened. She rewound the footage, watching each frame carefully. Darcy had passed through that hallway more than anyone else that day—far more. Every trip contained the same pattern: empty hands in, something concealed out.
Isabel’s pulse kicked up. She pulled out her phone and began recording the screen, rewinding and replaying each of Darcy’s trips down the hallway. If anyone tried to bury this later, she’d have proof.
Her chest tightened as the pattern crystallized in her mind. Darcy was siphoning evidence. Little by little, small enough not to raise alarms.
Isabel shoved back from the desk, heat rising in her cheeks.Son of a bitch.
She stormed down to the evidence locker, flashing her badge. “I need the log. Now.”
The clerk slid the ledger across the counter without question. Isabel flipped through the pages, scanning for Darcy’s signature. Twice. Only twice in the last two weeks.
Her pen tapped against the paper, sharp and angry. That didn’t add up. Darcy had been down that hallway at least half a dozen times on the footage Isabel had just watched. Isabel slid her phone out, snapping quick photos of the pages, her breath tight with fury.
Then her gaze froze.
She looked at Darcy’s neat, looping signature on the official entries and then at the burned fragment from her own supposed checkout, the one with her name forged across it.
Her stomach turned cold. The handwriting was nearly identical.
Darcy hadn’t just been stealing evidence. She’d been the one who’d forged Isabel’s name. She was the mole.
The weight of the realization pressed hard against Isabel’s chest as she left the precinct. Her phone felt heavy in her pocket, stuffed with grainy video clips and photos that proved she wasn’t crazy. She had enough to clear her name—if she lived long enough to show it.
She didn’t even glance at the motor pool, didn’t bother calling for a ride. Her car was gone—blown to pieces—and the idea of cramming herself into a cab or waiting under a bus shelter in the dead of night made her skin crawl.
So she walked.
The streets of Phoenix Ridge were quiet at that hour, the glow of streetlights casting long shadows across cracked sidewalks. Her boots struck a steady rhythm on the pavement, each step sharp in the silence. It was a long walk, too long, but the burn in her legs matched the storm in her chest.
By the time she reached her apartment, sweat slicked her spine and her hands were shaking. She locked the door, slid the chain into place, and yanked the blinds shut tight.
She wasn’t safe. Not anymore.
Isabel paced the length of her living room, her fingers raking through her hair as her mind ran circles. Darcy. Every instinct rebelled at the thought. The lieutenant had always seemed steady, dependable, even friendly. They’d shared late-night coffees, inside jokes in the bullpen, the easy camaraderie that came from years of service. Darcy hadfeltlike a good cop.
But the evidence didn’t lie. Darcy’s face on the grainy footage slipping in and out of the evidence hallway with stolen files. Darcy’s signature—the same neat loops and slants—mirrored in the forgery that had nearly buried Isabel alive.
Isabel stopped pacing, her stomach dropping as the pattern sharpened. Only three people had known about the mole: Victoria, Isabel, and Darcy. And now, with every clue pointing in one direction, it was harder and harder to deny the truth.
Her gut twisted, betrayal settling like a stone inside her.
She tried to piece it together—whyDarcy would risk everything, what the syndicate had over her—but every theory dissolved before it made sense. The only thing Isabel knew was that she’d been marked, framed, and nearly killed.
Exhaustion crashed down on her all at once. She rubbed her face hard, willing her mind to still. There was no sense chasing shadows at three in the morning.
