The cold had teeth that morning—sharp, dry, Montana February teeth that bit through Bruce’s overcoat as he stood on the front steps of the precinct. Cameras had already gathered before dawn; their metal husks and telescoping masts glinted under the early sun. A half-circle of reporters swarmed the base of the steps like carrion birds waiting for something to die.

  Bruce had stood in front of cameras before—commendations, small-town press junkets, community outreach. But this was different. This wasn’t a parade of happy families and local news anchors smiling in puffy jackets. This felt like standing in front of a firing squad that hadn’t been given clear instructions.

  Jac stood beside him, trying to look calm. Her jaw was set, her shoulders drawn back, but her eyes were tired. The last ten days had put years on her. Bruce saw it clearly now: whatever was hunting them was aging them faster than life had planned.

  Commissioner Bill Twigs stepped up to the podium, flanked by Ritter on one side and a stone-faced mayor on the other. Twigs was a tall man, barrel-chested, more politician than lawman—nap-perfect hair, black gloves, and a wool coat worth more than Bruce’s monthly salary. His breath steamed in front of him as he adjusted the microphone. Reporters leaned forward. Cameras flashed.

  Twigs began. “Good morning, and thank you for being here.” His voice was deep and steady, practiced enough to sound authoritative but warm enough to pass as empathy. “As many of you know, the city of Billings has suffered a series of violent and tragic events over the last ten days. Our citizens deserve answers. Our families deserve safety. And our law enforcement deserves every federal resource available as we move forward.”

  A ripple of clicking shutters moved through the crowd. Twigs continued. “Effective immediately, the Billings Police Department—alongside the Montana State Police, the FBI, and the United States Marshals Service—has issued a nationwide APB for one individual: Mick O’Conner, a local property owner believed to have information critical to our ongoing investigation into four homicides.”

  Bruce watched Jac from the corner of his eye. She didn’t flinch, but he knew she hated this. They both did. Saying Mick’s name like this tasted wrong. But Billings needed a suspect, and Mick was the only one whose chaos fit the narrative Ritter needed.

  Twigs went on. “Mr. O’Conner operates numerous rental properties, storage facilities, and warehouses throughout Billings and the surrounding county. Several of these locations intersect with the investigation into the deaths of four individuals connected to a recent internal dispute at the research firm MentaTech.” He paused subtly, letting the implication settle. “Mr. O’Conner is wanted for questioning and should be considered armed and potentially dangerous. Citizens are urged not to approach him.”

  Reporters erupted—questions shouted over one another.

  “Is this a serial killer?”

  “Is this connected to cartel activity?”

  “Why wasn’t O’Conner in custody earlier?”

  “Is Billings safe?”

  “Are you confirming organized crime?”

  Twigs lifted a gloved hand. “We will not be taking questions at this time.”

  Ritter’s jaw tightened behind him, as if he wished he could be anywhere else. His face was ruddy with cold and stress. The mayor looked like she wanted to chew through her own lip.

  Bruce felt the weight of the televised moment—the whole city watching, believing the department had made progress, that they’d gained traction. He wished it were true.

  When the cameras stopped flashing and the people began dispersing, Bruce and Jac retreated through the precinct doors. Ritter brushed past without a word, disappearing down the hall toward his office. Twigs lingered long enough to shake a few hands, then left in a parade of state vehicles.

  Inside, phones rang off the hook.

  Radios blared, that excessive squawking you drowned out after a while. Officers moved in tight, fast lines. Reporters tried to push through the front desk until Ritter ordered them shoved back out. Civilians filled the lobby with rumors, sightings, hysteria. The tension had turned the entire building into a pressure cooker.

  Jac exhaled slowly. “That went well.”

  Bruce let out something between a snort and a cough. “Depends on who you ask.”

  “Ritter’s going to have a stroke,” she murmured.

  “He already had one,” Bruce muttered. “He’s just riding out the aftershock.”

  They reached their desks. A fresh stack of leads and tips waited—dozens of messages from people who thought they’d seen Mick at gas stations, grocery stores, abandoned farmhouses, and once, bizarrely, “at the mall pretending to be a mannequin.”

  Bruce flipped through the pages with increasing irritation. There was nothing useful, real, or tangible that would help them breathe.

  Jac read his face. “Still no sightings that make sense?”

  “Nope. Mick’s a ghost. Or he’s hiding so well the devil himself couldn’t dig him out.”

  Jac didn’t smile.

  Bruce sat down heavily. His body felt older today. He reached for the file containing the John Doe’s fingerprints—Stall’s prints, whatever the hell his name really was—and shoved them deeper into the outgoing tray.

  He’d already sent the national request before dawn. If the man existed in any federal database, something would come back. Eventually. Maybe.

  Jac watched him for a moment, then shifted the topic gently.

  “Spoke to my mom last night, like really spoke to her. I—I’ve been avoiding her too. She’s been leaving messages and I haven’t been returning her calls.”

  Bruce looked up. He could relate to her sentiments.

  “She told me something,” Jac said quietly. “About my father.”

  He didn’t speak, but she had his undivided attention.

  “She said he started to break when he stopped talking about what scared him. When he tried to carry everything alone. I took that as meaning: fear isn’t weakness—it’s a warning. It means you still care. It means you still have something to lose.”

  “Something to lose?”

  “Your humanity, Bruce.”

  Bruce looked down at his hands. “Your mom’s a smart woman.”

  “Yeah,” Jac said softly. “She is.”

  By late morning, the precinct had quieted just enough for Jac and Bruce to breathe. A dozen officers remained glued to phone lines; forensic reports came in by the minute; and rumors about Mick O’Conner—most of them ridiculous—flowed through dispatch like floodwater.

  Bruce checked the clock. “We’ve got thirty minutes before the task force briefing. Safehouse first?”

  Jac nodded. “The second one? I thought Goodmen and Jones took care of it?”

  “No, they didn’t get around to it. The newer lease.” Bruce grabbed his coat. “Let’s go before Ritter decides he wants us babysitting reporters.”

  The air outside was brittle-cold, the kind that cracked in your lungs. Bruce’s dented Crown Vic idled at the curb, windshield wipers ticking against frost.

  They rode in silence for several blocks, the heater sputtering warm air only when the engine bothered to cooperate. Bruce could tell Jac was rehearsing the morning’s emotional fallout; her fingers tapped occasionally against her knee, then stilled, then tapped again.

  Halfway to the warehouse district, Bruce broke the quiet. “Your mom’s story about Jack…” he said carefully. “It reminded me of something.”

  Jac glanced over, waiting.

  “Your dad—he was commissioner when I came on. My first year. I thought he hated me.” Bruce huffed a humorless laugh. “Turns out he just thought I talked too much. Kept calling me ‘the Mouth.’”

  A real smile flickered across Jac’s face. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”

  “He was rough,” Bruce said. “But fair. Never met a man who could carry the weight he did. Most people crack under half.”

  Jac looked down at her hands. “Maybe that’s how he cracked too.”

  Bruce didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

  They pulled into the lot of the second safehouse—an industrial storage unit near the rail line. Gray corrugated metal. Rust stains down the sides. A perimeter of packed snow and silence.

  Only one patrol car was present. The responding officer, Baird, leaned against it, smoking a cigarette despite the “NO SMOKING WITHIN 30 FT” sign on the door.

  He straightened quickly when Bruce and Jac stepped out.

  “Detectives,” Baird said, flicking the cigarette into slush. “Unit’s open inside. Looks like someone busted in last night.”

  Jac lifted an eyebrow. “Last night?”

  Baird nodded. “Door was locked when the property manager closed up yesterday. This morning? Not so much.”

  Inside, the structure smelled of cold metal and something faintly chemical. The lights buzzed overhead, flickering weakly. In the center of the unit: a locker-sized cabinet sat open, its steel door crumpled inward like someone had punched it—not with a fist, but with a hydraulic ram.

  “You think Mick was here? Destroying incriminating evidence and then….?” Bruce wanted a resolution; for the pieces to fit, but knew it was a stretch.

  Jac crouched beside the cabinet. “This damage doesn’t match a pry bar.”

  Bruce didn’t crouch. He didn’t need to. He could see it all—scattered papers, loose insulation fibers, the blackened remains of something burned inside a steel pan on the floor. A makeshift burn pit.

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  Jac sifted what remained of the ash carefully. “This wasn’t a random break-in.”

  “No.” Bruce’s voice was low.

  Someone had beaten them to it. Someone who knew exactly where to look.

  Baird stepped forward. “Whole unit’s clean. No prints. No shoe impressions. No cigarette butts. Whoever was here didn’t leave anything.”

  Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. “What about security cameras?”

  “Dead last night,” Baird said. “Power surge or something.”

  Bruce swore under his breath. That excuse was getting old.

  Jac stood. “We’re missing something.”

  Bruce scanned the room again. “We’re missing everything, kid.” But then he paused.

  On the far wall—near the floor—was a faint scrape, not quite visible unless the light hit it at a certain angle. Bruce knelt beside it, ignoring the stiffness in his knees. He ran a gloved hand over the wall. A track. Thin, vertical, virtually a sliver. Something heavy had been pressed here; carried or dragged.

  Jac joined him. “You think it’s from the killer?”

  “Damn it, you know what I’m going to say,” Bruce’s growl was low, “I don’t know what it is, or how it adds up. The feeling is getting old.”

  Jac straightened. “So we’ve got: a busted cabinet, burned documents, no prints, dead cameras, and signs of someone hauling something heavy.”

  “Yep.” Bruce rose slowly. “And Ritter’s about to paint a narrative with everything we give him, so let’s be careful.”

  Jac exhaled. “Mick.”

  Bruce grimaced. “He’s the only name that won’t make the city riot.”

  But neither of them said what they were both thinking:

  This doesn’t feel like Mick.

  Back in the car, Jac watched the warehouse shrink behind them. Bruce could see her jaw tighten again—the way it did when she knew something didn’t fit.

  “You did good in there,” Bruce said.

  She blinked. “I didn’t really do anything.”

  “Sometimes doing good is just noticing what scares you.”

  Jac looked out the passenger window, silent for a long few seconds. Then: “Bruce… you should go home tonight.”

  He kept his eyes on the road. “I’ll get there.”

  “That’s what you said the last three nights.”

  “Yeah.”

  She waited, but he didn’t offer anything else. “You don’t have to talk to me about it,” she said quietly. “But don’t pretend this isn’t eating you alive.”

  He let out a slow breath. “I know.”

  Jac nodded once and didn’t push, but her voice was soft when she finally added: “My dad used to say that when a case gets inside you, you either let it talk or you let it rot. One of those will kill you a hell of a lot faster.”

  Bruce’s grip tightened imperceptibly on the steering wheel. He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The road stretched out ahead of them—cold, empty, and full of everything unsaid.

  By late afternoon, the station felt heavier than it had all week. Not noisier—just heavier, like the walls were absorbing every whisper of doubt, every missed lead.

  Ritter’s desk door slammed somewhere down the hall. Phones rang. Officers moved in quick, clipped strides. A few reporters still lingered outside the front entrance, waiting for fresh statements that weren’t coming.

  Bruce hated days like this. Hated the quiet between chaos. He dropped into his chair and stared at the mess on his desk: the copies of safehouse rental records, the routed calls about Mick, the early ME drafts. A thick, half-finished coffee sat beside the lamp. Buttons on his shirt were mismatched by one hole—not that Jac would point it out. She’d just fix it later with a tug and a look.

  Across from him, Jac typed silently into the incident report system. Her posture was straighter than earlier; the conversation with her mother had renewed something in her. But that only meant that Bruce had less he could hide.

  She paused mid-sentence. “You okay?”

  Bruce grunted. “Define okay.”

  “I mean…” She swiveled slightly toward him. “After this morning, the press conference and safehouse. I just—” She stopped herself. “Just… with everything…”

  Bruce forced a smirk. “Kid, if I wasn’t okay, you’d be filling out the paperwork to bench me.”

  She didn’t smile. “Bruce, I’m serious.”

  There was no escaping it then. He looked down at his own hands—battered, scarred in the knuckles, a faint burn mark he’d gotten from the lab fire years ago, before everything between him and Karen had begun to fall apart. Hands that used to be steady. Hands that shook now, only when he wasn’t paying attention.

  He took a slow breath. “I’ll… go home tonight,” he said, but it sounded like a lie even to him.

  “To talk to her?” Jac asked carefully.

  “To… check in.”

  Jac nodded once. She didn’t push. She didn’t try to drag an apology out of him for not going home sooner. She didn’t judge him for sleeping in a precinct where the coffee tasted like runoff and the couch cushions smelled like a generation of bad back sweat.

  Instead, she said, “You don’t have to figure everything out tonight. Just… don’t let the job take the rest.”

  Bruce stared at her for a long moment.

  “Your mom… she’s a wise woman,” he muttered.

  Jac’s lips lifted faintly. “She’d be thrilled to hear that.”

  Before Bruce could respond, Ritter appeared at their desks, red-faced, eyes still burning from his morning fury.

  “Both of you,” Ritter barked. “Briefing room. Now.”

  They followed him into the small side room where a handful of officers and supervisors were gathered. Ritter shut the door behind them.

  Commissioner Twigs hadn’t joined—thank God. The man’s presence alone made everyone sweat.

  Ritter spread several case photos across the table. “This is what we know,” he said, tapping the first image—Halden’s house. “Four deaths. Three confirmed homicides. One overdose, though it’s connected now by circumstance.”

  Bruce knew the next part. Ritter paced like a man defending a thesis that refused to be coherent.

  “Mick O’Conner is our only named suspect,” Ritter continued. “But we still need airtight links. Property records. Witness statements. Activity logs. You two”—he jabbed a finger toward Bruce and Jac—“are handling every connection tied to Stall.”

  Jac nodded. Bruce said nothing.

  Ritter pointed at Tally’s photo—the burned apartment, the smashed steering column.

  “The public wants answers faster than we can invent them. The press conference didn’t slow ‘em down. Not by a damn inch. Until something breaks, we keep tightening the screws.”

  “Tightening the screws” usually meant beating the bushes until someone squealed. But Bruce knew nothing was squealing this week—except the truth they didn’t have.

  “Yes, sir,” Jac said quietly.

  Ritter shot Bruce a pointed look. “Mick didn’t disappear on his own. Someone’s hiding him, someone’s lying for him, or someone’s got him six feet under. And we’d better pray it’s not the last one.”

  The meeting wound down, instructions given, tasks reassigned. When everyone had left, Bruce lingered behind, staring at the photo of the crushed Ringer.

  Ritter hovered near him. “Rough day,” the captain muttered.

  Bruce didn’t respond.

  Ritter tapped the edge of the table with two fingers, then surprised Bruce by softening.

  “Her old man… he’d have hated this case,” Ritter said quietly.

  Bruce blinked. “Jack?”

  Ritter nodded. “He had a moral compass. Too damn strong for politics. But he’d have chased a case like this until it drew blood. He’d have told you not to let the pressure break your back.”

  Bruce’s throat tightened. “Yeah. He probably would have.”

  Ritter squeezed his shoulder—a rare gesture—and left the room.

  Bruce stood there alone for another minute, letting the weight settle. When he returned to his desk, Jac was packing her bag.

  “You heading out?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I need… sleep. And some time to think.” She hesitated. “You should go home too.”

  Bruce opened his mouth to deflect, but stopped. “Yeah,” he said, surprising them both. “Yeah… you’re right.”

  Jac gave him a small, tired smile. “Goodnight, Bruce.”

  “Night, kid.”

  She left the precinct, stepping out into a sky the color of metal.

  Bruce watched her go. He sat a moment longer, fingers drumming the desk, wrestling with the thousand unspoken things inside him. Finally, he reached for the phone. He dialed home.

  It rang once. Twice. Three times. Then the machine picked up. Karen’s voice—soft, full of false cheer recorded months ago—filled the room: “Hi, you’ve reached the Franklin residence…”

  Bruce nearly hung up, but something in Jac’s words—don’t let the job take the rest—anchored him.

  He swallowed. “Hey,” he began quietly. “It’s me.” He paused. “I know it’s late. I know I haven’t been home. I’m… sorry.”

  He exhaled slowly. “I’m scared, Karen. I won’t pretend I’m not. Not of you or of us. I’m scared of this case. Scared of what’s out there. Scared of what I don’t understand. I didn’t stay away because I’m angry. I stayed away because… hell, I don’t know why. But I didn’t want to lose you. I still don’t.” He almost ended the message there. Almost. “But I’ll come by tomorrow. I’ll… be better.” His voice cracked on the last word.

  Bruce hung up. The dial tone hummed in his memories. He sat still for a long time before finally grabbing his coat and heading out into the night. This time, he didn’t turn left toward the precinct couch. He turned right, toward home.

  Whether he’d make it there or not—that he couldn’t say. But he tried, and in that moment, trying was the bravest thing he’d done in a long while.

  The night air had a sting to it—one of those cold Montana breezes that came out of nowhere and cut straight through cloth and bone. Bruce felt it as soon as he stepped outside. He drew his coat tighter, locked his jaw, and walked toward his car.

  The parking lot was emptier than usual. Most officers were still out following up on tips or combing through Mick’s known properties. A few patrol cruisers idled near the curb, engines humming, headlights fogging from condensation.

  Bruce lingered by his car door. He didn’t open it right away. He just… stood there. Breathing. Gathering whatever pieces of himself hadn’t been ground down by the last week. The voicemail to Karen still clung to him—like a bruise he kept poking.

  He exhaled and got in the car. The drive home was quiet. Not the usual patrol chatter from the scanner, because he’d switched it off; not the occasional mutter of commentary he’d normally throw at red lights or bad drivers. Just silence. Pure, heavy silence that settled in the car like a living thing. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to say if Karen answered the door.

  Should’ve said something better in the voicemail, he thought. I could’ve said something honest from the start. What stopped me from going home sooner? He stopped himself. Self-flagellation wasn’t going to solve anything.

  Traffic thinned as he reached his neighborhood. He turned onto his street and slowed near the driveway—the porch light was off. Curtains drawn. No car in the drive. His chest tightened. She’s not home.

  He pulled into the driveway anyway, letting the engine idle for a moment before cutting it. He looked up at the dark windows, pulse thudding in his ears.

  Maybe she went to the store, or she turned the light off because she was sleeping… Likely she was asleep… avoiding him. Or, maybe— Maybe she doesn’t want you back.

  Bruce leaned back in the seat, palms pressing hard into the steering wheel. “Don’t think like that,” he muttered. He needed to check inside, if only to quiet the gnawing uncertainty.

  He grabbed his coat and stepped out of the car. The walk to the front door felt longer than it should have. Each step seemed to pull more fear out of him, and he hated that. Hated feeling weak. Hated that the case had wormed its way into every part of him.

  He put the key in the lock. Turned it. The house opened into stillness—no lights, no TV, no evidence of anyone home. He flicked the switch by the entryway, illuminating the small front hall. The note on the kitchen counter caught his eye.

  Just the mail—nothing more. He checked the bedroom. Empty. Bathroom. Empty. Karen wasn’t home.

  Bruce let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Not relief, or disappointment, but something heavy finally settling. He flipped the light back off and left the house exactly as he’d found it. He returned to the driveway, stood there for a moment, then got back in the car.

  He didn’t drive anywhere specific—just started moving. Back toward town, back toward lights and noise and people. He passed the station once, then circled around two blocks, then stopped at an intersection long enough for someone behind him to honk. His mind wouldn’t settle.

  Finally—when the clock on the dash ticked past ten—he parked along a quiet residential street and sat with his hands folded. He wasn’t ready to go back to the precinct yet. Didn’t want to be home, didn’t want to be nowhere.

  He sat there for a long time. Long enough for the heater to fog the windshield, for him to think about Jack again.

  He could almost hear the man’s gravelly voice in his head: You can’t outrun the job, kid. You can only outlast it. He’d believed that once. Maybe he still did.

  He turned the ignition back on and headed toward the one place that didn’t make him feel trapped—work.

  As he approached the precinct again, he noticed something strange: a dark sedan parked a little too neatly across the street.

  His pulse pricked. Same make, same tint as the one from the safehouse district the night he returned to the storage lockup. Same shape sitting there after the precinct interviews earlier this week. Same car that’d been tailing them yesterday before Chet’s little stunt. But no one was inside this time. Or at least… no movement.

  Bruce pulled into the precinct lot, cutting the engine but not getting out. He sat there, watching.

  Headlights flickered further down the block. A car passed. Another. Still no movement from the sedan.

  He narrowed his eyes. Then the passenger door of the sedan cracked open, spilling a sliver of interior light across the street. A shape leaned out—someone in a heavy coat—and dropped a cigarette to the curb.

  Bruce let his hand drift to his holster.

  The figure stood, stamped the butt out, and shut the door. Then he walked away up the block, disappearing around the corner.

  Bruce waited thirty seconds. Forty. A minute. No one returned to the car. Finally, he forced himself out of his cruiser and walked toward the precinct entrance, glancing back once more at the sedan.

  “Paranoid,” he muttered under his breath, but the hairs on the back of his neck stayed raised.

  Inside, the station was quiet again—graveyard shift quiet. Only a few desk lamps were lit. A couple of officers worked reports. The vending machine hummed in the corner, struggling to keep warm cans cold.

  Bruce made his way to his desk. Jac wasn’t there—she’d gone home over an hour ago. He pictured her apartment, pictured her mother’s voice echoing in his mind the same way Jack’s echoed in his. He hoped she slept, that Karen called back, and tomorrow wouldn’t be worse than today.

  He sat heavily in his chair, rubbed a hand down his face, and told himself he’d only rest his eyes for a few minutes before finishing the safehouse report. Just a few minutes. But when the precinct clock struck midnight, Bruce was already asleep.