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When the call ended, the quiet seemed larger than before.

A deputy returned not long afterward and led me down another hallway. Every door opened because somebody else unlocked it. Every turn happened because somebody else told me where to go.

That was the part I hadn’t expected.

At Hollowfield, I knew the attraction down to the places where guests hesitated, where performers entered, where emergency lanes cut behind the sets, and which cue sent people toward the next turn.

I controlled flow for a living.

Now I stopped when I was told to stop and moved when I was told to move.

The holding-cell door opened ahead of me: cold metal, painted concrete, and a narrow bench.

There was nothing dramatic about it, and nothing that belonged in one of my sets. This was real.

As the lock engaged behind me, the sound carried through the small room with brutal clarity.

I sat down and wrapped my arms around myself, but closing my eyes only brought Hollowfield back: Justin beneath the work lights, blood on the floor, my prop knife beside him.

Someone had taken the place I built, arranged the pieces, and left me standing in the middle of them.

Tomorrow there would be lawyers, evidence, questions, and a farm whose biggest October weekend had just become a crime scene.

Tonight, there was only the locked door and the terrible possibility that none of this had happened by accident.

Chapter Two

The rain had stopped before sunrise, but Woodbridge Falls still looked rinsed clean when I parked across from the county detention building. Wet pavement reflected the gray morning, and maple leaves clung to the curb in red and copper patches. The building itself had none of the town’s charm: flat brick, narrow windows, two public entrances, and enough open pavement around it to make anyone approaching easy to see.

I stayed beside the EPG SUV instead of sitting inside it. Cold worked through my field jacket while I watched a delivery van turn into the municipal lot, a deputy cross toward the side entrance, and two women wait beneath the shallow awning near the front doors. One carried a white bakery box. The other checked the doors every time they opened.

My phone buzzed.

“Alden.”

“Morning,” Alden North said. The CEO of Equinox Protective Group had been my boss long enough that neither of us wasted time pretending the hour improved with conversation. “Release is still moving. No change in the charge. She’s out on bail, not cleared, and Hollowfield is still pushing for restricted operations this afternoon. You’re the only EPG protection assigned to her.”

“Understood. I’ll call if that needs to change.”

The front doors opened again.

Both women under the awning moved at once as a third woman stepped outside in dark jeans, work boots, a fitted thermal, and a utility jacket that looked too light for the morning. Chestnut hair had come partly loose around her face. Exhaustion showed in the shadows beneath her eyes, but she kept her shoulders square as she walked toward the women waiting for her.

The woman with the bakery box reached her first and wrapped both arms around her.

“Oh, Sybil.”

“I’m okay, Aunt Laurie.”

“No, you aren’t,” the other woman said as she joined them. “But you’re out, and we brought breakfast.”

Sybil gave a shaky laugh. “Of course you did, Pam.”

I ended the call and crossed the pavement.

Sybil looked up as I approached. Hazel-green eyes met mine, sharp despite the exhaustion. Heat spread under my skin, and I drew a slower breath while I kept my gaze on her face.

I held out my hand.