The drive into Cutter’s Bend hadn’t changed much. Same two-lane road cutting through white nothing, same handful of buildings clustered together like they were trying to keep each other warm. Miles hadn’t seen any of it in ten years, not since he’d left for college at eighteen and never found a reason to come back. Frost Inn sat where it always had, a plain grey building with a row of doors under a covered walkway, its sign hanging slightly crooked. Chase parked the rental in front of it and killed the engine, and for a second neither of them moved. “You want to do the intro out here or inside?” Chase asked. Businesslike. The way he talked to crew, to sources, to anyone who wasn’t Miles. “Out here’s fine.” Miles reached into the back for the case file — the same manila folder he’d carried through four apartments and never once shown Chase, until Chase found it himself three years into their relationship and did something with it Miles had never forgiven him for. He held it against his chest like it might slip if he didn’t. They set up the tripod on the packed snow. Chase checked the framing, adjusted the angle twice, said “good” mostly to himself. “Rolling in three,” he said. “Two. One.” Something in Miles physically changed. His shoulders dropped, his mouth softened, and by the time the red light blinked on he was already grinning like the last ten minutes hadn’t happened. “So this is it,” Miles said to the camera, gesturing behind him. “Cutter’s Bend. Population not many. I grew up about four blocks from here.” Chase stepped into frame beside him, close, easy, his hand finding the small of Miles’s back like it belonged there. “Miles has been dodging questions about this place for five years,” Chase said, warm, teasing, playing to the lens. “Every time a fan asked where he grew up, he’d change the subject.” “I did not dodge,” Miles said, laughing, leaning into Chase’s side. “I was being mysterious. It’s different.” “Sure, husband,” Chase said, and the audience — the imagined one, the real one who’d see this in a few weeks — would eat it up, because they always did. “We’re not married, Chase.” “Yet.” Chase winked. “I’m ready whenever you are, Baby.” They ran it twice more, tightening the wording, and every single time Chase’s hand went back to that same spot on Miles’s back like it had memorized where to land, and every single time Miles let it, leaned into it, made it look like the easiest thing in the world. Then Chase said “got it, we’re good,” and his hand dropped, and the two of them stood there in the snow not looking at each other while the camera light blinked off. Neither of them spoke while they hauled the equipment inside. The room had two beds. Chase set his bag on the one nearest the window, the way he always had on every shoot for the last two years, and Miles took the other without either of them discussing it, because they’d done this enough times now that it didn’t need discussing anymore. What was harder was everything else — the six weeks of it, the fact that this town was the reason they weren’t discussing anything else anymore. “I’ll take the desk for editing,” Chase said, already unzipping his bag. “Fine,” Miles said. He set the case file down on his bed and stood over it for a second too long, still in his coat. “You okay?” Chase asked. Quiet. Careful. It was the only time his voice did that anymore — not on camera, not with witnesses, not with anyone but Miles, and even then only when no one else could hear it. “I’m fine.” “Miles.” “I said I’m fine, Chase.” Sharper than he meant it, and he heard Chase go quiet behind him the way he always did now, absorbing it instead of pushing back, which somehow made it worse than if he’d pushed back at all. Miles opened the folder. Twelve years lived in there. Newspaper clippings gone soft and yellow, police reports he’d paid a records clerk to copy when he was twenty, a timeline he’d rewritten so many times the pages had started to separate from the legal pad’s spiral binding. He’d been sixteen the night Dani disappeared. They’d argued about something that had felt enormous at the time — he genuinely couldn’t remember what anymore, only that it had felt like the end of the world — and she’d stormed off, and he was supposed to meet her later to fix it, and he hadn’t gone. Not because he didn’t want to. Because he’d been angry, and stubborn, and sixteen, and he’d assumed there would be another chance. There hadn’t been. She was never found. A page slid loose from the stack and landed face-up on the bedspread. Her flyer. MISSING — DANIELLE SORBO, the block letters exactly as he remembered them, the paper gone thin and soft at the corners from years of his own hands. Behind him, he heard Chase stop moving. “Is that—” Chase started. “Don’t.” “I wasn’t going to ask anything. I was going to say I remember when you showed me that. First time. You didn’t tell me what it was for a week.” Miles turned around. Chase was sitting on the edge of his own bed now, hands loose between his knees, watching him with an expression Miles hadn’t seen aimed at him in two years — not guarded, not careful, just open, the way he used to look at Miles before all of this. “You remember that,” Miles said. It wasn’t a question. “I remember everything,” Chase said. “That’s kind of the problem.” Miles didn’t have an answer for that. He slid the flyer back between the pages and closed the folder and set it on the nightstand, and neither of them said anything else, and outside the window the light was already starting to go grey and early, the way it did here in winter, the way Miles remembered it doing for eighteen years before he’d left. “Camera’s up at seven,” Chase said finally, standing, businesslike again, like the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened. “I’ll take first shower.” “Fine,” Miles said, and watched him go, and thought — not for the first time since they’d landed — that six weeks was going to feel like a very long time.

Chase set a coffee down in front of him without being asked, black, the way Miles always took it, and dropped into the chair across from him. Outside, the sky was doing that thing it always did here in winter, staying grey and undecided until well past nine, like the sun couldn't be bothered to commit either way. "Talk to me," Chase said. Miles wrapped both hands around the cup instead of drinking it. He watched the steam curl up and thought about how many mornings just like this one they'd had, different rooms, different cities, same two cups of coffee, one black, one with too much sugar, made without asking because after five years you stopped needing to ask. It was strange, how the small mechanics of loving someone outlasted the actual loving. "We need to go see my parents," he said. "Before anything else today." Chase went still in the particular way he did when he was recalculating something. "That wasn't on the schedule." "I know. It should've been." Miles turned the cup slowly on the table. "I want to see them before we film anything." "Then we go." Chase was already up, already reaching for his jacket off the back of the chair, and something about the speed of it, no hesitation, no debate, loosened something in Miles's chest just slightly. They filmed a short segment in the driveway anyway, Chase's call, quick and unscripted. "Before anything else today," Miles said to the lens, "we're headed to see my parents. It's been a while." He paused, and this part he didn't have to fake. "Dani's mother still lives next door. I haven't seen her since before I left. I'm not sure I'm ready to yet, but I know I will have to." Chase didn't say anything clever back this time. He just put a hand on Miles's shoulder, and let the camera sit on it a beat too long, and for once the silence between them on camera was the realest thing they'd filmed in years. Then he clicked it off, and the walk up to the door was just the two of them again. Miles's mother opened the door before he'd even knocked. She must have been watching the driveway. The sound she made, half laugh, half something breaking open, was one Miles felt in his sternum, and then she had both arms around him hard enough to knock him a step back. "Ten years since you've stood in this doorway," she said into his shoulder. "Ten years, Miles." "I know, Mom." "I don't care how many times you fly me out there or how many Christmases I get you for. This house is different, and you know it." She pulled back to look at him properly, both hands on his face, cataloguing him the way mothers do, the new lines, the tired eyes, whatever else she was reading that he hadn't meant to show her. Then her gaze found Chase behind him in the doorway and her whole face opened up again. "And you. Get over here, don't just stand there." Chase stepped into it, into her arms, easy and warm, murmuring something about how good it was to see her, which was true, and strange in its truth, since he'd seen her three months ago at his own place for dinner. This house clearly meant something different to all of them, Miles included. His father came around the corner from the kitchen, drying his hands on a dish towel slung over one shoulder, and the grin that broke across his face made Miles feel sixteen again, in the good way, the way that had nothing to do with any of the things twelve years and a manila folder had done to that particular age. "There he is," his father said, pulling him into one of those handshake-into-hug things men do, gripping the back of Miles's neck for a second like he was checking he was solid. "Back where he belongs. Finally." They ended up in the kitchen, which hadn't changed, same yellow curtains, same chipped mug his father used for coffee that his mother had threatened to throw out every year for two decades and never had. Miles sat where he'd always sat, and Chase sat beside him without thinking about it, close enough that their knees touched under the table, and Miles let it happen because pulling away would have needed an explanation neither of them had ready. His father wanted to talk about the show, a case from eight months back he'd apparently rewatched twice, asking sharp, genuinely curious questions that made Chase light up in the way he always did when someone engaged with the actual work instead of the persona. His mother kept finding reasons to touch Miles's arm, his shoulder, brush his hair back once like he was eight, checking he was solid too, in her own way. "When I called you about the case," she said, setting a plate down in front of him he hadn't asked for, "I didn't have much to tell you. But I talked to Carol down the street yesterday, and she heard from someone at the station, they found bones out at the old ice-cutting operation. Human. That's confirmed. They just don't know whose yet." Miles's hand went still around his fork. "Nobody told us that." "I figured you'd find out today anyway, filming out there. I didn't want you walking into it blind." His mother's face had gone careful, the way it did whenever she had to say something that might hurt. "I'm sorry, baby. I know what you're hoping it isn't." "We don't know anything yet," his father said, gentler than his usual tone. "Could be anyone. Anyone who ever went missing out this way." Miles nodded, and didn't say anything. Under the table, Chase's hand settled on his knee and squeezed once, gentle, no words attached to it. Miles leaned into it before he'd thought about doing so, shoulder finding Chase's, some old instinct answering before he could stop it. He caught himself half a second too late. Pulling away now would mean explaining why, with his mother two feet away and already watching him too closely, so he stayed where he was and let it happen. At one point his mother reached across the table and squeezed Chase's hand too, easy, automatic, the gesture of someone who'd folded a person permanently into her family years ago and never once revisited the decision. "We're so glad you two are doing this together," she said. "That helps, doesn't it? Having each other for something this hard." "It does," Miles said, and let himself lean into it, into the story of it, because some days the line between playing devoted and needing exactly that blurred until he couldn't find the seam. "I don't know how I'd do any of this without him." Chase's hand went still on his knee for half a second, like the sentence had caught him off guard, before his thumb started moving again, slow, absentminded, an old habit neither of them had thought to retire. Miles covered his hand with his own, and didn't examine too closely which parts of the last thirty seconds had been true. His father, oblivious, chose that exact moment to lean back in his chair with the particular satisfaction of a man about to say something he'd clearly been saving. "Speaking of which. Your mother and I keep saying, five years now, and no ring yet. What are you waiting for?" Miles's stomach dropped somewhere near the floor. "Dad." "I'm just an old man who wants a wedding to go to." "We're not engaged," Miles said, and heard how strangled it came out, and beside him felt Chase's hand tighten fractionally around his own before Chase smoothly took over, laughing, easy, effortless. "Not yet," Chase said, throwing Miles a look that would have read, to anyone watching, as fond and teasing. "He knows I'm saving it for the right moment. Don't rush art, Dad." His father laughed, delighted, and his mother swatted his arm and said something about giving the boys space, and the moment passed the way Chase always managed to make moments pass, smoothly, believably, at no visible cost to himself. Except Miles felt the cost. He felt it in the half-second too long Chase held his own smile after the joke landed, the muscle memory of performance running a beat past where the real feeling had already left the building. Under the table, Miles didn't let go of his hand. Later, while his father showed Chase old photo albums in the living room, Miles at nine, Miles at Homecoming, Miles and Dani at fourteen sitting on the porch steps that made something in Miles's chest clench when he heard his father land on that page, his mother pulled him toward the sink under the pretense of drying dishes. "You look tired, baby," she said, quiet, just for him. "I'm fine, Mom." "You don't have to be fine with me. You never did." She handed him a plate to dry, studying him sideways the way she'd done his whole life, like she could see straight through whatever arrangement he was making with his own face. "Is it the bones? Or is it something else?" Miles looked past her, into the living room, where Chase was laughing at something his father had said, unguarded, warm, exactly like a man who hadn't spent the last two years learning how to be careful. "Both, I think," Miles said. "And Chase, is he doing all right? He seems a little quiet today. Not himself." Miles's hands went still on the dish towel. "He's fine, Mom." She studied him a second longer, and whatever she saw, she let it go, the way she'd let a hundred things go over the years without ever fully believing them, pressing his hand once, warm, and turning back to the sink. "Well. I'm glad you have each other," she said. "That's all I've ever wanted for you." Miles didn't correct her. He wasn't sure, standing in his mother's kitchen with a dish towel in his hands and Chase's laugh drifting in from the other room, that he entirely knew how to. They didn't talk in the car until they were almost back at Frost Inn, the town sliding by grey and familiar and strange all at once. "Thank you," Miles said finally. "For today." "Of course." Chase kept his eyes on the road, both hands at ten and two, more careful than the empty road required. Miles almost said more. He didn't. "You're good with them," he said instead. "My parents. Still." "I like them." Chase's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "That was never the hard part." Miles didn't ask what the hard part was. Neither of them said anything else the rest of the drive. Miles looked out his own window, watching Cutter's Bend go by, and told himself the ache in his chest was about the case. About the bones. About anything other than the fact that somewhere in that kitchen, for just a second, it had felt like nothing had changed at all.

The road out to the old ice works ran past the last plowed street in town and turned into packed snow, rutted from truck tires. It was the kind of road that made the car shudder every few seconds over a frozen ridge. Chase drove with both hands on the wheel, slower than the road really required. Miles sat with the case notes closed on his knee and watched the trees thin out. Spaced pines gave way to nothing at all, just white ground and grey sky and the old roofline finally cresting the ridge in the distance, sagging in the middle the way it always had. He'd been out here as a kid. Twice, maybe three times. Always with Dani. Always because one of them had dared the other to walk out onto the loading platform and look down into the ice pit where the blocks used to be stored. He could still remember the smell of it back then, cold and metallic and faintly like rust, and the way Dani had grabbed his sleeve the second time they went. Not because she was scared. She'd have died before admitting that. The wind had picked up, and she'd wanted an excuse to stand closer to someone. He didn't say any of that out loud. Chase wouldn't have known what to do with it, and Miles wasn't sure he wanted to hand it over yet. Not here. Not with an audience about to show up. Chase parked at the edge of what used to be a gravel lot, now just a wide flat stretch of snow, and killed the engine. Neither of them moved for a second. "You want a minute?" Chase asked. "No." Miles unclipped his seatbelt. "Let's just get it done." They unloaded the gear in silence. The cold was sharp enough that Miles could feel it in his teeth when he breathed in too fast. Chase set up the tripod near the edge of the taped-off area, checking the light, adjusting the angle once, while Miles walked the perimeter, boots crunching over crusted snow. Yellow tape sagged between two wooden stakes near what had once been the loading door. Past it, three small evidence markers sat clustered together where the floor of the ice house had rotted through to the ground beneath. "Okay," Chase said, straightening up from the viewfinder. "Whenever you're ready." Miles hated how professional Chase sounded now, how cleanly he could switch off whatever was left between them. Miles took a breath that fogged white in front of his face and walked back over. Chase caught his hand before he'd even reached the mark, fingers lacing through his, easy, familiar. Miles felt the shift happen in his own body the way it always did, some old muscle memory taking the wheel without asking permission first. The ease of it irritated him, how quickly he could still fall into the version of himself Chase expected. "Rolling," Chase said, and didn't bother counting down. "This is the site," Miles said, gesturing behind him at the sagging roofline, his voice warmer, easier than it had been thirty seconds ago. "Cutter's Bend's old ice-cutting operation, shut down for decades. Last week, a contractor doing a structural survey found human remains buried in what used to be cold storage." Chase squeezed his hand once, grounding, and let their joined hands swing lightly between them. "Which is why we're here first," he said, warm, easy. "Before we talk to anyone in town, before we dig into anything else, we wanted to see this place ourselves." "It's strange being back here," Miles said. It wasn't a lie, exactly, even if the version of strange he meant wasn't the version the camera would read. "I used to come out here as a kid." "We're going to walk you through everything we learn, as we learn it," Chase said to the lens. "No holding back on this one." "Got it," Chase said a moment later, lowering the camera slightly. "That was clean. We don't need another take." Miles let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Some part of him was surprised at how easy it had felt, how little effort it had taken to sound like a man who wasn't standing twenty feet from where his best friend might have died. A cruiser crested the ridge before Chase had finished breaking down the shot. The sheriff who climbed out moved unhurried, boots finding solid footing before he committed his weight, the same careful way he'd moved at seventeen on the school's icy sidewalks. "Miles Lindgren." Dale stopped on the near side of the tape, hands loose at his sides, posture unchanged from the way he used to lean against lockers. "Heard you two were in town." "Dale." Miles felt Chase's hand settle at his back, off camera, just present. "Good to see you." "Wish it were different circumstances." Dale's eyes moved to the sagging roofline behind them, then back. "This place always did look like it was one bad winter from falling in on itself. Guess it finally decided to give something up." "Feels like it's been holding its breath longer than that," Miles said. "Feels that way about most of this town, some days." Dale glanced at the camera rig, then at Chase. "You two get what you needed?" "For the intro, yeah." Chase let a beat pass before he said the rest, easy, not pushy. "We were actually hoping you'd be willing to go on record. Nothing you haven't already told the paper, probably. Just enough for the show." Dale considered that, weighing it visibly. "Public information, sure. I can do that much. Anything past that, I'd rather keep off camera." "That works," Miles said. Chase brought the camera back up, and Dale squared his shoulders slightly, the posture of a man used to being recorded even if he didn't love it. "Sheriff Dale Pruitt," he said, when Chase gave him a nod. "Cutter's Bend Police Department. Last week, a contractor doing a structural inspection ahead of a possible demolition discovered skeletal remains at this location. The remains have been confirmed human and sent to the state lab for further analysis. Age and cause of death haven't been determined yet. We're treating this as an active investigation and asking anyone with information related to this site, or to the disappearance of Danielle Sorbo twelve years ago, to come forward." He delivered it clean, practiced, clearly not his first time saying something similar into a camera. Chase lowered the rig after a moment. "Appreciate that," Chase said. "That's the version for public consumption." Dale glanced toward the evidence markers, something in his posture loosening now that the lens was down. "Off the record, since you asked. Initial assessment came back subadult. That means a minor. I probably shouldn't have told you that yet, but you'd have found out inside a week anyway, and I'd rather you hear it straight from me." The word landed in Miles's chest like something physical. Subadult. A minor. He felt his hands go cold in a way that had nothing to do with the weather. "Do you have anything that would tell you if it's her," Miles asked. "Not yet." Dale's voice gentled slightly. "I know what you're hoping and what you're not hoping, probably both at once. I'm not going to guess out loud. Guessing is how the original case got handled sloppy the first time around, and I'm not interested in repeating that." "What do you mean, sloppy," Chase asked, careful. "I mean twelve years ago this town wanted an answer fast, and I think some corners got cut chasing one." Dale looked between them. "I wasn't in a position to do anything about it back then. I was barely out of school myself. I'm in a position now. That's the only difference I'm promising you." He didn't say anything else for a moment. "I'll call you the second we have anything solid," Dale said finally. "Not the department line. You, personally. That's more than I'm supposed to offer, so don't make it complicated for me." "We won't," Miles said. Dale nodded once, to both of them, and walked back toward the cruiser, boots crunching steady over the snow. Neither of them spoke until the engine turned over and the tires found the packed road again. Chase moved without saying anything, wrapping an arm around Miles's waist and pulling him in against his chest, chin resting lightly against the top of his head. There was no camera. There was no audience. Miles let himself lean into it anyway, into the solid warmth of it, into the particular relief of not having to hold himself up for a few seconds. Then he felt himself doing it, actually felt the moment his body gave in, and something in him recoiled from that as fast as he'd leaned into it. He stepped back, out of the circle of Chase's arm, putting a foot of cold air between them that hadn't been there a second ago. Chase didn't reach for him again. His hand dropped to his side, and something passed over his face too quickly to read. "You okay?" Chase asked, quieter now, careful in the way that meant he'd noticed exactly what had just happened and decided not to say anything about it. "A minor," Miles said, staring at the evidence markers instead of at Chase. "That's not just anyone. That's a kid." He didn't look at Chase. He couldn't risk seeing whatever expression Chase was wearing, whether it matched his own or didn't. "I know." "You don't have to keep doing that." Miles didn't soften the edge in his voice. "The hand on my back. The arm around me. There's no one out here." Chase was quiet for a second. "I wasn't doing it for anyone." Miles didn't know what to do with that, with sincerity from a man he'd spent two years teaching himself not to trust. The space between them felt familiar in the worst way, not sharp anymore, just constant, worn into a shape neither of them knew how to move around. "We should head back," Chase said eventually, stepping away first this time, giving Miles the distance he'd asked for. "Get you somewhere warm." Miles nodded and followed him to the car, and neither of them said anything else the whole drive back.

The motel room door hadn't even fully shut behind them before Miles was across the room, case notes slapped down on the desk hard enough that the lamp rattled. He shrugged out of his jacket and let it drop on the floor instead of hanging it, already flipping through the legal pad. "We need a plan for tomorrow," he said, not looking up. "Dale's not going to give us anything else until the lab comes back, which means we need other sources. The general store, the diner, anyone who was around back then." "Miles." "I'm thinking Bertie's first. She's run that diner for thirty years, she'll know who to point us toward, and if she doesn't, she'll know who does—" "Miles." Chase's voice had an edge to it now too. "Can we not do this right now?" "Do what? Work?" Miles finally looked up, pen still in hand. "That's the job. That's why we're here." "I know why we're here, I don't need the reminder." Chase dropped his own jacket over the desk chair hard enough that it scraped the floor. "I'm saying maybe we don't plan the next three interviews thirty seconds after finding out it's a kid down there." "Someone has to." "Someone doesn't have to be you, right this second, white-knuckling a legal pad like it's going to fix anything. You didn't say two words the whole drive back and now you're planning out a week like the last hour didn't happen." "What was I supposed to do instead? Sit here and feel it?" Miles slapped the pen down on the desk. "I've had twelve years of feeling it. I don't need a break to catch up." "I didn't say take a break forever. I said stop for five minutes." Chase's voice climbed to meet his. "You do this every single time something hits. Instead of sitting with it for even a second, you turn it into a checklist." "That's rich, coming from you." Miles's hands curled into fists without him deciding to let them. "You want to talk about turning things into content? You found my private files on Dani, files I never showed you, never planned to show you, and you cut a five-minute teaser out of them and posted it without asking me. My best friend's disappearance, as a hook to get people excited for a new season. That's what you did with the one thing I never wanted touched." "That is not what I meant to do, and you know it." "I don't care what you meant. I care what you did." Miles's voice had gone low and hard. "I came home and it already had forty thousand views, Chase. Forty thousand people had already watched a preview of my probably dead friend's case before I even knew you'd touched the folder." "I have apologized for that a hundred times." "You can apologize a thousand more and it won't undo the fact that I found out from a comment section instead of from you." Miles was breathing hard now, something twelve years old and something two years old tangled together and coming out at once. "You took the one thing that was still just mine and you made it public because you thought it would be good for the numbers." "I thought it would help you," Chase snapped back, voice cracking with real anger now, not just frustration. "I thought if it was out there, you'd finally have to deal with it instead of burying it the way you bury everything. I was wrong. I know I was wrong. I have known I was wrong for two years, and I am so tired of being the only one still trying to fix something you decided the day it happened was unfixable." "Maybe some things are." "Then say that. Say it plainly instead of making me guess every single day whether today's the day you're finally going to actually talk to me instead of just being furious at me." Chase's jaw was tight, his whole body rigid. "You want to know what it's like being on the other end of your anger for two straight years? It's exhausting, Miles. I’m exhausted. I have apologized, I have given you space, I have let you set every single term of how this works between us, and it is still not enough, and I don't know what else you think I have left to give you." "Nobody's asking you to give anything." "That's a lie and you know it. You ask me for something every single day. You ask me to show up. You ask me to put my hand on your back for a camera and act like I'm the happiest man alive. You ask me to sit across from your parents and lie to their faces about a wedding that's never happening. You ask constantly, you just don't call it asking because that would mean admitting you still need something from me." "You act like I invented the arrangement." Miles's voice had gone sharp, cutting back in before Chase could keep going. "We both agreed to keep pretending. We both signed off on it, because losing the channel meant losing the income, and you didn’t want that any more than I did. So don't stand there like I'm the only one who benefits from you showing up and playing the part." "I never said you invented it. I said you act like you're the only one carrying it." Chase stepped closer, voice dropping but losing none of its heat. "You don't get to act like you're the only one performing here. You play the doting boyfriend just as well as I do. You lean into every touch, you laugh at every joke on cue, you're just as good at pretending as I am, so don't stand there like you're the victim of an arrangement you benefit from just as much as I do." "Fine. Then don't show up tomorrow." "You'd love that, wouldn't you. Give you one more thing to be angry about." "Get out." Miles's voice had gone flat and final. "I mean it." "Gladly." Chase grabbed his jacket off the chair, movements sharp, furious. "I'll be back at seven AM, because unlike you, I actually take this job seriously, and we'll do this exact same thing tomorrow, because God forbid either of us actually fix anything." He was almost to the door when Miles's phone started ringing on the desk behind them. Miles crossed the room and grabbed it, jaw still tight, and glanced at the screen. Unknown number, no name attached. He answered anyway, hand not quite steady. "Hello?" A pause on the other end, careful, deliberate. "Is this Miles? From the cold case show, the one filming in town?" "Yeah. Who's calling?" "I'd rather not say. I don't want my name anywhere near this." The voice was pitched low, hard to place as male or female. "I've been watching what you're covering. I know something I think you should look into. I'm not going on camera, not on record, nothing. Do whatever you want with it, just not with my name on it." Chase had gone still by the door, one hand still on the strap of his bag, watching Miles's face shift. "Okay," Miles said, reaching for the legal pad, voice still unsteady from the fight. "I'm listening." "I saw Dani out near the old ice-cutting operation, a few days before she disappeared. I remember because nobody went out there, not even kids messing around, not that late. I didn't think much of it at the time. I've thought about it a lot since." Static crackled faintly on the line. "She wasn't alone, either. There was a car parked near the tree line, somebody else's. I never got a good look at it. I figured it wasn't my business. I don't figure that anymore." "Do you remember anything about the car? Color, make, anything—" The line went dead. Miles lowered the phone slowly, staring at it. "Who was that?" Chase asked, already crossing back into the room, the fight suddenly smaller, pushed aside by something colder. "I don't know. Wouldn't give a name." Miles's mind was already working it, some old instinct pulling him back into focus despite everything still sitting raw in his chest. "They said they saw Dani at the ice-cutting operation a few days before she disappeared. Said there was a car parked near the tree line. Somebody else's." Chase set his bag back down slowly. "That's not nothing." "No," Miles said. "It's not." They stood there a moment, several feet apart, the fight still sitting unfinished and ugly in the space between them, both of them too caught in the pull of the tip to pick it back up, and too stubborn to be the one who brought it up again once the moment passed.

When Miles finally dragged himself upright, there was a coffee waiting on the nightstand. Black. Already gone lukewarm. Chase must have made it a while ago, before he’d even gotten in the shower, and left it there without a word. Miles drank it without thinking about it. Three sips in, throat still thick with sleep, he registered what he was doing. By then it felt stupid to make anything of it. Chase had been making him coffee like this for five years. It was muscle memory. Same as the two beds they still somehow always chose without discussion. He didn’t say thank you. Chase didn’t mention it either. He came out of the bathroom already dressed, towel around his neck, checking his phone. “Bertie’s at eight?” Chase asked, not quite looking at him. “Fine.” They didn’t speak again until they were in the car, and even then it was only logistics. Camera angles. Who’d lead the questions. Miles watched the town slide by through the window and thought about forty thousand views, and a car parked near a tree line, and didn’t say any of it out loud. Bertie’s Diner sat on the corner with its windows fogged from the inside, warm light spilling onto packed snow. The smell of coffee and bacon grease reached them before they’d even gotten the door fully open. Chase’s hand found the small of Miles’s back the second they stepped inside, easy, automatic. Miles felt the shift happen in himself without deciding to let it, some old current pulling him back into the shape of a man who was happy to be here. A handful of regulars looked up from their booths. A few did visible double takes. Bertie herself came around the counter before they’d even found a table, wiping her hands on her apron, grey hair escaping its pins around a round, weathered face. “Well, will you look at this.” She sized them both up, grinning. “Miles Lindgren, all grown up and famous. And this must be the boyfriend everybody’s been talking about.” “Chase.” He extended a hand, warm, his other arm settled comfortably around Miles’s waist. “It’s good to finally see the place. Miles talks about your pie like it’s a religious experience.” “Does he now.” Bertie’s whole face lit up. She ushered them toward a booth near the window. “Sit, sit. Coffee’s on me, for old time’s sake. Lord, Miles, last time you sat in one of these booths you couldn’t have been more than seventeen.” She bustled off toward the counter before he could answer. Chase’s hand slid from Miles’s waist to the small of his back as they settled into the booth, staying there once they were seated. Miles let it happen. Then, without quite deciding to, he scooted closer along the vinyl seat until his shoulder pressed against Chase’s, and reached for his hand under the table, lacing their fingers together the way he’d done a thousand times before any of this had gotten complicated. Chase’s fingers closed around his automatically, no hesitation at all. Neither of them said anything about it. Bertie returned with two mugs and a plate of something sweet neither of them had ordered, setting the spread down with practiced ease, then slid into the booth across the aisle, clearly happy for the company. “We wanted to ask about back when Dani disappeared,” Miles said, once Chase had the camera angled and rolling on the table. “You’d have been running the place then.” “Thirty-eight years I’ve been running this place. Course I was here.” Bertie’s warmth folded into something more careful. Her hands went still around her own mug. “Terrible thing. This whole town felt that one. Still does, I think, even the folks who don’t talk about it out loud.” Her eyes softened on Miles, nothing to do with the camera. “You two used to come in every Friday night, you know. Burgers and milkshakes, always split a plate of fries down the middle. She’d steal half your fries and you’d never say a word about it.” Something in Miles’s chest went tight and cold. Under the table, his grip on Chase’s hand tightened, just slightly. Chase’s thumb moved once across his knuckles in answer. “I remember,” Miles said, and was proud of how steady it came out. “Sweetest thing, watching you two. Whole town thought so.” Bertie shook her head slowly, some old grief passing over her face and clearing just as fast. “Her mother still comes in sometimes. Marlene. Orders the same thing every time, sits in the same booth. I always slip her a piece of pie, on the house. Woman’s had enough taken from her. She doesn’t need to pay for pie too.” “How’s she doing?” Miles asked, quieter now. “About as well as anyone could, carrying what she’s carrying.” Bertie’s face gentled further. “She’ll be glad you’re back, I think. Might take her a minute to say so. But she will be.” Miles nodded, not trusting his voice. Chase’s hand tightened around his under the table. “Anyone who might’ve seen something that week,” Chase said gently, giving Miles half a second to breathe that wasn’t visible to anyone else at the table. “Anyone out near the old ice-cutting operation, maybe, in the days before.” Bertie considered it, turning her mug slowly. “Nobody went out there. That was always the strange part, if you think about it. Kids dared each other sometimes, but grown folks stayed clear even back then. Roof was already halfway gone. If somebody was out there that week, it wasn’t for any good reason.” “Do you remember anyone who drove out that way?” Miles kept his voice even, professional, though his hand had gone still around Chase’s. Bertie’s brow furrowed. “That road doesn’t lead anywhere but the old operation and a couple hunting trails past it. Wasn’t much traffic out there ever. I do remember, now that you ask, there being talk around that time about a truck getting stuck out that way, middle of the night. Had to get pulled out the next morning. Couldn’t tell you whose it was, though. That’s the kind of thing that gets repeated so many times around here it stops meaning anything solid.” “Anyone who might remember more clearly?” Chase asked. Bertie thought about it, tapping a finger against her mug. “You ought to talk to Lenny. Man remembers everything about everyone, always has.” “That’s not a bad idea,” Miles said, and meant it. Lenny had practically raised half this town alongside their own parents. He’d certainly helped raise him and Dani both, half their childhoods spent underfoot at whatever program he was running that week. It should’ve occurred to him sooner. “He’d probably remember better than anyone.” “He would.” Bertie smiled, the way everyone in town smiled when Lenny’s name came up, like it was simply understood. “Tell him I said hello, when you see him. He’ll be glad you’re back too.” “We will,” Chase said. They wrapped the conversation not long after, thanking Bertie for the coffee and the memories both. Chase kept his hand at Miles’s back the whole walk to the door, the whole goodbye wave through the fogged window at Bertie, who watched them go, still smiling. It wasn’t until they were both in the car, doors shut, engine not yet started, that Chase’s hand finally dropped away. Miles realized his own fingers were still loosely curled from where they’d been laced through Chase’s minutes ago, an empty shape where something had just been. He uncurled them slowly, deliberately, and didn’t say anything about it. “You okay?” Chase asked, quiet now, no performance left in it at all. “I’m fine.” “Miles.” “I said I’m fine.” Miles stared through the windshield, jaw tight. “We should go see Lenny. Today, if he’s around.” Chase watched him a moment longer, something unreadable crossing his face, before he nodded and pulled out of the lot, heading toward Tundra Hearth Hall.

Tundra Hearth Hall sat exactly the way Miles remembered it, warm brick against grey snow, smoke curling steady from the chimney, a wreath still hung crooked on the door from some holiday months past that nobody had bothered to take down. Chase parked out front, and for the first time all day, Miles felt something in his chest ease slightly instead of tighten. "This place any good?" Chase asked, gathering the camera bag. "Best place in town." Miles was already out of the car, moving faster than he had all morning. "Practically raised half of us in there. Free tutoring, camping trips, some kind of holiday drive every December. Lenny ran it all himself for as long as I can remember. You're going to love him." They found him inside stacking folding chairs against the far wall, a radio playing low behind the counter, the whole place smelling like woodsmoke and old coffee. He looked up at the sound of the door, and his whole face opened into something warm and delighted, the kind of expression that made Miles feel, absurdly, like he was seventeen again, still small enough to get swept into a hug that smelled like pine and flannel. "Well, I'll be." Lenny set the chair down and crossed the room, both arms out. "Miles Lindgren. Look at you." "Lenny." Miles let himself be pulled in, and for a second, just a second, he wasn't thinking about the case, or the fight last night, or any of it at all. He was just glad to see him. "It's good to see you." "Good to see you too, son." Lenny held him at arm's length, studying him the way an old teacher studies a former student, proud and appraising all at once. "Heard you were back. Heard why, too. I'm sorry it had to be like this." "Yeah." Miles cleared his throat, then gestured toward Chase, who'd hung back a step, letting the reunion have its moment. "This is Chase." "The famous partner, finally in the flesh." Lenny's handshake was firm, warm, his eyes crinkling with genuine welcome. "Miles used to tell his mother all about you, back before any of this took off. Good to finally put a face to the name." "Good to meet you too," Chase said, easy and warm, setting the camera bag down on a nearby table. "Miles talks about this place like it's sacred ground." "It might as well be, the number of hours he spent in here as a boy." Lenny laughed, waving them toward a pair of chairs near the old wood stove, still radiating heat from a fire that had clearly been going most of the morning. "Sit, sit. I've got coffee going. You'll want some, this place holds a chill even with the stove running." He busied himself pouring three mugs, and Miles found himself glancing around the room, at the same scarred wooden tables from his childhood, the same corkboard thick with layers of old flyers, and something in his chest loosened in a way it hadn't since they'd driven into town. "He used to let me and Dani stay late," Miles said, mostly to Chase, though Lenny answered before Miles could finish the thought. "Because you two never wanted to go home on program nights." Lenny handed them each a mug, settling into his own chair with the ease of a man completely at home. "I'd have to practically chase you both out the door some evenings. Your mother used to call here looking for you, Miles, and I'd tell her you'd be along shortly, and she'd say, 'Lenny, it's already dark,' like that ever stopped either of you." Miles laughed, actually laughed, the sound surprising him a little. "She still brings that up sometimes." "As she should." Lenny's eyes crinkled. "You two used to build the most elaborate blanket fort back there every winter, remember that? Took over half the reading corner for a solid month one year. I finally had to tell you it was a fire hazard just to get my corner back." "I forgot about that." "I haven't. I've got a photo of it somewhere, actually, if I can dig it out." Lenny shook his head, fond, and for a moment the whole room felt warm in a way that had nothing to do with the stove. Chase, beside him, had gone quiet in the particular way he did when he was genuinely enjoying something rather than performing it, a small smile tugging at his mouth as he listened. "You'll have to find that photo," Chase said. "I need to see teenage Miles in a blanket fort." "I'll look. I keep everything from those years, if I'm honest. Never could bring myself to throw much away." Lenny took a slow sip of his coffee. "This town's given me a lot of good years in this building. Feels wrong to toss any of it." They talked a while longer before the case came up at all, program alumni Miles hadn't thought about in a decade, a fundraiser Lenny was still running every spring, the new furnace he'd finally gotten installed after the old one gave out two winters back. It was easy, unhurried, and Miles felt himself settle into it the way he used to as a kid, safe in a way this whole trip hadn't let him feel anywhere else yet. Eventually Chase gently steered them back, setting up the camera with a quiet nod toward Miles first, checking he was ready. "We wanted to ask a few things, if that's alright. On camera, if you're comfortable." "For you two? Of course." Lenny settled back, folding his hands in his lap, entirely at ease. "We're trying to piece together anything from the week Dani disappeared," Miles said, and felt the warmth in the room shift slightly, not gone, just quieter. "You knew her. You knew both of us." "Course I did." Something genuine passed over Lenny's face, old grief still close to the surface even after twelve years. "Sweet girl. Sharper than most kids that age. Used to catch her reading in the corner during program hours instead of joining group activities, and I never had the heart to make her stop." "Do you remember anything unusual that week? Anything she said, anyone hanging around who normally wasn't?" Lenny was quiet a moment, his gaze drifting toward the window. "It was a long time ago, Miles. I wish I could tell you something concrete." He shook his head slowly. "I remember the whole town turning inside out looking for her. I remember thinking, foolishly, that she'd turn up in a day or two, embarrassed and grounded, the way kids sometimes do." "Did she come by here that week at all?" Chase asked. "She came by most weeks. Can't say that particular one stands out any more than the others." Lenny's tone stayed even, unbothered, already turning slightly. "You know, it's strange the things memory holds onto and the things it lets go. I couldn't tell you what happened that specific week, but I could tell you exactly what kind of secret Santa gift she gave me the December before. A hand-drawn card. Kept it in a drawer here for years." "That's sweet," Miles said, something in his chest aching. "She was a sweet kid." Lenny's smile was warm, easy, entirely convincing. "I keep old sign-in sheets from back then, if it would help. Program records, attendance, that sort of thing. I could dig through, see if anything useful turns up." "That would be a huge help," Miles said. "Anything for you two. This town's carried this a long time." Lenny reached over and squeezed Miles's shoulder, warm, grandfatherly. "If there's anything I can do to help finally put it to rest, I will." They wrapped the interview a few minutes later, Chase thanking him warmly, Lenny insisting they take a container of something homemade on their way out, refusing to let them leave without it. The whole visit had the easy, unremarkable warmth of catching up with someone who'd known Miles his entire life, and it wasn't until they were both back in the car that Miles realized he was smiling, actually smiling, for the first time since they'd landed in Cutter's Bend. "That was nice," Chase said, starting the engine, glancing over at him. "You seem lighter." "He does that." Miles looked back at the hall shrinking in the side mirror, warm light still glowing in its windows. "He always has. Best guy in this town, probably." Chase smiled, easy, genuine, nothing guarded in it at all. "I can see why you love him." Miles didn't answer, just let the warmth of the visit sit in his chest a while longer as they pulled out onto the road, the container of Lenny's cooking still warm on his lap.

The ranger station sat at the edge of town, a squat log building with wood smoke curling steady from a stone chimney, a battered green pickup parked out front with the department's seal faded almost illegible on the door. Chase pulled in beside it a little before noon, the sun doing its best to break through a thin layer of cloud without much success. Miles sat a second with his hand on the door handle, some old reflex kicking in before he made himself get out. "You know this guy too?" Chase asked, hauling the camera bag out of the back seat. "David Robbins. Couple years ahead of me in school." Miles shut the car door, boots crunching into snow that hadn't been shoveled off the walkway in a day or two. "We weren't close, exactly, but everyone kind of knew everyone at that size school. He was always out in the woods even back then, always coming to class smelling like campfire smoke. Guess it stuck." David came out onto the porch before they'd even reached the steps, tall, broad-shouldered, department jacket zipped up against the cold, a steaming mug in one hand. He squinted at them for a second, and then his whole face opened into recognition. "There he is." He set the mug down on the porch railing and came down to meet them. "Heard you were back in town. Whole place has been talking about it since you two rolled in." "David." Miles shook his hand. "This is Chase." "The boyfriend, huh." David's grip was firm, easy, his eyes flicking briefly to the camera bag over Chase's shoulder before landing back on Miles. "Good to finally put a face to it." Something shifted in his expression, a little wistful, a little far off. "You know, I always figured you two would end up together, back in high school. You and Dani. She talked about you all the time." Miles blinked, caught off guard. "I didn't realize you knew Dani well enough to talk about that kind of thing." "Wasn't like that." David's easy grin flickered, just a beat, before settling back into place. "Small school. You hear things about everybody whether you're trying to or not." "Guess nothing stays private for long around here." Miles let it go with an easy shrug of his own. "Which actually works out, since we're trying to run down a tip, and figured you'd be the best person around to ask." "Yeah? What's going on?" "There was apparently a car parked near the tree line out at the old ice works, a few days before Dani disappeared." Miles nodded toward the camera as Chase pulled it out. "Trying to find anyone who might've seen it, or who'd have had reason to be out that way back then." Something moved across David's face, quick, gone almost before Miles could place it. "Rough spot to place a vehicle, even now." He recovered easily enough, leaning back against the porch railing, arms crossing over his chest. "Back then that road wasn't maintained the way the county roads were. Half the year you'd need four-wheel drive just to get out that far." "Mind if we get this on camera?" Chase asked, already unfolding the tripod. "For the show. We can keep it loose, nothing you're not comfortable with." David hesitated, just a beat longer than the question probably warranted, glancing once toward the tree line behind the station before answering. "Sure. Yeah, that's fine." Chase set the shot, and the second the light blinked red, David's whole posture shifted, squaring up slightly, more careful than the easy porch conversation a minute before had been. "Twelve years is a long time to pull a specific memory out of thin air," David said, hands settling into his jacket pockets. "I hadn't even joined the ranger service yet back then. I was still working seasonal trail maintenance." "Would there be any record of who had hunting permits for that stretch, back then?" Miles asked. "Anyone who'd have had legitimate reason to be out there?" "Might be, if the county archive kept anything that far back. I can check for you." David rubbed a hand over his jaw, thoughtful, or performing thoughtful, Miles genuinely couldn't tell which. "I do remember there being some trouble that year with poaching out past the ice works, actually. Wasn't connected to Dani, probably, but the wardens were keeping a closer eye on that stretch of woods for a while because of it." "You hunted out that way yourself, didn't you?" Miles asked, the memory surfacing slow, something from a hallway conversation a decade and a half old. "Back then, I mean." David's jaw tightened, just slightly, before he answered. "Sure, some. Everybody who hunted around here knew those trails, wasn't exactly a secret spot." His eyes flicked toward the camera again, then back to Miles, and his voice smoothed a little too deliberately. "I wasn't out there that particular week, though, if that's where this is headed." "It's not headed anywhere. Just trying to figure out who'd know the area." Miles kept his tone even, easy, though something in his chest had gone quietly alert. "Right. Course." The grin came back, a half-second later than it should have. "Long time ago. Hard to say exactly where I was on any given week that far back, honestly." "Any idea if there'd be a record of who got flagged for the poaching that year?" Chase asked, smooth, giving nothing away, though Miles could feel him listening just as closely. "Warden's office might have something on file." David straightened up, visibly glad to be past the last question. "I'll dig around, see what I can find. Old permits, anything with a name attached to that stretch of road." "We'd appreciate that," Miles said. "Course. Everybody in this town's carried Dani a long time. Be nice to finally get somewhere with it." David's smile settled back into something warmer, more like the man who'd greeted them on the porch, and Chase clicked the camera off a moment later. They said their goodbyes, David walking them halfway back to the car, chatting easily now about nothing in particular, the department's new snowmobile, a bad ice storm coming later in the week. It was almost enough to make the last few minutes feel like they hadn't happened at all. Almost. "You caught that, right?" Chase asked once they were both in the car, engine running, heat starting to push back against the cold. "The hunting question. He got weird about it." "Yeah." Miles stared out the windshield at the station shrinking in the mirror. "Real casual answer, considering how long it took him to give it." "Doesn't mean anything on its own." "No." Miles turned it over in his head, the way David's grin had come back a beat too late, the way his eyes had gone to the camera before answering instead of after. "But if the county's got hunting permits on file for that year, that's a place to start. See if his name's on one." "Or if it's conspicuously not." Chase pulled out onto the main road. "Guy who hunted those trails regularly, and doesn't have a permit that specific season? That's a question all on its own." "Yeah." Miles exhaled slowly. "Worth asking." They grabbed coffees at the walk-up kiosk near the library, then carried them inside to escape the cold. The library had quiet reading tables tucked near the back, good enough for laptops and spread-out notes. They set up there, reviewing the morning's footage over cups that went cold faster than either of them drank them. It was easy, methodical work, the kind that let the tension between them settle into something manageable, professional distance instead of open wound. By the time they finally packed up, the light outside had slanted low and gold through the windows, the whole day sliding toward evening faster than either of them had noticed. They cut through the residential streets on the way back to Frost Inn, taking the long way without really discussing it, and Chase slowed for a stop sign near the edge of Miles's old neighborhood. A woman was crossing at the corner ahead, bundled heavy against the cold, a grocery bag in each hand, moving slow and careful over the packed snow. Miles recognized her before his mind fully caught up to what that meant. She was thinner than he remembered. Greyer. Her whole frame seemed smaller somehow, folded in against the cold in a way that had nothing to do with the actual temperature. She hadn't seen them yet, just crossing the street the way she probably crossed it every single day, heading toward the same house she'd lived in for thirty years, the one right next door to his parents', the one he'd been avoiding since the moment they'd driven into town. "Miles." Chase's voice had gone quiet, careful, catching the shift in him before Miles had said a word. "Is that—" "Yeah." He couldn't move. Couldn't look away either. Twelve years of not knowing what he'd say to her, of telling himself he'd figure it out when the moment actually came. She reached the far curb, adjusted her grip on the grocery bags, and looked up. Their eyes met.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Marlene stood on the far curb with her grocery bags hanging heavy in each hand, and Miles sat frozen in the passenger seat, the engine idling low beneath them, the whole street holding still in that particular way winter afternoons did right before the light went blue and flat. Then she started walking again, toward her house, and something in Miles's chest lurched at the thought of just letting her go, of driving past like he hadn't seen her, like twelve years of avoiding this exact moment could stretch into one more day. "Pull over," he said. Chase glanced at him. "You sure?" "Pull over." Chase eased the car to the curb a little further down the street, and Miles was out before it had fully stopped, boots hitting packed snow, his heart going hard and fast in a way it hadn't during any of the actual interviews they'd filmed all week. He caught up to her halfway down the block, and she must have heard him coming, because she turned before he said anything at all. Up close, the twelve years showed even more plainly. Deep lines around her eyes that hadn't been there before, her hair gone fully grey, thinner than he remembered in a way that made him ache. But her eyes were the same. Dani's eyes, exactly, and it hit him like something physical. For a moment she just looked at him, and something moved across her face, disbelief, maybe, or the particular shock of seeing a ghost that turned out to be flesh and blood after all. "Miles." Her voice cracked on his name, just his name, nothing else needed. The grocery bags slid from her hands, forgotten entirely, hitting the snow with a soft thud neither of them registered. "Oh, look at you." And then she was crossing the last few feet between them and pulling him into her arms, hard, both hands fisting in the back of his jacket like she was checking he was real, and Miles felt something in his chest crack wide open, twelve years of bracing for this moment collapsing all at once. "I'm sorry," he choked out into her shoulder. "I should have come sooner. I've been in town for days, and I kept telling myself I'd come, and I just—" "Hush." She pulled back just enough to hold his face in both hands, the way his own mother did, the way she used to do when he was a boy trailing in and out of her kitchen alongside Dani. Her eyes were wet, tracking over every inch of his face like she was cataloguing everything the years had changed. "Look at you. All grown. God, Miles." "I'm so sorry." "Stop that right now." Her voice wavered but held firm underneath it, the same steel he remembered from her, softened but never fully gone. "I don't want to hear you apologizing to me. Not for coming, not for anything. You hear me?" Miles nodded, throat too tight to speak. Marlene held his face a moment longer, then let her hands drop, though she kept one resting against his arm, like she wasn't quite ready to lose contact entirely. Her eyes moved past him, toward the car, toward Chase standing a respectful distance back near the front bumper, hands in his pockets, giving them space. "That your Chase?" "Yeah." "Handsome." She said it warmly this time, a flicker of her old self showing through. "Your mother's told me about him. Says he treats you like gold." Something in Miles ached at that, complicated and unspoken, and he let it pass without answering. "I heard about the ice-cutting operation," he said instead. "What they found out there." The warmth in her face dimmed, replaced by something older, heavier. "Everybody's heard." "I don't know what to say to you. I've had twelve years to figure it out and I still don't." "Nobody does." Marlene reached down slowly to gather her dropped grocery bags, and Miles crouched to help her, both of them working in silence for a moment before she straightened, studying him properly now, the way she used to study report cards and skinned knees and every small thing about him that mattered to her once. "You blame yourself. I know you do. Your mother's told me, over the years, how it sits with you." Miles's throat closed up entirely. "I don't blame you," Marlene said, quiet, even, though her voice shook now, the effort of holding steady clearly costing her something. "I want you to hear that, whatever else you came over here expecting me to say. I never did. Not once, not for a single day of these twelve years." Tears slipped freely now, and she didn't bother wiping them away. "You loved her, Miles. I watched you love her, fierce and constant, the whole time you two were growing up right under my nose. You were sixteen. You had a fight with your best friend, the way sixteen-year-olds do, and you didn't know it was going to be the last conversation you ever had with her. I know what that's done to you. I've known for twelve years, and it's broken my heart every single day, watching from a distance, that you carried that weight all alone." "I could have gone to meet her." "And maybe nothing would have changed, or maybe something terrible would have happened to you too, and I'd have lost both my children instead of one." The words landed heavy, and Miles felt them land, felt the full weight of what she'd just called him. "I've turned that night over more times than you have, sweetheart. Trust me on that. I don't have room left in me to blame a sixteen-year-old boy for something none of us could see coming. I never did." Miles felt something break loose entirely in his chest, and he didn't fight it this time, let the tears come, standing in the middle of a snowy street with a woman who'd once made him grilled cheese after school a hundred times over, who used to sing along badly to the radio while she drove him and Dani to the movies, who had loved him like her own long before any of this happened to any of them. "They think it might be her," he managed. "The remains. They don't know yet. But they might be." "I know." Marlene's voice had gone very quiet, the tears still falling, steady now instead of sudden. "Sheriff came by last week to tell me himself, before it hit the papers. Said it could take weeks to know anything for certain." She was quiet a moment, staring somewhere past Miles's shoulder, somewhere far off. "Part of me has spent twelve years hoping. A very small part, these days, if I'm honest. Most of me made peace with the likely truth a long time ago. But hope's a stubborn thing. Doesn't care much what's likely." "I'm sorry," Miles said again, because he didn't have anything else, because every other sentence felt too small. "Stop apologizing to me." Her voice sharpened, just slightly, not unkind, just tired, worn thin by years of carrying this. "You didn't do this to her. Somebody did this to her, and it wasn't a sixteen-year-old boy who missed a conversation. Whoever it was, they're the one who owes an apology. Not you. Never you." They stood there a moment in the cold, and Marlene reached out again, cupping his face once more, thumb brushing gently under his eye where a tear had caught. "I'd like to come see you properly," Miles said. "If that's alright. Not for the show. Just to see you." "I'd like that more than you know." Something in her weathered face softened fully now, warmth breaking all the way through the years of carefully held grief. "You come by whenever you want, Miles Lindgren. My door's never been closed to you. It never will be." "I'll call first. Or just come by. Whatever's easier." "Either's fine." She squeezed his arm once, then bent to gather her bags again, waving off his attempt to help this time. "I should get this inside before the milk goes bad standing out here." "Right. Of course." She turned to go, then paused, looking back at him one more time, her eyes still shining. "It really is good to see you, Miles. So, so good." She smiled, small and real, the first real smile he'd seen on her since he'd arrived. "Dani would be so happy, seeing you standing here." Her gaze flicked past him, toward the car, toward Chase, and something almost mischievous flickered through the grief in her expression, some ghost of the woman she used to be. "And she'd never let you hear the end of it, either, that boy of yours. She'd have teased you mercilessly. Handsome as that, and yours. She'd have made it her whole personality for a month, the way she did with everything." Miles let out a sound that was half laugh, half something closer to breaking. "She really would have," he managed. "Oh, she would have." Marlene's eyes glistened, warm now instead of just heavy. "You know that girl never did anything halfway. She'd have had the whole wedding planned out by now, her maid of honor dress already picked, probably three years before either of you even got around to actually proposing." Miles didn't have an answer for that at all. He watched her walk the rest of the way to her door, watched her disappear inside, and stood there a long moment in the cold, chest heaving, before he made himself turn back toward the car, toward Chase, who was watching him with an expression that had nothing performed in it at all. "You okay?" Chase asked, quiet, once Miles was back inside, door shut against the cold. Miles didn't answer right away. He stared out the windshield at Marlene's house, lights coming on inside one window at a time. "She called me her own," he said finally, voice completely unsteady now. "Twelve years, and she still calls me hers." Chase reached over, slow, giving him every chance to pull away if he wanted to, and rested a hand on his knee. Miles didn't pull away. He turned into it instead, and for the first time since they'd arrived in Cutter's Bend, he let himself fall apart completely, right there in the front seat, Chase's hand steady on his knee the whole time.

Chapter Nine By the time they got back to Frost Inn, the sky had gone fully dark, streetlights buzzing faint yellow over packed snow. Miles felt wrung out in a way that had nothing to do with the cold, his eyes swollen, his chest still tight from crying harder than he had in years. Chase unlocked the door and flipped on the lamp. Miles sat heavily on the edge of his bed, working his boots off without much energy behind it. "I'll get us something from the diner," Chase said, already reaching for his phone. "Same as always?" "Yeah." Miles looked up briefly. "Thanks." Chase called it in, and while they waited, he moved around the room with quiet purpose, refilling the coffee maker for the morning, checking the thermostat, gathering the case notes into a neater stack on the desk without asking if Miles wanted them touched. A few days ago, maybe even earlier that same day, Miles probably would have said something about it. Tonight he was too tired. The food arrived, and they ate sitting across from each other. The silence between them wasn't entirely comfortable, but it wasn't sharp either, for once. It didn't feel like they were both waiting for the next thing that would hurt. "She used to sit in that same booth at Bertie's," Miles said eventually, the words surprising him even as he said them. "Dani. Bertie mentioned it today, and I kept thinking about it. She always ordered the same thing. Burger, chocolate milkshake, no cherry, and we'd split a plate of fries." Chase tilted his head. "No cherry?" "Absolutely not. She hated them. Said cherries ruined perfectly good desserts by pretending they belonged there." Miles smiled faintly. "She used to steal mine anyway. My cherries, I mean." "You said she hated them." "She did. Claimed I needed to hate them too, for emotional support." Miles picked at a fry, something loosening in his chest. "That was Dani. If she cared about something, she cared all the way. There was no halfway with her." Chase leaned back slightly, listening, and Miles found himself continuing without really deciding to. "She helped with the town fair one year. Wasn't even supposed to be doing anything complicated, just volunteering, but she ended up practically running the money table because she noticed the totals weren't adding up right. Caught it before anyone else even looked twice. She was fifteen and already acting like she was auditing the place." Miles shook his head, something fond in it. "She liked that kind of thing. Everyone else thought it was boring, finding the mistake in a stack of receipts, but Dani loved it. Said numbers told the truth even when people didn't." "That's a good detail," Chase said, already half-reaching for the notepad on the desk. "For the episode, I mean. Gives people something specific to hold onto instead of just a photo and a name." Something in Miles's chest went cold and fast. "That's not why I was telling you that." Chase's hand stilled over the notepad. "I know. Sorry." He set it back down, quiet for a second. "Old habit. I hear something good and my brain goes straight to how it fits the show before it goes anywhere else. I didn't mean it like that." "I know you didn't." Miles exhaled, some of the sharpness draining out of him as fast as it had come, too tired tonight to hold onto it properly. "Just, not tonight. Can we not turn her into content for five minutes." "Yeah. Of course." Chase pushed the notepad further away, an apology in the gesture itself. "Tell me more. Just for us." Miles studied him a moment, then let it go, the moment smaller than it had been but not broken. "The word onward was our thing," he said. "If one of us said it, it meant we dropped whatever conversation we were having. No questions." "Why onward specifically?" "I needed an escape once. Ninth grade. I was trying to avoid talking about a boy I liked, and I panicked." Chase's mouth twitched. "That was your whole escape plan?" "I panicked." "And she just accepted onward as a legitimate exit?" "Unfortunately, yes. Then she waited about six months and brought it up again completely unprompted, just to watch me panic a second time." "That seems fair." "It was not fair." "Sounds fair to me." Miles laughed, surprised by the sound of it, and Chase grinned back, and for a second it was the first real smile Miles had seen from him in longer than he could easily place. Not the tired ones. Not the small ones that showed up out of habit and vanished just as fast. This one reached his eyes. Miles looked back down at his food before he could think too hard about why he'd noticed. "She was the first person I told," he said after a moment. "About the boy. About me." Chase's expression softened. "What'd she say?" "Nothing, really. That was the thing." Miles smiled, small and real. "She just looked at me and said 'okay,' and then asked if I still wanted fries. Didn't make it a whole production. Didn't need me to explain myself." He looked down, the smile settling into something quieter. "I was terrified, going in. Not of her. Never of her. I just didn't know what would happen if it got out, small town like this. But she never once made me feel like I was something she had to accept. I was just me, and that was already fine with her." For a while neither of them said anything. Miles stared up at the ceiling, and Chase watched him, quiet, careful. "Sometimes I wonder what she'd think of me now," Miles said eventually. "Who I turned into. The last twelve years. Some days I feel like I'm not even the same person she knew." "She'd still love you." Chase said it easily, no hesitation in it at all. "You think so?" "Yeah." He was quiet a second. "What's not to love?" The words landed harder than Miles expected, and not because he thought Chase was wrong. Some part of him understood, sitting there in the low lamplight, that Chase hadn't only been talking about Dani. Miles didn't know what to do with that, so he didn't do anything with it at all. "I haven't talked about her like this in a long time," he said instead. "Not the case. Not what happened to her. Just her." "I'm glad you did." They finished eating, and eventually Chase gathered the containers and threw them away, dimming the lamp between their beds without asking. This time, Miles let him. He lay back, staring at the ceiling, letting the memories come without bracing against them for once. Dani's laugh. Dani's stubbornness. Dani stealing cherries she hated because she'd decided he needed to hate them too. Dani sitting beside him on the roof of an old grain silo, talking about impossible futures like they were already waiting for them. He hadn't thought about that place in years. But tonight, for the first time in a long while, the memory didn't only hurt. It reminded him that she had been real. That she had been happy. That before everything else, she had just been Dani. For the first time since they'd arrived in Cutter's Bend, Miles fell asleep without the weight of the case pressing down on him at all.

The camera light blinked red on the town hall steps, the building’s doors framed behind Miles in the shot. “We’re following a new thread today,” Miles said, breath fogging in the cold. “There’s reason to think someone was out near the abandoned ice-cutting operation the week Dani disappeared. We’re here to see if the county’s got anything on record.” “Good take.” Chase lowered the camera. “Let’s get inside before my fingers freeze off.” The records office sat at the end of a narrow hall, a hand-lettered sign taped crooked to frosted glass. Inside, a woman glanced up from behind the counter, polite but unhurried. “Good morning. My name’s Miles Lindgren, and this is my partner, Chase Sorensen.” “I know who you are.” The woman behind the counter didn’t look up right away. “Must say I’m a little offended you don’t recognize me.” Miles looked more closely and found her name tag. C. Newsome. “Wait a minute. Casey?” A ghost of a smile crossed her lips before disappearing entirely. “That’s me. It’s been a long time, Miles. I’d say it’s good to see you again, but Father Halloway always taught us lying was a sin.” Miles was taken aback. Casey used to be a close friend, back when he still lived in Cutter’s Bend. The three of them, him, Casey, and Dani, used to run together constantly growing up, and he hadn’t expected this kind of coldness from her. “Casey, I’m not sure what I did wrong here, but I think we’re getting off on the wrong foot.” Casey arched an eyebrow slightly, said nothing, and just stared at him, impassive. Behind him, Chase kept the camera rolling, jaw tight, visibly holding himself back from stepping in. “We’re looking to obtain hunting permit records for the area,” Miles said. “Twelve years back. When Dani went missing.” “Of course you are.” Casey moved toward her desk and pulled the proper forms. “Fill out the paperwork and we’ll process it as quick as we can. The archives are a mess right now, we’re in the middle of digitizing everything. Normally takes a few days. Might take longer.” “Anything we can do to speed it up?” Chase asked from behind the camera. Casey looked at him for the first time, her eyes hardening further at the sight of the lens. “You must be the boyfriend the Lindgrens are constantly praising.” She looked him up and down, entirely unimpressed. “No. There’s nothing you can do. I’m not overriding protocol so you can get some content.” Miles’s jaw ticked with suppressed anger, his hands curling at his sides. “I assure you, we’re not trying to cut corners, and this isn’t about content. We’re here to help Dani. You were her friend too. I know you want to know what happened to her.” Something in Casey’s eyes flared, all pretense dropping at once. “Yes. I was her friend.” Her voice rose, sharp and fast. “I’ve been here for every vigil in her honor. Every town meeting. Every search. Every church service. I helped put together the slideshow at our reunion, the one with the classmates we’d lost, hers included. I watched her parents struggle for years, watched her father finally leave because he couldn’t stand looking at this town anymore. I sat with Marlene while she grieved.” Casey came around the counter now, jabbing a finger into Miles’s chest with each new sentence. “Where the hell were you, Miles? You left the second you could and never once looked back. You didn’t help pick up the pieces. You didn’t mourn with the rest of us. You left. And now, twelve years later, it’s mighty convenient that you’ve built your whole career off exploiting cold cases, and even more convenient that the first time you set foot back in this town is the same week they find a body that might be your supposed best friend, so you can turn her and her family into content.” Miles stood frozen. He couldn’t argue with any of it. He’d fled the second he was able to and never come back, never could bring himself to. It still hurt, hearing an old friend lay it out this plainly. He opened his mouth, but Chase cut in before he could speak. “You have no idea what the last twelve years have looked like for him. He lost his best friend. You don’t get to tell him how he should’ve grieved.” “I wasn’t talking to you.” Casey’s glare snapped to him. “Doesn’t matter. I’m talking anyway.” Chase set the camera down on the counter and crossed to Miles, sliding an arm around his back, pulling him in close. “You think he forgot her? You think she’s just another case to him? You don’t know Miles at all. You can believe whatever you want about him. We’re not here to change your mind. But I’m not going to stand here and let you tear him apart.” Casey’s jaw worked, and she didn’t say anything else, just turned back toward her side of the counter and busied herself with the computer. Miles finished the paperwork in silence, and they left without another word. Outside on the town hall steps, Miles took a deep breath and looked up at the grey sky. “She was right.” Chase shook his head immediately. “Like hell she was. She had no right to say that to you.” “I did run away, Chase. She might not have gotten my reasons right, but I can’t argue with the fact that I ran.” Chase reached for him, then hesitated, pulling his hand back at the last second. Miles caught it, one more thing to feel guilty about now, on top of everything else. He hated how careful Chase had gotten around him, though he still had no idea how to fix it. They’d both gotten so good at ignoring the thing sitting between them. “Let’s go to the police station and talk to Dale,” Chase said finally. “See if there were any citations for hunting without a permit, or if anyone got picked up out that way around the time she disappeared.” The drive to the station was quiet, Miles staring out the window, Casey’s words still sitting sharp in his chest. Chase didn’t push conversation, just reached over once at a red light and rested a hand briefly on his knee before pulling it back to the wheel. “You don’t have to be okay right now,” Chase said eventually. “I know.” Neither of them said anything else the rest of the way. The station smelled like burnt coffee and old carpet. Chase clicked the camera on again as they walked in, and Miles felt the switch happen automatically, shoulders squaring, jaw unclenching, the raw thing still sitting in his chest tucked neatly behind a face that knew how to perform being fine. Dale looked up from behind the counter, glancing between them for a second longer than usual, something faintly concerned crossing his face before he let it go. “Afternoon.” He straightened, businesslike. “What can I do for you two?” “We’re trying to find out if there were any citations or reports filed for that stretch near the old ice-cutting operation,” Miles said, voice smooth and easy for the camera. “Same week Dani disappeared. David mentioned there might’ve been some poaching activity out that way that season, people hunting without permits.” “Let me check.” Dale turned to an old desktop monitor, two fingers hunting across the keyboard, the screen’s glow washing pale across his face. He scrolled a long time, longer than either of them expected, his brow furrowing further with each pass. “Not seeing anything for that specific week,” he said finally. “Nothing on poaching, nothing hunting-related at all, that stretch, that season. I can widen the range if you want, but nothing’s jumping out.” Miles felt something sink in his chest, a lead going quiet before it had the chance to breathe. “Nothing at all?” “Not hunting-wise, no.” Chase shifted beside him, thinking. “What about anything else? Trespassing. Break-ins. Anything filed out that direction, even if it’s not hunting-related.” Dale considered that, turning back to the screen. “Different search category. Give me a second.” He typed again, slower this time. The room stayed quiet except for the soft clatter of the keyboard. He stopped. “Huh.” He leaned closer, double-checking something before he said it out loud. “There’s a trespassing citation, that exact week. Posted property, ice-cutting operation grounds specifically.” A pause. “David Robbins.” The name landed in the room like a bomb. “Trespassing.” Miles kept his voice level, aware of the lens still on him. “Not the hunting thing at all.” “No. Different code section entirely.” Dale turned the monitor slightly. “Says he was found on the grounds themselves. Not the trails, not near them. Inside the posted boundary.” “Can we get a copy?” “I can print the citation right now.” Dale was already moving toward the printer. “Full incident report, if there’s more attached, might take me a day or two.” “We’d appreciate that,” Miles said, folding the paper once, careful. “You two doing alright?” Dale asked, not pushing, just checking. “We’re good,” Miles said, easy, practiced. Dale nodded and let it go. Outside, the station door swung shut behind them, and something in Miles’s shoulders dropped, the performance sliding off all at once. Chase clicked the camera off without being asked. “Trespassing,” Miles said, staring down at the folded paper. “Not hunting or poaching at all.” “Which means the porch conversation was never really about hunting permits.” Chase’s jaw was tight. “He let us go looking in the wrong direction entirely.” “So why was he on the grounds?” Miles unfolded the citation again. “Nobody went out there. Even before the roof caved in more, nobody bothered with that place, except maybe a dare now and then.” “Somebody did that week.” Chase’s voice had gone low, careful. “Same week the caller says they saw a car near the tree line.” Miles’s mind caught on it before he wanted it to. The car. The tree line. Same stretch of woods, same week, and now a citation with David’s name on it, in that exact spot. “That could be his car. The one the caller saw.” “Could be.” “Then he wasn’t out there poaching.” Miles turned the citation over once, slow, like flipping it might slow the thought down too. “He was meeting someone.” “Maybe.” Chase reached for the car door, then paused, looking back at Miles over the roof of the car. “But we know what to actually ask him now, instead of what he wanted us asking. That’s not nothing.” They got in. Neither of them started the engine right away, the citation sitting on the dash between them.

Chase pulled the camera bag over his shoulder before Miles had even reached for it. "I'll take point on this one." Miles paused, halfway into his coat. "You're deciding that now?" "You've had a rough morning. Figured I'd take this one." Chase said it easily, already moving toward the door. "Makes sense, right?" Miles didn't answer right away. "Fine," he said instead, grabbing the tripod from the trunk. David came out onto the porch at the sound of the car, grin sliding easy into place, genuinely pleased to see them. "Back already? Don't even get a lunch break between visits anymore." "Got a few follow-up questions." Chase kept his tone light. "Mind if we get this on tape?" "Sure. Whatever you need." David leaned against the porch railing, relaxed, hands in his jacket pockets. Miles set the tripod up near the steps instead of taking the camera himself, angling it wide enough to catch all three of them. Chase glanced at the setup, then at him, something flickering across his face before he let it go and turned back to David. "We pulled some records," Chase said, once the light blinked red. "Hunting and poaching citations near the ice-cutting operation, that week Dani disappeared. Came up empty." "Figured it might." David shrugged, still easy. "Told you I couldn't remember much." "We found something else, though." Chase pulled the folded citation from his jacket, unfolding it slow. "Trespassing. Posted property. Same week." David's posture shifted, just slightly, the easy lean off the railing straightening. "Yeah?" "Your name's on it." David went quiet a beat, something genuinely caught off guard flickering across his face before he covered it. "That's, yeah. That's mine." He cleared his throat. "Forgot that was even still on file." "You told us you didn't have a reason to be out there that week," Miles said. Chase's eyes cut toward him, quick, surprised at the interruption. Miles didn't look away from David. "I mean, I forgot about it, honestly." David rubbed the back of his neck, still trying for casual, though something tighter had crept into his voice. "Old citation. Wasn't exactly top of mind." "Three days before Dani disappeared." Chase's voice came fast, folding back into the lead. "That's a tight window." "Coincidence." David's shrug had gone stiffer now, less convincing. "This town's small. Everybody's out in those woods eventually." "On posted property? Specifically?" Miles pressed, before Chase could soften the question. David's jaw ticked. "I used to go out there sometimes. Just to get away from things. Didn't think it was a big deal." "We know Dani was out there too, that same week," Miles said. "Somebody mentioned a car parked near the tree line." Chase's jaw tightened, though he stayed quiet, letting it play out. Something shifted hard behind David's eyes, every trace of ease gone from his face now. "I don't know anything about a car." "You sure?" "I said I don't know." His voice sharpened, real edge in it now. "I told you I went out there sometimes. Doesn't mean I saw her. Doesn't mean I saw anybody." "We're just trying to get an accurate timeline," Chase said, stepping back in, calmer, though the calm itself felt like a correction aimed as much at Miles as at David. Miles caught it, felt something small and irritated flare in his chest, and said nothing, jaw tight. David didn't answer right away, arms crossing now, gaze fixed somewhere past both of them, toward the tree line. "I don't have anything else for you," he said finally, clipped. "I got cited. That's the whole thing." "Okay." Chase folded the citation back up. "Look." David exhaled hard, some genuine frustration breaking through now. "I don't know what you think you're going to find, digging around in something this old. It doesn't mean what you want it to mean." "We're not trying to make you the villain," Miles said, before Chase had the chance. Chase's mouth pressed into a thin line, saying nothing, though Miles felt the silence land pointed anyway. Something moved behind David's eyes, fast, there and gone, his mouth opening slightly like he might say something real before he caught himself and shut it again. "I've told you what I know," he said. "You two should head out. Got work to do." Neither of them pushed further. Miles broke down the tripod without a word, and they thanked David for his time, the words landing hollow between all three of them. David didn't walk them back to the car this time. Once inside, Chase started the engine before either of them spoke. "You jumped in a lot back there." "You kept smoothing everything over the second it got real." Miles kept his eyes forward. "I had questions too." "I wasn't trying to shut you out." "Didn't feel like that from where I was standing." "Well, maybe next time you could actually say something instead of just glaring at me through half the interview." Chase's voice had an edge now, sharper than it had been in days. "I made a call. I thought it was the right one. I'm sorry it wasn't, but I'm allowed to make a decision without you deciding it's some big offense." Miles turned to look at him properly. "It's not one decision, Chase. It's every decision. All week. Deciding what we're posting, deciding who talks to a source first, deciding I need a day off before I've even said a word about it." "Because every time I ask, you say fine, and then I find out three hours later it wasn't actually fine, so forgive me for trying to save us both the trouble." Chase's grip tightened on the wheel. "I don't know what else I'm supposed to do here, Miles. I've tried backing off. I've tried stepping in. Neither one's landed right, and I'm running out of versions of myself to try." "That's not fair." "None of this has been fair in two years, and I'm tired of being the only one who seems to notice that." His voice climbed, real heat in it now, something that had clearly been sitting coiled for longer than this one afternoon. "You want me to stop making decisions for you? Fine. I'll stop. I'll stop trying to make any of this easier, since apparently the only acceptable version of me reads your mind perfectly every single—" He cut himself off hard, jaw clenching, both hands white-knuckled on the wheel. The silence that followed felt loud. "Forget it," he said finally, quieter, all the heat draining back out of his voice as fast as it had come. "Forget I said any of that." "Chase—" "It's fine." He pulled out onto the road, eyes fixed straight ahead. "You're going to be mad either way. Doesn't matter what I do." Miles sat with that a long moment, something heavy settling in his chest that had nothing to do with David or the citation at all. He looked out his own window instead, and the two of them drove the rest of the way back in a silence that felt heavier than any of the ones that came before it.

By the time they got back to Frost Inn, the last of the daylight had disappeared behind the trees. The drive back had been quiet, not because there was nothing to say, but because neither of them seemed to know where to start after everything that had happened at the ranger station. Chase unlocked the door and set the camera bag beside the desk while Miles carried in the tripod. They moved around each other without thinking, setting everything down where it belonged, pulling the memory cards from the equipment before either of them sat down. The work still came easily. Miles opened the laptop and connected the hard drive while Chase started transferring footage. A few minutes later, Chase set a coffee beside him before taking the chair across from the desk. Miles glanced at it, then back at the screen. "Thanks." "Yeah." That was all. For the next hour, they worked through the footage. Miles sorted clips and built the timeline while Chase cleaned up audio, marking sections that needed adjustments before sending them back. They didn't have to explain much. They had done this too many times. The strange part was how normal it still felt. Until it didn't. Miles scrubbed through the footage from town hall, stopping when Casey appeared on the screen. Neither of them said anything. He watched himself recognize her, watched the brief moment where they'd both seemed caught off guard, then watched the conversation change. *"Where the hell were you, Miles?"* His hand stopped on the mouse. For a few seconds he let the footage keep playing before pausing it. The room stayed quiet, Miles staring at the frozen frame. "She really hates me." Chase looked over at him. "Miles." "I know." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I know she's angry. I know why she's angry." Chase didn't answer. Miles glanced at him, almost expecting the usual response, the one where Chase would remind him he'd been eighteen, that he'd lost Dani too, that leaving Cutter's Bend didn't mean he'd stopped caring. But Chase just looked back at the screen. Miles turned back to the laptop. "She was there for everything." His voice had gone quieter. "Everyone stayed. Everyone dealt with it. And I left." Chase shifted slightly in his chair but didn't interrupt. Miles pressed play again, and they watched the rest of the interview without speaking. When Chase appeared on screen, stepping in between him and Casey, Miles found himself paying attention to him instead of Casey. He hadn't noticed it at the time, the way Chase hadn't raised his voice, hadn't tried to win the argument, had just stepped in when Miles stopped being able to handle it. Miles looked away from the screen. He trimmed the footage later, keeping the confrontation but cutting the parts that didn't add anything to the episode. "The rest stays," he said. Chase looked at the timeline. "Okay." Miles waited a second. A few months ago, that wouldn't have been the end of it. Chase would have explained why he thought it was the right choice, or why Miles was being too hard on himself. This time he just let the decision stand. Miles turned back to the edit. The room was quiet again, but this time neither of them tried to fill it. The rest of the edit went faster after that. They finished cleaning up the audio from Dale's interview, adjusted the footage from David's interview at the ranger station, and worked through the timeline until the episode finally started to feel like a complete story instead of a collection of pieces. Miles watched the playback again, adjusting the order of the clips. "The transition here feels off." Chase looked over from the other side of the desk. "Where?" "Between Dale giving us the citation and going back to David." Miles moved the cursor back a few seconds. "It jumps too quickly." Chase leaned closer to look at the timeline. "Put the explanation from Dale first. Let people understand what we found before we show them why it matters." Miles nodded and moved the clips around. That part had always been easy. The work. The editing. Knowing what the other person meant without needing a full explanation. A few minutes later, Miles stopped again. "The audio on Dale's interview is still off." Chase stood and came around behind him. "Let me see." Miles shifted slightly as Chase leaned over the back of the chair and reached around him for the wireless mouse. The familiarity of it caught him off guard. "This section is peaking," Chase said, focused on the screen. "The background noise is swallowing your question." "Can you fix it?" "Yeah." Chase adjusted the levels, scrolling through the audio track while Miles watched. "There." Miles replayed the clip. The difference was immediate. "Better." Chase stepped back. "Good." Neither of them mentioned the moment. By the time they finished the final edits, it was fully dark outside. Miles leaned back in the chair, rubbing at his eyes while Chase opened the upload page. The title sat at the top of the screen. *The Danielle Sorbo Investigation: New Witnesses, Old Records, and a Lead That Doesn't Add Up* Miles read the title twice, thumb hovering over the trackpad without clicking anything. He hadn't planned for this case to ever go back on the channel, not after the teaser two years ago. He glanced at Chase, then back at the screen, closed the description box, and opened it again to check the wording a second time. Outside, the last of the daylight had gone fully dark against the window. He read the title a third time before he finally let his hand move away from the mouse. "Looks good," Miles said. Chase nodded and finished filling in the description. This was the first real update they'd given their audience since the case reopened. When everything was ready, Chase looked over. "Ready?" Miles nodded. "Yeah." Chase clicked publish. For a few seconds they watched the screen. The view count stayed at zero. Then it moved. One. Three. Seven. Miles let out a quiet laugh. "I always forget how strange this part is." Chase glanced over. "What?" "Watching people find it." A small smile crossed Chase's face. "Remember when we celebrated fifty subscribers?" Miles smiled. "With gas station cupcakes." "They were terrible." "They were stale." "You still ate two." "They were cupcakes." Miles shrugged. Chase laughed, and Miles looked over before he could help it, smiling in response. Something in his chest jumped at the sound. He hadn't realized how long it had been since Chase laughed because of something he'd said. The comments started coming in faster as the evening went on. People were recognizing Cutter's Bend, remembering the teaser, asking questions they'd been waiting two years to ask. Most of them were focused on David. Why hadn't he mentioned the citation? Why did he seem so surprised when they brought up the ice-cutting operation? A few people were already speculating that the car seen near the tree line that week might have belonged to him. Miles scrolled through them while Chase added notes beside him. "People are already suspicious of him," Chase said. Miles looked over. "Can't blame them." "No." Chase clicked back to their timeline, and for a while they worked without talking. The silence wasn't uncomfortable. It was familiar. That was the problem. They still knew how to do this. Five years of working together didn't disappear because they'd stopped being together. They still knew how the other person thought, how to divide the work, how to build an episode without needing to explain every decision. It was the one thing that had never really broken. Eventually, Chase closed the laptop with a deep breath. "Miles." Something about his voice made him look up. "What?" Chase was quiet for a moment. "I think we need to talk about what happens after this." Miles frowned slightly. "After the case?" "Yeah." He waited. "We figure out the next one." Chase looked down. "I don't think I'm going to." Miles stared at him. "What?" "Take the next case." The words didn't make sense at first. "You mean you want to take a break?" Chase shook his head. "No." A cold feeling settled in Miles's chest. "Chase." "It's time, Miles. We need to figure out what we're doing." "Why does it sound like you're leaving?" Chase was quiet. Because he was, not in the way Miles had imagined, not storming out, not walking away in the middle of a fight. Just making a decision. "I think after Cutter's Bend, we need to figure out what the channel looks like without us doing everything together." Miles looked at him. "Without us?" Chase met his eyes. "I think I need to step away." The room felt suddenly too quiet. "You've thought about this." "Yes." The honesty caught him off guard. "How long?" Chase looked down at his coffee. "A while." Miles swallowed. "And you didn't tell me?" "I didn't know how." That answer hurt more than he expected. "Why?" Chase was quiet for a moment. "Because every time we talk about anything between us, it turns into a fight." Miles opened his mouth. Chase shook his head slightly. "I'm not saying that to blame you. I'm saying I didn't know how to bring this up without it becoming another argument about what happened two years ago." Miles looked away, because he knew he couldn't argue with that. "We're good at this," he said quietly. Chase looked at him. "I know." "Then why isn't that enough?" Chase's expression changed slightly. Not anger. Not frustration. Just sadness. “Because we’re good at the job. We stopped being good at us a long time ago.” Miles went still. The words landed because they were true. For two years, he had told himself they were okay because they could still work together, because Chase was still there, because they'd found a way to exist after the breakup. He had never stopped to think that maybe Chase was only staying because walking away was complicated. The channel was their job. Their income. Their entire routine. Leaving wasn't as simple as ending a relationship. "We'll figure out the practical stuff," Chase said. "The channel. The cases. Everything." Miles looked at him. "You already have a plan." Chase hesitated. "I've had time to think about it." That was the part Miles couldn't get past. Not that Chase wanted space. That Chase had gotten far enough to imagine his life without Miles in it. "We don't have to solve it tonight," Chase said. Miles nodded because he didn't know what else to say. "Okay." Chase stood and gathered the notes from the desk. "I'm going to shower." "Okay." Chase paused at the bathroom door. For a second Miles thought he might say something else. He didn't. The door closed. Miles sat there a while after the door closed, the laptop still open beside him, comments blinking in one after another. *You two are the whole reason I still believe in love.* *The way Chase stepped in for him gave me chills.* *So lucky to get to work with the person you love every day.* He read them twice, then closed the laptop, and sat in the dark feeling like he'd just lost something he hadn't even realized he still had.

Morning came grey through the thin curtains, the same as it always did here, though nothing about the room felt the same as it had the night before. Chase was already up, dressed, folding yesterday's clothes into his bag with more precision than the task actually required, smoothing each fold flat before setting it aside. Miles lay still for a moment, watching him from across the room, and felt the whole weight of last night settle back into his chest before he'd even said a word. "Morning," Chase said, not looking up. "Morning." Miles pushed himself upright and sat there a moment, blankets pooled around his waist, watching Chase move through the small, practiced rituals of getting ready. He'd watched this exact routine a thousand mornings over five years, and it had never once occurred to him it might be something he'd eventually have to unlearn watching. He got dressed in silence, the quiet stretching out thin and careful between them, nothing like the comfortable silences they'd built these last few days. This one had edges. Chase had coffee waiting on the desk, same as always, and Miles almost said something about it, almost pointed out the absurdity of him still doing that small kind thing the morning after telling Miles he was leaving. He didn't. He drank it instead, and it tasted like nothing much at all. "So." Chase sat down across from him, notepad in hand, all business. "What's the plan today." "I don't know." Miles turned the coffee cup slowly between his hands. "What do we actually have? Permits are still pending. David's not talking. We're sitting on a tree line tip and a citation with no follow-through." "We could try Bertie again. See if anything surfaced since the episode went up." Chase said it evenly, though something in his voice sounded like he was reaching for normal and not quite finding it. "Maybe." Miles didn't have anything better. He hated that he didn't have anything better, hated sitting here with nothing solid to chase, nothing to do but exist in this room with everything unsaid between them taking up all the remaining air. Neither of them moved to actually plan anything. Chase clicked his pen once, twice, a small nervous habit Miles hadn't seen from him in years. Miles watched him do it and didn't say anything. "We could canvas near the ice-cutting operation again," Chase tried again. "See if any other property owners remember something from that week." "Sure." Still neither of them moved. The morning kept sitting there, stalled, both of them going through the motions of planning a day neither had the energy to actually start. Miles thought about reaching across the space between them, thought about saying something real, and found the distance too wide to cross with just words this early, this raw. "Chase." "Yeah?" Miles didn't actually know what he meant to say. He'd opened his mouth on instinct, some old reflex to fill the space, and found nothing behind it that felt safe to say out loud. "Nothing. Never mind." Chase studied him a second, something careful and unreadable in his face, like he was waiting to see if Miles would try again. When he didn't, Chase looked back down at his notepad, jaw tight. "We don't have to figure out everything today," he said, quieter now. "The case, I mean." "I know." They sat with that a moment, the coffee going lukewarm between them, both of them circling the same unspoken thing from opposite sides of the room. Miles's phone rang, breaking the stillness before either of them had to decide what came next. Unknown local number. He answered, grateful despite himself. "Hello?" "Miles! Good, glad I caught you." Lenny's voice came through warm and easy, and something in Miles's chest loosened slightly at the familiarity of it. "I've been digging through those old sign-in sheets, like I promised. Found quite a bit. Some old photos too, from around that time. A few of you and Dani, if you can believe I still had those tucked away." "You found photos?" Miles felt something catch in his throat. "A whole stack. Program stuff mostly, but you two are in a fair few. Thought you'd want to see them." Lenny's voice softened. "Why don't you and Chase come by the diner for lunch? My treat. I'll bring everything, and you can eat something that isn't gas station coffee for once." Miles managed something close to a laugh, the first real one all morning. "We'd like that. Thank you, Lenny." "Course. Anything I can do. Noon work for you boys?" "Noon's good." He hung up. "That was Lenny. He's got the sign-in sheets and some photos of me and Dani. Wants to meet at the diner." Something shifted in Chase's expression, professional distance cracking slightly. "That's good. Could be something real." "Yeah." For the first time all morning, they had somewhere to actually be, and both of them seemed to breathe a little easier for it, the stalled tension of the last hour finally given somewhere to go. --- Bertie's was already half full when they arrived, Lenny waving them over from a corner booth, a worn cardboard box sitting on the table beside him. He looked genuinely delighted to see them, standing halfway up before they'd even reached the table. "There they are." He shook Chase's hand warmly, then pulled Miles into a quick, solid hug, patting his back twice before letting go. "Sit, sit. I already ordered you both burgers, hope that's alright. Bertie said you liked yours the same as always, Miles. Some things don't change, I guess." "Perfect," Miles said, sliding into the booth, something easing in his chest at the simple, familiar kindness of it. Bertie came by a moment later with three waters and a fresh pot of coffee, topping off Lenny's mug without being asked. "You boys treating him alright?" she asked, nodding at Lenny. "This one's been asking about you two every day this week." "He has, has he," Miles said, smiling despite everything. "Wanted to make sure you were eating something besides gas station coffee." Lenny winked, and Bertie laughed, moving off to the next table. Once she'd gone, Lenny opened the box, pulling out a thick stack of yellowed sign-in sheets, sliding them across the table with care, like they were something fragile. "Took me longer than I meant to organize these. My filing system in my thirties left something to be desired. Half of it was just shoved in a drawer, if I'm honest." Miles took the top sheet, Dani's looping teenage handwriting catching him off guard, something in his chest tightening at the sight of it, small and familiar and impossibly young. "She had the worst handwriting of any kid I ever ran a program for," Lenny said fondly, watching Miles's face. "Genuinely terrible. I used to tease her about it. She'd tell me it was efficient, not messy, like there was a difference." "There wasn't," Miles said, a real smile tugging at his mouth now. "No, there really wasn't." Lenny chuckled, flipping through more pages with him, pointing out different entries, different weeks, small stories attached to half of them, a program trip here, a fundraiser there, easy and warm, in no hurry at all. Chase sat quiet beside Miles, letting the moment stretch, occasionally reaching over to look closer at a page himself. Their food arrived, and they ate while Lenny kept going through the stack, the conversation drifting easily between memories and the actual task at hand, nothing rushed about any of it. "Here's the week you're asking about." Lenny finally tapped a page near the middle of the stack. "She signed in twice that week, same as usual for the after-school program." "Twice," Chase said, leaning in to look. "Is that normal for her?" "Usually, yeah." Lenny frowned slightly, flipping to the next page, taking his time with it. "Though there's a third entry here I genuinely don't remember noticing before, going through all this." He turned the sheet so they could both see. "Evening slot, a Thursday. We didn't run programs on Thursdays that year. Never did." Miles felt something go very still in his chest. "She signed in on a night there wasn't a program?" "Looks that way." Lenny studied the page again, frowning slightly. "Can't say I remember it. Might've stopped by on her own, kids did that sometimes if they had a key or knew somebody'd be around. I wish I had a better answer for you." Chase and Miles exchanged a glance. "What day, exactly?" Miles asked. Lenny checked, running his finger along the row. "Two days before she disappeared." The table went quiet for a moment, the noise of the diner suddenly very far away. "There's the photos too," Lenny said gently, after a beat, pulling out a small stack, sliding them across like he was handing over something precious. "Didn't want to lead with anything sad. Thought you might want to see her smiling first, before we get into any of the harder stuff." Miles picked them up slowly. The first was a group shot, a summer program lineup, a dozen kids squinting into the sun, Dani grinning wide in the middle row, elbow jabbed into Miles's ribs beside her, both of them mid-laugh at something the camera hadn't caught. "That's a good one," Lenny said softly. "I remember that day. You two got in trouble for setting off the sprinklers early, if I recall." Miles felt his throat tighten, a laugh and something sadder tangled together. "That was her idea." "I know. She told me herself, proudly, about ten minutes after it happened." Lenny smiled, easy and warm, clearly enjoying watching Miles hold the memory again. Miles flipped to the next photo, and the next, old moments surfacing with each one, Lenny narrating a few of them, quiet and fond, until Miles reached one near the bottom, a slightly blurrier shot, taken from further back, a handful of older teens gathered near the hall's entrance. "Who's that?" Chase asked, tapping the edge of the photo, a young man standing a little apart from the group, not quite looking at the camera. Lenny took the photo, studying it a moment. "One of my kids. One year above you and Dani, if I remember right. Good student. Quiet, though, always a little separate from the group, like he is here." He tapped the edge of the photo, thoughtful. "You remember him well?" "Well enough. He was a good kid. I tried getting him to socialize more, but he never really took to it. He mostly stayed to himself, studying. Had these big dreams of making something of himself so he could take care of his family." Lenny smiled fondly, like a proud father talking about his own children. "Wait a minute." Chase slid closer to Miles, resting his arm along the back of the booth behind him, leaning in for a closer look at the photo. Miles felt himself tense up before forcing himself to relax into it. "Is that Dani?" Miles refocused on the grainy photo. Sure enough, almost completely cut off in one corner of the frame, Dani had wandered into the shot. The quiet boy they'd just been discussing wasn't looking at the camera at all. He was looking straight at her, and she was looking right back. "Lenny, do you remember his name?" Miles asked, excitement creeping into his voice. He turned the photo around, pointing out Dani in the corner. "Look. They're staring at each other like they're trying to communicate something. He might know something." Lenny stared down at the photo, brow furrowing, and didn't speak right away. He reached up and stroked his chin, lost in thought. "I wish I did. I remember him, and how he was back then, but his name completely escapes me." He tapped the photo. "It'd have to be in the sign-in logs, though. Is this one dated? Check the back." Miles flipped the photo over, and the disappointment settled into his stomach, unwanted but familiar. "No." He stared at the photo again, like something might jump out at him. "It has to be the year she went missing, though." "How can you tell?" Chase asked. "The banner in the background. I can't see all of it, but I can make out the word 'seniors.'" Miles pointed. "If he was only a grade above us, that makes us juniors. That's the year she went missing." Lenny's eyes went wide before a grin broke across his face. "Maybe you should've been a detective." Chase moved his arm fully around Miles's shoulders, pulling him close. "He's amazing, isn't he?" Miles smiled, a little embarrassed, and a lot flustered by the warmth in Chase's voice, by the arm still resting around him like it hadn't just spent all morning being businesslike and careful. "Always has been. All my kids are something special." Lenny closed the lid on the box gently. "Tell you what, you boys keep this stuff for your investigation, and I'll see what else I can find, try to jog this old memory of mine. I miss Dani something fierce. Whole town does. Be nice to get some closure for our girl." Miles felt a lump rise in his throat and cleared it with a nod. "Thank you, Lenny." The three of them finished their burgers while Lenny kept sharing stories, easy and unhurried, Miles as a kid, Dani as a kid, the two of them thick as thieves the whole way through. It was the kind of lunch Miles hadn't let himself have in years, warm and uncomplicated, and for a little while the case and everything sitting unresolved with Chase both felt further away than they had all morning. It didn't last past the parking lot. They said their goodbyes to Lenny, the cardboard box now tucked under Chase's arm, and the second the diner door swung shut behind them, the easy warmth of the last hour began to recede, replaced by the same careful distance that had followed them out of the motel that morning. Chase's arm was gone from around him now, tucked back at his side, and Miles felt the absence of it more than he wanted to admit. "That was good," Chase said, unlocking the car. "Real, I mean. Not just nice." "Yeah." Miles climbed in, the box settling between them on the seat, Dani's handwriting and a stranger's half-turned face riding along in the dark. "It was." Neither of them said anything else as they pulled out of the lot, the warmth from Chase's arm around him still lingering somewhere Miles couldn't quite shake, sitting uneasily alongside everything neither of them had figured out how to say yet.