Page 46 of Whispers in the Dark
Rook sat in the dark.The safe house was silent except for the quiet hum of the secure console. The air inside was cold, dry, static—no distractions, no movement. Just code and intent.
His fingers moved across the keyboard without hurry, eyes scanning Monroe’s admin logs as they updated in real time. Hewas in the relay again—Gideon’s back door, buried beneath a thousand layers of old code and forgotten hardware.
The facility’s internal audit system had just generated a minor anomaly report.
Subject H. Byron – Terminated.
Status: Closed. Verified. Flagged: Private thread— only.
Rook leaned back slightly and exhaled through his nose. She was sniffing the edges now. He clicked into her hidden queue. She hadn’t requested a deep trace. Not yet. Just flagged it for personal review. That meant she didn’t trust the answer—but she didn’t not trust it either.
She was hovering in the space between belief and suspicion. Perfect. He tapped in a single line of code. A subtle ripple.
Not a full scrub—that would raise a red flag. Just a redirect. If she ran a trace on the badge ID from the termination log, it would bounce to a second file—one already used on a legitimate disposal case from last year. Same tech. Same clearance level. Almost the same timestamp format.
It would look like a database hiccup. A system caching error. Something she’d note but wouldn’t chase. If she blinked. He watched her cursor move through the log. Slow. Calculated.
Paused. Hovered. Then moved on.
Rook smiled faintly. “That’s it.”
She wasn’t ready to believe someone had outplayed her. Not yet. Not someone inside. And definitely not him.
He closed the log window and opened a private file: encrypted notes, all tagged under his internal codename. His father could read them.
Thread 07: Henry Byron → Delivered Reaction pending Charlotte Everhart: status unknown Blackwell Institute: received alert. ETA to site?
He hesitated, then added:
Monroe: circling. Not biting.
His fingers paused over the keyboard.
Window remains open. But not for long.
He sent the update to a secondary drive, one that would auto-delete if breached.
Rook leaned back, folding his hands behind his head. He wasn’t worried. Not yet. But the game was officially in motion, and Monroe had just made her first wrong move. He would make sure her second was fatal.
Alex satwith Brad and Ethan, sinking into the butter-soft leather of the chair, too comfortable for how sideways things were going. "This is turning into a shit show," he said. "Waverly County PD’s making moves. They want the lead." He tossed two specimen bags on the coffee table. One held the picture, and one held the note. “I didn’t turn them over.”
"Ethan, you already said you'd take it," Brad reminded him. He picked up the two pieces of evidence.
Alex rubbed his temples. "Yeah, well, now this circus tent's got three rings. You're gonna need a whip and a chair to keep it under control." His face was too tired to flash with his usual smirk.
"I always loved the circus.” Ethan’s voice dropped, sharp and direct. "I notified HQ in DC. As of 0600, a task force under my command is operational. There’s enough work here for every jurisdiction to eat. But I’m not playing games."
He turned to Brad. “You’ve got four hours. I want the full story about whatever pulled you away from the restaurant earlier. Does it have anything to do with that female patient? The one Sophie intercepted with the ambulance?”
Alex leaned forward, eyes locked on Brad. “I was wondering the same thing.”
Brad exhaled, raking a hand through his hair. "A woman was found walking down US 83. Partially dressed. Catatonic. She’s been missing from Spring Hill for six months."
There was a beat—then Ethan exploded. "When the hell were you going to tell us?"
Alex followed fast. "You sat on that? Jesus, Brad!"
Brad looked between them, guilt creeping up his neck. “I didn’t have confirmation. Not until an hour ago.”
