Page 59 of Silent Smile

Mills nodded slowly, his voice a raspy whisper when he spoke. "Sheila... Sheila Stone. Gabriel's daughter."

Gabriel's daughter.Not 'the woman whose mother I killed.' The phrasing struck her as odd.

Sheila pulled a chair close to the bed, sitting down to bring herself eye-level with Mills. "That's right. I'm here to talk about my mother, Eddie. About the night she died."

Mills' eyes darted away, focusing on the ceiling. "I don't... I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do," Sheila said, leaning forward. "I know you were there that night, Eddie. You borrowed Rayland Bax's car. We can place you at the scene. What I need to know is why. Why did you kill her?"

Mills remained silent, his jaw clenching. Sheila could see the internal struggle playing out on his face. The monitors beeped faster, reflecting his agitation.

"Look," she continued, her voice softening slightly. "I've spent ten years trying to understand what happened that night. Ten years wondering why someone would want to hurt mymother. I need answers, Eddie. And I think you need to give them."

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the steady beep of the heart monitor. Then, slowly, Mills turned his head to face Sheila. His eyes were hard, defiant.

"I'm not who you think I am," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "And neither was your mother."

Sheila felt her pulse quicken. "What do you mean?"

"Your mother..." Mills swallowed hard, his eyes darting to the door. "She wasn't just some random victim. She was looking into something. Something big."

The words hit Sheila like a physical blow. Random violence she could understand—it was senseless, but at least it made a kind of terrible sense. But this... this suggested purpose, planning. This suggested her mother had been targeted.

"What are you talking about?" Sheila pressed, leaning closer. "What was she looking into?"

Mills shook his head, fear creeping into his expression. "I can't... they're still out there. Still watching. Even in here, they have eyes everywhere."

"Who's watching, Eddie?"

His hand shot out suddenly, grabbing her wrist with surprising strength. "Ask your father about the Thompson case," he whispered urgently. "About why he really transferred out of Internal Affairs. Your mother found his old files, started asking questions..."

The heart monitor's steady beep accelerated. Mills' grip on her wrist tightened. Sheila's mind raced. Her father had never mentioned Internal Affairs—she hadn't even known he'd ever worked for them. Why would he keep something like that a secret from her? Had he just never thought to mention it…

Or had he deliberately withheld that detail about his past?

"Eddie," Sheila said, trying to keep her voice calm, "what questions was my mother asking?"

Mills continued as if he hadn't heard her. "I took Bax's car because mine was in the shop," he said, his words coming faster now. "They said it had to look random, like a burglary gone wrong. But your mother, she knew... she knew what was happening in the department. The payments, the cover-ups..."

His voice cracked. Sweat beaded on his forehead as the monitor beeped faster. Memories flooded Sheila's mind—her father's late nights at work during that period, heated phone conversations that would stop when she entered the room, her mother's worried expression as she watched him leave each morning.

"I never meant..." Mills gasped, his grip weakening. "I didn't want to hurt her. But they said they'd kill my girlfriend if I didn't..."

The monitor's beeping became erratic. Mills' eyes rolled back, his hand falling away from Sheila's wrist.

"Eddie?" Sheila stood up as his body began to convulse. "I need help in here!" she shouted toward the door.

Medical staff rushed in, pushing her aside as they worked to stabilize him. Sheila backed away, her mind reeling. What had her mother discovered? What did her father's old Internal Affairs position have to do with any of this?

And most troubling of all—why had her father never mentioned any of this?

She watched through the window as the medical team worked on Mills. Her thoughts drifted to her mother—not the mystery surrounding her death, but the small moments. The way she'd brush Sheila's hair before bed, somehow always knowing when her daughter needed that quiet comfort. The pride in her eyes when she watched Sheila train. Had she knownshe was in danger? Had she been trying to protect her family by keeping her investigation secret?

A doctor emerged from the room, breaking into her thoughts. "We've stabilized him," she said, "but he's unconscious. It could be hours before he comes around, maybe days. Maybe never."

Sheila nodded numbly, her mind already racing ahead. She needed to talk to her father to understand what Mills had meant about Internal Affairs. But Gabriel had been increasingly hard to reach lately, often disappearing for days at a time with vague explanations about training camps and coaching clinics.

She thought about his recent behavior—the missed calls, the vague explanations, the way he'd deflected questions about the past. She'd attributed it to grief, to his way of coping with Natalie's death.

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