Page 28 of The Tracker

“No. Peter’s dead. Murdered. And someone sent us a photo.”

A beat of silence, then Keely’s breath caught. “Jesus, Evangeline…”

“I know. It doesn’t feel real. I woke up and Dawson was already on the phone. He’s different now. Shut down.”

“Like emotionally checked out?”

“Exactly. Like last night never happened.” Evangeline clutched the phone tighter, lowering her voice. “We’re being locked down. Dawson’s not saying much, but I can feel it. He’s scared. Or angry. Or both. I just… I needed to talk to someone who doesn’t speak in tactical jargon.”

Keely made a sympathetic sound. “You’re allowed to freak out. Just don’t do it alone.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” Evangeline pinched the bridge of her nose. “The letter opener used was mine. From my desk. Whoever did this wanted me to know they could get that close.”

Keely’s voice lowered, worry edging her words. “Who the hell?—?”

“I don’t know. But I need to talk something through—just as friends, off the record.”

“Name it.”

“I keep going back over the faces I saw at the gala,” Evangeline said quietly. “Not because I think I’ll suddenly remember something useful—but because something about that night felt wrong. Off. There was tension in the air, and not just from Peter. Someone was watching me—maybe more than one someone.”

“Anyone stand out?”

She paused, searching her memory. “There was a moment at the gala—Peter was arguing with someone. I couldn’t see who it was; I was on the other side of a door. I could hear Peter’s voice—tense, low, like he didn’t want to be overheard. I couldn’t catch every word, but the tone… it sent a chill through me. This wasn’t just some corporate posturing or a drunken spat. It felt darker. Out of place.

“Whoever was replying, sounded measured, cold and deliberate. Peter sounded smug. Confident. Like he was pulling strings that no one else could see.” Evangeline took a breath, “And now Peter’s dead. With my letter opener.”

Keely exhaled slowly. “This isn’t over, is it?”

Evangeline shook her head even though Keely couldn’t see it. Her voice, when it came, was quieter—steady, but hollow. “No,” she whispered, staring at the window’s reflection where city lights blurred into jagged ghosts.

A shiver raced down her spine, dread tightening like a steel band. Her arms wrapped tighter around herself as the magnitude of it all settled in—Peter’s murder, Dawson’s retreat, the isolation clawing at her ribs like a scream trapped in her throat. Her breath fogged faintly against the glass, a ghost of warmth on the edge of something cold and unforgiving. She didn’t know what scared her more—the killer's message or the silence that followed it. Either way, she felt it down to her bones: this was only the beginning. “Whoever did this? They wanted me to see it. They’re not done. They’re just getting started.”

10

DAWSON

Dawson stood in the shadows of his loft, one shoulder braced against the bedroom doorframe, the dim streetlight behind him casting long, fractured lines across the floor. The hour was late—too late for this kind of stillness. The city outside had gone still, punctuated only by the faint stutter of tires on wet asphalt far below. But inside, silence wasn’t peace. It was a chokehold.

Evangeline sat cross-legged on the bed, shoulders hunched, fingers drifting over the edge of the jersey she wore—soft with age and still holding the faint warmth of his skin. One side had slipped off her shoulder, the fabric grazing her thighs and pooling loose around her hips. There was nothing deliberate in the way it clung and fell, but it still made Dawson’s gut knot.

She worried a loose thread, every muscle pulled taut as if she was bracing for impact. Her hands balled into fists, pale crescents rising where her nails bit down. The air pressed in, hushed and dense, like the room itself waited. Her silence wasn’t fragile—it was tempered steel, wound tight and ready to ignite.

The laptop beside her had long since gone dark. Forgotten.

Dawson’s gaze traced the tension etched in her jaw, the way her shoulders curled in, bracing against some unseen blow. Allday she’d been like this—distant, unreachable, a shadow behind guarded eyes. Not shattered by shock, exactly; more hollowed out, as though the emptiness had settled before the grief could even arrive. Even when he’d showed her the phone, she hadn’t flinched. Numbness had moved in, quietly taking root where feeling should have bloomed.

He watched her falter, catching the fleeting shadow across her face, and felt a hesitant relief when she finally looked to him for support—not out of surrender, but a deliberate act of trust. That was what he craved most: not some fragile compliance, but these quiet moments when a person chose, despite everything, to lower their guard.

Old ghosts stirred beneath Dawson’s skin. He remembered Sheila—her practiced smile a mask for every betrayal, her tenderness always a calculated move. The memory of how she’d ruined him—her father’s connections with CID, the career they’d burned to ashes together, never once looking back—still haunted him.

Now, facing Evangeline, he saw a different kind of vulnerability flicker across her features—a raw uncertainty that left his gut twisted with warning, yet hope. He braced himself, wary of being fooled again.

But when Evangeline finally met his eyes, the honesty there unsettled him. Her gaze was clear, frightened but genuine. Unlike Sheila, who had always manipulated, Evangeline simply trusted. It was that trust—her willingness to be seen, weak and wounded—that undid him more than any calculated seduction.

He shifted, boots anchored to the floor, hands clenched at his sides. “Say something,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

She didn’t blink, didn’t turn—just stared ahead, unmoving.

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