Page 51 of Silent Home

And someone had clearly wanted her to know it was gone.

"Damn it," she whispered.Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

"Is that what I think it is?"Finn asked quietly.

She nodded, watching sparks catch in the wind."Tommy's laptop.So much for getting that warrant."

"You never took it out of your truck?"

She turned to him, suddenly feeling foolish and exposed."I hid it in there—didn't think anyone would find it.How did anyone know I had it in the first place?"

The sound of distant sirens carried on the wind.The fire cast strange shadows across the empty fields, making ordinary things like fence posts and dead cornstalks look sinister and alive.

"How did they know?"she wondered aloud."Did they bug my truck?How long have they been watching me?"

"You think he had help?"Finn asked."Someone who knew where the laptop was?"

"Or someone was watching Tommy's apartment, and they decided to search my truck and got lucky."The words tasted bitter in her mouth.How had she been so careless?

The first fire truck arrived, its red lights mixing with the orange glow of the flames.Firefighters jumped out, unrolling hoses and shouting instructions.But Sheila knew it was too late—anything useful on that laptop was long gone.

"We should have seen this coming," she said."After what happened to Tommy in his cell, we knew they had people on the inside."

"Hey."Finn touched her arm."This isn't your fault.You were trying to protect evidence."

"By keeping it in my truck?That wasn't protecting evidence—that was arrogance.Thinking I could outsmart them."She watched as the firefighters began dousing the flames."I did exactly what they wanted.Kept the laptop close, made it easy to find.And now..."

"And now we know something important," Finn finished."We know they're scared.Whatever was on that laptop—they couldn't risk letting you decode it."

She turned to him, really looking at him for the first time since they'd arrived.His face was lined with exhaustion, but his eyes were sharp, focused.

"They're watching us," she said softly."Right now, probably."

"Let them."His voice was equally quiet."They just showed their hand.They're not invincible—they're running scared."

The flames were dying now under the firefighters' assault, sending up great clouds of steam in the cold air.Sheila watched as her truck—and the evidence it had contained—was reduced to a smoking shell.

But maybe Finn was right.Maybe this wasn't just about destroying evidence.Maybe it was about sending another message:

We can get to you anytime.Anywhere.Even when you think you're being careful.

The question was: What was she going to do about it?

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The morning sun slanted through the station windows, catching dust motes as they drifted through the air.Sheila leaned closer to her monitor, fighting exhaustion as she clicked through another surveillance clip from Paul Wilson's archive.Beside her, Finn held a fresh cup of coffee but hadn't touched it, his eyes fixed on the screen.

The loss of her truck—and, more importantly, Tommy's laptop—gnawed at her.She'd spent the rest of the night updating security protocols, changing passwords, having Neville start the paperwork for replacement weapons.But no amount of bureaucratic busywork could erase the feeling of violation, of being watched and manipulated.The Irish-accented man had known exactly what he was looking for, had staged the whole thing to destroy evidence that might have exposed departmental corruption.

She wanted to dive deeper into that mystery, to chase down every lead about her mother's murder.But his warning about Star and her father still chilled her.He'd made it clear—pursue that investigation, and people would die.For now, she had to pivot back to the festival murders, had to trust that solving them might somehow lead to answers about the larger conspiracy.

She'd insisted on coming straight back to work despite Finn's concerns about her getting rest.Sleep wasn't an option, not with killers walking free.Better to lose herself in Wilson's surveillance footage, in the immediate puzzle of staged deaths and theatrical murders.At least that was something concrete she could pursue without putting her loved ones at risk.

"Stop," Finn said suddenly, interrupting her thoughts."Go back about thirty seconds."

Sheila rewound the footage.The timestamp showed two weeks ago, just after midnight.The camera angle showed the main hallway of the Coldwater Theater, the wall of production posters casting long shadows in the dim emergency lighting.

Charlotte Davis appeared in frame, walking quickly, her arms full of costume paperwork.She looked over her shoulder, then stopped abruptly as someone off-camera spoke to her.The sound was muffled by distance, but Charlotte's body language changed instantly—shoulders tensing, taking a half-step backward.

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