Jac arrived at the precinct before sunrise. The parking lot lights cast long, thin shadows across the pavement, stretching over frost-streaked windshields and the lingering footprints of the night shift. She tucked her hands deeper into her coat pockets as she climbed the steps, breathing out slow white clouds.

  Inside, Ritter was already pacing the corridor. He barked orders at two officers hauling stacks of paperwork down the hall toward Records. His voice carried the strain of someone trying to hold a city together with duct tape. Jac kept her head down, hoping not to be noticed yet.

  She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone.

  Not after the alleyway, though two days were between her and those fatal seconds that marked the tragic end of Luke Ringer.

  She found her desk and sat quietly, placing her notebook down with more care than usual. Five minutes passed before Bruce walked in.

  He looked… different. Yes, the same shaken and battered man who reached for his weapon when a pin dropped, but still different somehow. He held a Styrofoam cup of coffee like it was the only solid thing keeping him upright.

  “Morning,” he said, clearing his throat.

  “Morning,” she echoed.

  He hovered beside his desk rather than sit. His eyes were unfocused for a moment before landing on her, and Jac saw something—fear, maybe—tucked behind the exhaustion. Maybe that was the difference.

  “You slept at home last night,” she said gently.

  Bruce didn’t smile. “I went home. I didn’t stay. The house was empty.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug that didn’t have any fight left in it. “Let’s just… get through the day.”

  Before either could say more, Ritter barked something about “Twigs breathing down my damn neck,” and stomped past them. \

  Phones began ringing. Officers started piling into briefing rooms. The day was already turning hot.

  Jac focused on her notebook, flipping it open. Bruce moved toward the front office, grabbing the morning report printouts from the clerks. Neither spoke. They didn’t need to.

  They spent the next two hours buried in paperwork—rechecking statements, updating timelines, circling the same names they kept coming back to: O’Conner. Halden. Tally. Ringer. Stall. Stall…. Stall. So many deaths orbiting one name.

  Jac’s pen slowed as she realized she was holding her breath. The whisper of dread she’d been ignoring all morning crept up her spine again—soft at first, then firmer, like fingertips digging into her shoulders.

  Then, there was something new; a new ringing. One that Jac had never heard before. Across the bullpen, next to the unused desk, on top of the black filing cabinet, the precinct’s secondary line rang.

  Not the main phones, tied into dispatch services, or the office phone tree. Not Records. The secure inter-agency line.

  Jac glanced at Bruce, who had stopped mid-sentence. A thin crease formed between his brows.

  She picked up. “Billings Police—Detective Jac Vincent speaking.”

  Static hummed for a second. Then: “Detective Vincent,” a low voice murmured. “Do not speak. Just listen.”

  Jac’s hands had already planted her notebook firmly, preparing to write. Muscle memory. The voice was unfamiliar; strained, quiet, breathy in a way that made her picture a man hunched over a payphone, looking over one shoulder. Her hand tightened on the receiver.

  Bruce rose from his chair and moved closer, propping his ear to the back of the receiver.

  “Call me… …Milo,” the voice whispered. “I’m calling about the prints you submitted to the national database.”

  Jac felt her stomach drop. “Who are—”

  “Do not ask stupid questions,” Milo snapped. “If I give you anything else, you won’t live long enough to write it down.”

  Jac swallowed. “Okay.”

  Behind her, Bruce mouthed: Who is that?

  She shook her head once.

  Milo’s breathing rasped between sentences. “The man you found in that storage unit,” he whispered, “His legal name is Eric Ducks.”

  Jac went still, scribbling.

  Bruce followed her pen gliding across the paper, rubbing his chin.

  “That name will not be returned in your database search,” Milo continued. “You should stop expecting a response from the Agency or the Bureau. Those channels are… compromised.”

  Jac steadied her voice. “How do you know who he is?”

  There was a long pause. Whoever this was, he sure wasn’t worried about being traced.

  “Detective,” Milo said quietly. “Every day you meet someone who knows something you don’t know. Like the number to this particular landline in your building… Do you know this extension? Tell me if you do, I’ll wait.” He did. “Fine, I’ll take that as meaning you don’t know it. Just like you don’t know how deep this goes, or just how in over your head you really are.”

  Jac’s pulse hammered.

  “I’m giving you a path to close this case,” Milo said. “If you do not take it, if you keep digging into matters far above your clearance, you—and everyone around you—will disappear. You, your partner, Bruce.” There was another pause for effect. “Your families… Dead.”

  Jac stared at Bruce as Milo went on.

  “Eric Ducks worked in a specialized division whose projects you are not authorized to know about,” he said. “Just knowing his name is grounds for execution. He’s been scrubbed from all systems, flagged. You’re on a list now too, the only thing that saved you was not having his name in your request. It, just like him, is lost in the aether.” Milo made a fluttering whistle sound. “What does remain, however; His work. All of it is supposed to be under top secret clearance, but… Some of it has gotten out. Very few minds would be smart enough to even try and replicate it, and evidently some have tried. But he left behind a chemical signature—something unique. I will give you a fragment of it. Memorize it. Do not write it down.”

  Jac reached for her pen instinctively. Bruce shook his head sharply, but he didn’t try to stop her.

  Milo began reciting a sequence—a chain of compounds, numerals, subscripts, a structural ratio. It sounded like a formula someone might scribble on a lab whiteboard, but there was elegance in it too. She squinted her eyes and forced the numbers into her memory, carving them in hard as she tried to keep up. When Milo finished, he fell silent.

  Jac fluttered her eyes. “What does that formula mean?”

  “It’s the stabilizing segment of something called SynthiDermis,” Milo said. “A prototype material developed for… let’s call them special assets.” He exhaled shakily. “Detectives… if the composition used at MentaTech matches that sequence, your John Doe was Ducks. Close the case without ever speaking his real name. Lock Micks up, throw away the key. But for Christ’s sake stop investigating the death — stop looking for the real killer.”

  Jac’s throat tightened. “What are we walking into, Milo?”

  A tremor quivered through his voice.

  “You’re walking into a machine,” he said, barely above a whisper. “One built to erase people exactly like you.”

  Jac’s hand went cold on the notepad, her grip slipping on the pen.

  Milo’s final words were rushed, panicked. “Do not call me back. Do not file anything from this call. Do not continue the investigation. Walk away. Please. Before they send another one.” The line went dead.

  Jac sat frozen, staring at the phone a moment before ending the conversation.

  They weren’t the only people to hear the line ring. Jac glanced toward Ritter’s office, then back at Bruce.

  Bruce stepped closer. “What did they say?” He pulled at her notebook, but Jac slapped his hand away.

  “Not here,” she said, lowering her voice. “We need to talk in private.”

  Down the hall were a handful of empty rooms. Jac chose the first one on the right, closing the door as Bruce walked in behind her.

  He turned around and rocked back onto the desk. “Well?”

  Jac looked up at him, heart pounding. “He… he gave us a name.” She looked down at her notebook. “I don’t want to say more. He made it seem like—”

  “Oh. Come on, out with it, Jac! This isn’t the schoolyard, cut the dramatic bullshit! What the fuck did he say?“ Bruce’s patience was wearing thin.

  She jumped, forgetting how rough around the edges he could be. “He gave me a name and then… …he told me everyone that knows that name’s subject to death…”

  “So they knew our John Doe?”

  “They knew a lot more than that. More than they wanted to tell.” She caved, finally tossing Bruce the notebook.

  “Ducks. Eric Ducks.” She waited for him to catch up, watching him eagerly flip through the pages, stopping on the last page. “And a formula to prove it.”

  Bruce was studying the page, turning the little journal on its side. “I don’t understand. How does the formula prove it’s him?”

  “Supposedly it’s something he made; only he would know that segment of the code, or whatever it is. The guy said if this matched whatever MentaTech was working on, it’s him.”

  “So… Did he know the killer?” Bruce’s question was optimistic, a tone she’d not heard in ten days.

  “He definitely sounded like he did, but he wouldn’t tell me anything specific. Mentioned a product, or something. Synthi—“

  “SynthiDermis, it’s right here. I see it.”

  “He also mentioned that I shouldn’t write any of it down.”

  Bruce peered at her over the top of the notebook. “Well, I appreciate you ignoring that directive.”

  They laughed, but it was short-lived. Jac’s face cut quickly back to serious. There was something else he said, but Jac didn’t share it.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “So, we need to go back to MentaTech?” Bruce was rubbing his chin again, piecing it all together. He hadn’t noticed Jac’s stern expression yet.

  “We do if we want proof it’s this Ducks guy. I don’t know if I trust it, but he did say we wouldn’t be getting any other validation federally.”

  “MentaTech is not going to let us just walk in and look at the formulas for their patent technology…. Not without a warrant—“ He shook his head. “Not after Twigs just announced to the world that the killer was unaffiliated with MentaTech. We may have overplayed our hand this time.”

  Jac couldn’t understand Bruce’s hesitation.“Ritter’s been approved to search every place that Mick’s ever cast a shadow.”“

  “But,” his finger raised, “Mick’s got nothing to do with MentaTech! What else did he tell you, other than the impending death sentence? There’s got to be more.”

  Jac found a seat and planted herself in it. “ You’re walking into a machine,” the words replayed again as she tried to understand what it meant. “We aren’t supposed to tell anyone about Ducks; just close the case.”

  “That shouldn’t be an issue with the entire state hunting for Micks, but he’s not going to just confess to killing four people. Even if we corner him. My concern right now is proving that it’s him.”

  There was a twinkle in Bruce’s eye, the kind of look a man gave when he had a million-dollar idea. “When’s the last time you had an off day? It’s been, what, over a week?”

  “What?” Jac didn’t see where he was going with this. “Maybe longer? I don’t—”“

  “Rip those pages out, every detail about the call with that guy.” He straightened, tossing her back the little book. “I’m gonna go talk to Ritter. Don’t mention his name. Don’t repeat the call. Don’t even say ‘informant.’”

  “Bruce,” she whispered, “what are we supposed to do with something like that?”

  He didn’t answer. He walked past her, back out into the bullpen, eyes down the hall toward Ritter’s office, where the blinds were half-closed and two silhouettes were pacing inside—Ritter and Commissioner Bill Twigs.

  Bruce squared his shoulders. “Stay here.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He didn’t answer, disappearing into Ritter’s office; the door shut behind him.

  She couldn’t hear the conversation, but she saw enough: Ritter’s shoulders stiffening, Twigs’ jaw tightening, Bruce insisting, hands chopping through the air, Ritter shaking his head so hard his whole upper body moved, Twigs raising a hand sharply, ending the discussion.

  Bruce emerged a minute later. He walked back to Jac with a fake smile that fooled absolutely no one.

  “I’ll summarize,” he said. “We’re not getting a warrant, but…”

  She blinked. “What? Why would you go in there and ask—”

  “Hold on, let me finish,” Bruce said in a hushed bark. “I wanted to know if they’d even try… But that’s not the only thing I asked about… MentaTech’s bigger than some guy in a safe house and a handful of fired employees, maybe the department would let us take another look around, that’s not the important thing that happened while I was in there, though.”

  Jac felt heat crawl up her neck, her stomach tightening. “So what’s the play?”

  “Grab your bag.”

  Confusion flickered through her. “Sir?”

  “We’re done for the day.”

  Multiple officers glanced their way. Ritter shot Bruce a disapproving look from across the room but didn’t interfere. Twigs was already leaving the precinct, checking his watch as if he had better places to be—which he probably did.

  Jac stood slowly. “We’re… off?”

  Bruce nodded. “Yep. Commissioner said it was more than appropriate.”

  “But we just got the biggest lead in this entire case—”

  He cut her a warning look. In front of half the department, she couldn’t say anything more. She swallowed her questions and followed him toward the exit.

  Outside, the air was brittle again—like it had been waiting for them.

  Bruce opened the passenger door for her, a rare courtesy. Once inside, with the door shut, she turned to him.

  “Bruce. What the hell are we actually doing? We can’t just take off after getting a lead like that!”

  “We aren’t. This isn’t an off day for us. And we don’t have the blessing of the department chief, so—”

  “You want to go in without permission?”

  He shook his head. “Yeah, I do. But not today. We need to gather some intel first; acquire a line into that building without kicking down the front door. So… we find a guy with some keys.”

  She frowned. “Keys?”

  “People keys,” Bruce clarified. “Someone who knows everything about everyone who works there.”

  It hit her then. “Human resources.”

  Bruce grinned—dark, tired, but genuine for the first time in days. “Bingo.” He backed out of the parking spot and pulled onto the street before answering.

  “But why would he help us without a warrant?”

  “I don’t know why, yet. But maybe if we tail him for a little—“

  “Tailing MentaTech’s HR director? All night? You can’t be serious, Bruce.” Jac blinked. “Why him?”

  Bruce kept his eyes on the road. “He’s got access. Whether that be direct or indirect. Employee records, accounts, passcodes. He’s a direct link to all the information we need, plus he’s going to want to keep things hush. Only problem is we don’t have any dirt on him…” he shot a quick glance to Jac.

  Jac sat back, breath fogging the cold window. “Do we even know where he lives?”

  “Yep.” Bruce tapped the dash. “Public directory. Big house. Nice cars. Two kids. White picket fence. The whole thing.”

  Jac frowned. “He seems… normal.”

  Bruce gave her a quick, grim smile. “That’s what he wants you to think. We’re looking for what normal people do when they think no one’s watching.”

  Jac stared out the window as the city shifted around them, turning from the gray government district into tree-lined residential streets.

  —————

  The HR director lived in a perfectly average Billings cul-de-sac, complete with trimmed hedges, motion lights, and a basketball hoop that had seen better days. A line of identical ranch houses stretched down both sides of the street—every one of them neat, quiet, and painfully ordinary.

  Bruce parked half a block away, engine off, the darkness swallowing the car. The house they were watching glowed warm with family life—shadows moving past the drawn curtains, someone laughing loudly enough to echo across the yard, a television flickering blue against the picture window. Domestic. Safe.

  Jac stared at it for a long moment.

  Bruce cracked a thermos and poured coffee into the lid, handing it to her. “Dinner of champions.”

  She took it. The steam felt good in her face, thawing out some part of her she hadn’t realized was cold.

  Time passed without either of them talking. Eventually, Jac broke the silence. “He doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.”

  “Maybe he won’t,” Bruce said. “Maybe after the families are down for the evening.”

  The man inside thumped something heavy on a table. A kid ran from room to room, shrieking like only a five-year-old could. A woman walked by the window with a towel slung over her shoulder, laughing after him.

  Jac looked away. “Feels wrong, Bruce. I don’t like it.”

  “We’re doing our job,” Bruce murmured.

  “Still,” she said, “it feels like… we shouldn’t be here.”

  Bruce didn’t argue. He leaned back, resting his arm on the cracked vinyl of the door. The streetlight above them buzzed faintly, painting his face in sharp, tired shadows.

  “Jac,” he said finally, “I didn’t sleep at home last night.”

  She nodded softly. “I know.”

  He huffed a humorless laugh. “Not very subtle, huh?”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything,” she said. “It’s none of my business.”

  “It is,” he said, surprising her. “We’re partners. And you’ve been watching me fall apart all week.”

  Jac didn’t deny it.

  Bruce rubbed his temples, letting out a slow breath. “Karen… she had an affair. Or maybe she’s still having one. With Franklin, or whatever his name is.” He grimaced. “And yeah, he’s a dick.”

  Jac’s stomach twisted. “Bruce…”

  “Don’t,” he said softly. “Don’t try to fix it. I can’t fix it.”

  She looked at him in the dim light, the lines heavier around his eyes than she’d ever noticed before. “Does she want to leave you?”

  “I don’t know. I think she wants me to tell her to stay. But I don’t know how to be the guy she wants anymore.”

  Jac didn’t speak. She didn’t have the right words—not for something that big.

  Bruce went quiet for a moment, then continued:

  “When I went home after we talked yesterday? The house was dark. The kitchen light was on, but she wasn’t there. Her car was gone. I sat on the edge of the couch like an idiot, waiting for the sound of the garage.”

  Jac looked down at her coffee. Her fingers trembled slightly, but she wasn’t sure why.

  He sighed. “Sometimes I think this job eats everything. You don’t see it at first. You think you’re stronger than it. Then one day you look around and realize you’ve got nothing left but a stack of case files and a partner who’s too damn young for this life.”

  Jac gave him a sideways glance. “Old man.”

  He smiled faintly. “Smartass.”

  Outside, the HR director shut off the living room light. The house dimmed to a soft glow from the upstairs—soft silhouettes drifting past the curtains.

  Jac murmured, “He’s done for the night.”

  Bruce shook his head slightly. “The house is done for the night.” There was a quiet confidence in his voice—too confident, Jac thought. As if he were daring the man to prove him wrong.

  One of the kids darted by the upstairs window, chasing something with a toy. Bruce watched the small shadow with an expression she hadn’t seen on him before—something almost like longing.

  Jac noticed. She didn’t comment.

  The night deepened around them, the cold breeze rattling the leafless branches above the cruiser. Then, suddenly—another light. A small one. From around the side of the house. A narrow beam sweeping over the siding. Someone moving in the shadows.

  Jac straightened.

  Bruce leaned forward, alert. “Oh, is this action?”

  A figure slipped out from behind the house, casting a long, stretched shadow across the driveway. A moment later, the garage door rumbled open, and the HR director’s sedan rolled out—headlights off—coasting into the street like a man trying not to disturb his sleeping family.

  Jac exhaled in disbelief. “He’s actually leaving.”

  Bruce smirked, turning the key in the ignition. “What did I tell you, kid?”

  He waited a good fifteen seconds before shifting into gear and rolling after the sedan—headlights still off. They glided down the dark residential block like two ghosts trailing a third.

  “Just after midnight,” Jac muttered, watching the taillights faintly glow. “Can only be up to a handful of things at this hour.”

  The streets were empty—snow piled in soft, gray embankments along the curbs, the occasional porch light shining through the cold. They followed the HR director all the way back toward the business district. Once the streetlights thickened, Bruce flicked his headlights on.

  “He still hasn’t clocked us,” Jac said.

  “Yeah,” Bruce muttered. “It’s like he’s got tunnel vision or—”

  The car ahead slowed.

  Jac felt her stomach drop. She knew this part of town. Everyone did. Neon-lit windows. Back-alley doors. Twenty-four-hour “massage” signs. A strip of street that never slept and never cleaned itself up.

  The director pulled to the curb. A young woman in too little clothing stepped out of the shadows and opened his passenger door like it was muscle memory.

  He drove two more blocks, turned into an alley, and disappeared.

  “That’s it,” Bruce said. “That’s all I needed.”

  He swung the cruiser around the block, counting under his breath. He made the turn into the alley without hesitation—classic sting maneuver—and lit up the sedan with red and blues.

  Bodies scattered immediately—dark figures bolting into the shadows, scrambling over bags of trash, dissolving into the night wind.

  Bruce hit the loudspeaker. “This is the Billings Police Department. Driver, step out of the vehicle. Hands where we can see them.”

  The silhouettes froze. A moment later, the driver’s door creaked open, and Mark Stanley stepped out—wearing nothing but his boxer shorts and socks, hands raised high in humiliated surrender.

  Bruce didn’t miss a beat. “Cut her loose. We just want him.”

  Jac circled to the passenger side, tapping once on the frosted window before opening the door. A young woman sat inside, shivering, clutching her purse like a lifeline.

  Jac jerked her head. “Go. Make better choices.”

  The woman bolted out into the alley, heels clacking a shaky rhythm as she disappeared.

  Jac set up a perimeter while Bruce advanced.

  Stanley finally looked at him fully—and froze when he recognized Bruce’s voice.

  “Shit. I thought I was being followed tonight. Should’ve trusted my gut.”

  Bruce folded his arms. “Uh-huh. You got yourself into what we’d call a compromising situation. Ain’t that right, Jac?”

  Jac didn’t look up from scanning the alley. “Seems compromised to me, Bruce.”

  “Quite compromised,” Bruce echoed, drawling the words. “Mr. Goody Two-Shoes.”

  Stanley groaned. “Alright, alright. I get it. What do you want—a bribe? Money—?”

  “We want access,” Bruce said, cutting him off.

  Stanley blinked. “Access? To what? You mean… the whores?”

  “We don’t mean the whores,” Bruce snapped. “We need access to MentaTech. Everything Stall worked on. Can you get us that?”

  “Stall?” Stanley sputtered in the cold, his breath puffing in frantic little clouds. “You’re asking a lot. MentaTech seized all his work after he died—everything’s restricted. His accounts are disabled. You’d basically have to be Stall to walk into those files.”

  He shivered violently, his boxer shorts fluttering in the icy wind.

  Bruce nodded slowly. “Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you. Wow—the lengths we go to maintain our families, huh?”

  Stanley’s eyes widened. “You don’t expect me to just march in and request his account reactivated! That would raise every red flag we have!”

  Jac stepped in, voice flat. “Sure beats losing half your shit when your wife finds out you’re cruising for company the minute her head hits the pillow.”

  Stanley flinched.

  Bruce leaned forward. “What’s it gonna be, Stanley?”

  “F-f-fine,” he stammered. “What do you want me to do?”

  “We need access to Stall’s work. All of it. You’re going to find a way to let us look at it—and you’re going to create an entry point for us. Tomorrow evening. We want one more look around his lab.”

  Stanley swallowed hard. “B-b-but why? Your brass said the killer had nothing to do with MentaTech—”

  “We’re asking the questions here,” Bruce snapped. “We need access to the building.”

  “O-o-okay!” His voice was jittery now, more from cold than fear. “C-c-can I go home now?”

  Bruce finally smirked. “Be good, Mark.”

  Jac motioned the area clear once more before sliding back into the cruiser.

  They drove two miles in silence before Jac realized where they were headed.

  “You’re taking me home?”

  Bruce nodded. “Get some sleep. I’ll be back to grab you early. Around four.”

  Jac frowned. “Four? Why?”

  “We’re tailing Stanley all day tomorrow,” he said. “If trends hold, he and his family might have a target on their back now.”

  He sighed. “Thanks to us.”

  Jac understood immediately. “Because of the whistleblowers.”

  “Yeah,” Bruce said quietly. “I can’t sleep soundly tonight knowing what tomorrow might bring.”

  She nodded.

  Her apartment came into view—a small pool of warm light in the frozen dark.

  Bruce idled long enough for her to climb out. “Get some rest, kid.”

  “You too,” she said, though she knew he wouldn’t.

  Then the cruiser rolled away, tail lights shrinking down the empty street, leaving her alone in the stillness of her kitchen—cold, exhausted, and weighed down by everything she’d seen… and everything she would have to see tomorrow.

  She checked the clock. Three hours. That was all she had before he’d be back; before they’d uncover the last piece to the puzzle for Eric Ducks.She headed for the shower, then prepped for bed.