Cellar Door

A sick feeling twinges my stomach as I glimpse a business card pinned to the top right of the board. I go to reach for it, then stop as recognition dawns. I have the same card in my file.

MKE. The business card had only three initials.

The card was the only evidence found on Laura’s person in the ER. The nurse bagged it after she removed it from her torn jeans. It was the only slim lead I had on the case, the case Hudson insisted needed to be closed, because we no longer had a victim or a witness.

But I couldn’t let go.

I saw Laura’s bruised and cut face everywhere I looked. She haunted me. She was so terrified…and I should’ve tried harder to get her to talk. She fought her way to that ER room, and I failed her.

There was no report of her after that. I checked death records and hospital records. But she never resurfaced. Then, when the hunt started to turn obsessive, I had a tech analyst search the dark web for any hit on MKE. There was one mention—such a faint lead—but I took it.

Milton Myer had conducted a trade for something on the black market under the name Phiser. The tech couldn’t get detailed information on what the trade was, only the price: seventy-five thousand dollars. I then started my own search into what items on the newest version of the silk road could bring in that kind of money.

It could’ve been diamonds. Or drugs. It could’ve been any number of things…but I knew—because I kept seeing her face, the terror in her eyes. With my gut instinct, I made the connection.

Someone in Myer’s company bought a girl.

And there could be more.

They, Laura had said.

She was gone. But I was not dropping the investigation until I found them.

Hudson warned me to stop the investigation; I was making accusations against a rich, powerful man with a pristine reputation. And I, technically, had nothing. My partner, my other half, was trying to protect me.

I still believe that. I have to. Hudson could’ve met with Myer at any other time, for any number of reasons…

I close my eyes and turn my head away. The chilly air of the cellar leaches my exposed skin, draining all the warmth from my body, as I try to force the belief.

Then I feel a feather light touch to my shoulder, and I shiver. I open my eyes as a picture drifts to my lap.

“Your partner,” Easton says, and I grasp the picture. It’s the one of me and Hudson that was taken the day I made detective. Easton stole it from my apartment. “Had secrets.”

We all have secrets.

Easton’s black boots move into my line of sight. “What did you hear the other night?” he asks. “When you tracked Keller to Myer’s building.”

“Nothing.” And that’s the truth.

Easton reaches behind his back and untucks an envelope from his waistband. He tosses it on the floor before me. “Open it.”

I tuck my hair behind my ears and grab the packet. My heart rate climbs as I slip out the pictures from within. The pictures from my camera. He printed them. Pictures of Milton Myer in his office. The shooter—Keller—holding a gun outstretched. It’s the proof of what happened. It’s the proof that I was there…to witness it.

Easton angles the flashlight so the beam highlights the pages pinned to the front of the board. “You want proof. Facts. Here they are,” he says. “Compare my research to your own investigation. There’s a connection between Keller, Myer, and your partner that you’re missing. When you find that, you can leave this cellar.”

My heart vaults to my throat. I drop the images and push to my knees. “What do you mean I can leave?”

Arms crossed over his broad chest, Easton is more alarming now with a thread of hope than he was in that dark alley.

“Just like that. You’ll set me free,” I press.

He tilts his head, gaze traveling over my semi naked body. “A lie can be more telling than the truth.” With that, he turns toward the door.

A branch of ice cracks inside my chest, shattering me to the core. “Where did you hear that?”

It’s what Hudson used to say before we entered an interrogation room. How does Luke know this? Where did he hear it? The sick truth hits me all at once. The assault on Hudson at the ravine that night was no spree attack.

Luke stalked Hudson.