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He waited in the dark, watching. Patience.
It was one of his many skills.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rachel glanced around their makeshift, temporary office space in the heart of the ghost town.
The bar was a skeleton of its former self, the kind of place where stories of the past clung to the peeling wallpaper like ghosts. Shadows played in the corners, untouched by the feeble light that filtered through grimy windows. Every creaking floorboard whispered tales of abandonment. This was not merely a building falling into decay—it was a monument to a town swallowed by time, streets outside echoing with the memory of footsteps long since faded.
At a table scarred with initials of lovers and victories of long-forgotten pool games, Rachel and Ethan were islands of intensity in the sea of desolation. Their laptops cast an eerie glow on their faces, stark against the backdrop of neglect. They were hunched over their keyboards, fingers dancing across the keys with urgent precision. She returned her attention to the screen.
"Anything?" Ethan's voice cut through the silence, his eyes never leaving the screen.
"Nothing yet," Rachel replied without looking up, her brow furrowed in concentration. The air around them felt thick with the weight of unsolved mysteries, and the sound of their own breathing seemed loud in the quiet space.
The determination in their postures didn't waver, even as the hours stretched on, and the bar seemed to sag a little more under the weight of its own history. It was as if their presence had breathed a temporary life into the room, a pulsing heart in a body too weary to go on.
Ethan adjusted his reading glasses, a small gesture betraying the fatigue he fought to keep at bay.
"Keep digging," Rachel muttered, more to herself than to Ethan.
The cursor blinked in a taunting rhythm, mocking Rachel with its steady beat. She tapped keys with a surgeon's precision, her eyes never leaving the screen, but the loading icon spun endlessly. The bar's decrepit state was mirrored in its internet connection—a cobweb of signals that struggled to reach them.
"Come on," Ethan muttered beside her, his voice barely more than a whisper, as if raising it would scare the fragile wifi away. He hit refresh again, his jaw set in a silent curse.
Rachel reached into her bag, pulling out the small orange disc they'd come to rely on. A temporary hotspot. A lifeline in this digital desert. She placed it on the table between their laptops, watching the bars rise like hope on their screens.
"Got something?" Ethan leaned over, squinting at the blur of images flickering across Rachel's laptop.
"Maybe." Her reply was terse as she scrubbed through footage from a traffic cam overlooking a deserted intersection outside town. "There." She paused the video on a grainy image of an ATV, pulling a small trailer behind it—a speck of detail easily missed.
"Red ATV," Ethan observed, already leaning in closer.
His arm brushed against hers, sending warmth down her shoulder. She didn't pull away, and briefly glanced up, studying his features from profile. He looked over at her, and she glanced away again just as quickly.
"Could be our guy," Rachel said, her fingers flying over the keys as she enhanced the image. They both knew the stakes. Every pixel could be the difference between a cold case and justice served.
"License plate?" Ethan asked.
"Working on it." Rachel's response was curt, her focus once again absolute. She zoomed in further, enhancing, sharpening, until the numbers and letters were reluctantly revealed by the stubborn resolution.
"Got it."
"Nice work."
Again, she could feel him watching her now. The two of them, alone in the dark room. They were often alone together. Something about his company, his constant presence... It was... a reliable truth.
Something she'd grown to count on.
"Ethan..." she said suddenly, glancing up as the image on her screen processed.
"Yeah?"
"I..." She hesitated, unsure what she was even intending to say.
Then, her ringtone cut through the buzz of the neon Budweiser sign, its blue and red hues casting an otherworldly glow on Rachel's intent face. She glanced at the caller ID—Thomas Greywolf—and her gut tightened. The old bar seemed to lean in closer, curious.
"Blackwood," she answered, voice as steady as she could muster.
