“Who?”
“Unknown. Whoever it is, they have credentials above Collins.”
Carter looked toward the road again. “Ryan’s at the old mill.”
“Carter,” Voss said, her voice lowering, “do not assume he is the center of this. He may only be the weakest link.”
Carter closed the tin box around Tessa’s ring.
“The weakest link still talks.”
The old mill had been dead for twenty years, but the town had never bothered to tear it down. It stood beside the river like the skeleton of something once useful, all rusted beams, cracked concrete, and windows covered with dust.
Carter parked half a mile away and approached on foot through the tree line.
He saw Ryan before Ryan saw him.
The younger man sat on an overturned crate inside the mill, one hand pressed against his ribs, his face hollow with fear. A shovel leaned against the wall beside him.
Carter stepped from the shadows.
Ryan flinched so hard he nearly fell.
“No,” Ryan gasped. “No, no, listen—”
Carter crossed the space between them in three silent strides and caught him by the collar, driving him back against a support beam.
“You were in my house.”
Ryan’s eyes filled with panic. “I didn’t hurt her!”
“You were in my house.”
“They made me go!”
Carter tightened his grip. “Who?”
Ryan shook his head desperately. “You don’t understand. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. They said Tessa had something. They said she stole from them.”
“Tessa stole nothing.”
“I know!” Ryan cried. “I know that now.”
Carter held him there another second before releasing him. Ryan slid down against the beam, breathing hard.
“Start talking.”
Ryan wiped his mouth with a shaking hand. “Grant came for me three weeks ago.”
At the name, Carter’s jaw flexed.
Grant Bellamy.
Tessa’s oldest brother.
A man who smiled in church on Sunday and broke people on Monday if they owed him money.
“He said Tessa had Dad’s ledger,” Ryan continued. “Said she took it before the funeral. Said the ledger had names, payments, accounts… everything.”
Carter remembered the Bellamy funeral. Tessa had cried quietly in the back pew, not because she loved her father, but because she mourned the childhood she had never been given. Afterward, she had refused to speak to Grant.
“What ledger?” Carter asked.
Ryan stared at the floor. “Dad kept records for people. Bad people. Judges. businessmen. sheriffs. Maybe military, too. I don’t know. Grant said if that book came out, half the county would burn.”
“And he thought Tessa had it?”
“He knew she did.”
Carter went still.
Ryan looked up. “She never told you?”
Carter said nothing.
Ryan’s voice dropped. “She took it to protect herself. To protect you. She said if anything ever happened to her, the truth would go somewhere safe.”
Carter remembered Tessa at the airport months ago, her hands tight around his jacket.
Come home careful, she had said.
Not safe.
Careful.
“What were you digging for?” Carter asked.
Ryan swallowed. “She told them there was something buried under the roses. Grant sent me out with the shovel.”
“And?”
“I found the ring. And the note.”
Carter’s eyes narrowed. “Why rebury it?”
Ryan’s face twisted with shame. “Because I knew it was meant for you.”
Silence moved through the mill.
Outside, the river pushed against stones, steady and dark.
“There were eight men,” Carter said. “Only seven walked out.”
Ryan looked away.
“Who was the eighth?”
“I never saw his face.”
Carter crouched in front of him. “Try again.”
Ryan shook his head. “He stayed in the hallway. Long coat. Gloves. He didn’t shout. Didn’t touch anything. Everyone listened when he spoke.”
“What did he say?”
Ryan closed his eyes, searching his memory.
“He said, ‘Captain Carter has been gone too long to know what his wife became.’”
Carter felt those words settle under his skin.
Ryan opened his eyes. “He knew you. Not just your name. He knew your unit. Your deployment schedule. He knew exactly when you’d land if someone called you home.”
Carter stood.
Ryan grabbed his sleeve. “There’s more. After Tessa stopped answering them, the man in the coat told Grant to leave her alive.”
Carter looked down at him.
Ryan’s voice broke. “He said pain would make you predictable.”
Before Carter could respond, the distant crunch of tires rolled through the trees.
Ryan froze.
“They found me,” he whispered.
Carter moved to a cracked window.
Three vehicles pulled into the mill yard. Men stepped out, spreading with the practiced confidence of people used to frightening others. Carter recognized Grant immediately: tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a dark coat and a smile that never reached his eyes.
Behind him came two more Bellamy brothers and several men Carter did not know.
Grant looked toward the mill.
“Ryan,” he called. “You always were terrible at hiding.”
Ryan’s face drained of color.
Carter did not reach for anger. He reached for patience.
“Do exactly what I say,” he told Ryan.
Grant entered the mill first, with the others behind him. His gaze found Ryan on the floor.
