A pounding on her front door jerked Sheriff Shea Callahan from the first deep sleep she’d had in what felt like months. The sound was urgent, desperate, completely unlike the typical middle-of-the-night emergencies she’d grown accustomed to handling. Her hand fumbled across the nightstand in the darkness, fingers closing around her Glock’s familiar grip as thunder rumbled in the distance. The digital clock glowed an accusatory 4:00 AM. Nothing good came of someone knocking at that time of the morning.
Her German Shepherd, Heidi, growled low in her throat and bounded from the bed where she’d been sleeping peacefully at Shea’s feet just moments before. The dog’s hackles rose as another round of frantic pounding echoed through the small house, accompanied by the sound of rain hammering against the roof with spring storm intensity.
“Shea!” Someone screamed her name with raw panic that made her pulse spike. “Shea, please open the door.”
Recognition flooded through her even before she reached the entryway. “Becky?”
Shea rushed to the front door and yanked it open, her gun hand hanging ready at her side despite knowing the voice belonged to someone she trusted. The sight that greeted her was alarming. Becky Miller, her best friend since their college days at the University of Arkansas, stood on the porch, absolutely drenched from the downpour. Her typically styled blonde hair hung in wet strings around a face gone pale with fear and exhaustion. Dark circles under her eyes suggested she hadn’t slept in days, and her hands trembled as she clutched a leather oversized bag against her soaked jacket. A small overnight bag sat at her feet.
Becky shoved her way into the house without waiting for an invitation, bringing with her the smell of rain. “I need your help.” Her voice broke on the last word. She swiped wet hair out of her face with shaking fingers. “Can I have a towel, please? I’m dripping all over your floor.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Shea set her weapon carefully on the hall table and rushed to the linen closet down the hallway, her mind already racing through possibilities for what could have driven Becky to make the three-hour drive from Little Rock to Misty Hollow in the middle of a thunderstorm. She returned with two fluffy towels and thrust them into her friend’s trembling hands. “Let me make some coffee. You look frozen.”
“No, I’ll make it,” Becky insisted, following Shea into the modest kitchen while attempting to towel-dry her hair with one hand. A puddle formed on the tile floor beneath her, but neither woman seemed to notice or care. “You can practically walk on that motor oil you call coffee.”
Despite the tension crackling through the room, Shea grinned at the familiar joke that dated back to their freshman dorm days. “And you can barely call what you make coffee. It’s more like flavored hot water with delusions of grandeur.”
Becky managed a weak laugh that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Let’s make our own then. Deal?”
“Deal.” Shea pulled two mugs from the cabinet while Becky located the coffee maker. “Nice cabin. Very modern.”
“Thanks. I’ve renovated since I bought the place.”
They worked in companionable silence for a few minutes, moving around each other with the practiced coordination of old friends who’d once shared a cramped apartment and later, a terrifying experience in an isolated cabin that none of them talked about much anymore.
The coffee maker gurgled and hissed, filling the kitchen with its rich aroma. Rain continued to pound against the windows, punctuated by occasional thunder that made Heidi’s ears flatten against her head. The dog had positioned herself between the two women, her intelligent eyes tracking every movement as if sensing the emotional undercurrent flowing through the room.
“I’ve heard about all the trouble this town has been having.” Becky broke the silence as she watched coffee slowly drip into the pot. “The Christmas fires made national news. I’d hoped that after everything we went through together in that cabin…well, that things would be easier for you. That you’d found some peace here.”
Shea busied herself pulling cream and sugar from the refrigerator, using the mundane task to avoid meeting Becky’s concerned gaze. “I’ve got a great deputy to watch my back, and my Heidi girl here keeps me company on the quiet nights. I’m doing okay, really.”
“Liar.” Becky’s voice carried affection mixed with exasperation. “I know you, Shea Callahan. I bet you’ve collected new scars since we last saw each other, haven’t you? Both the kind that show and the kind that don’t.”
The observation cut closer to the truth than Shea wanted to acknowledge. Her right palm still carried the angry red mark from smothering Gary Richardson’s match, and her dreams still occasionally featured burning buildings and trapped children. But discussing her own trauma wasn’t why Becky had driven through a storm in the middle of the night.
“How is everyone from our group?” Shea deflected, carrying her steaming mug to the kitchen table. “I feel like I’ve lost touch with too many people lately.”
Becky followed with her own coffee, which she’d doctored with so much cream it resembled café au lait more than actual coffee. She settled into the chair across from Shea with a heavy sigh. “Everyone’s moving forward with their lives, I suppose. Getting married, having babies, climbing career ladders. We don’t talk as much as we should—life gets in the way. I’ve been wanting to plan another girls’ weekend, something like we used to do every year, but…” She trailed off, staring into her mug as if it held answers to unspoken questions.
“But what?”
“I’m not sure they’d come. Not after what happened during the last one. That cabin, everything that went wrong…I think some of them would rather pretend it never happened.”
“They’d come if you planned it,” Shea said with more confidence than she felt. They’d all made a pact during their senior year of college to take annual trips together and to be there for each other during major life events. Marriage, babies, job changes—they’d promised to show up. But life had a way of eroding even the most sincere intentions, and that particular girls’ weekend two years ago had tested friendships in ways none of them had anticipated.
The silence stretched between them, comfortable despite the underlying tension. Outside, the storm showed no signs of abating, rain driving against the windows in waves that sounded like handfuls of gravel being thrown at the glass.
Finally, Becky looked up from her coffee, and Shea could see tears well in her friend’s eyes. “I guess you know that my divorce from Bill is final now. Has been for about six months.”
Shea nodded, reaching across the scarred wooden table to place her hand over Becky’s cold fingers. “It was already in process when I visited last year. I’m so sorry. I know how hard you tried to make it work.” She squeezed gently. “What’s wrong, Becky? What’s really going on?”
- Publisher : Winged Publications
- Publication date : December 16, 2025
- Language : English
- Print length : 324 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1968792457
- ISBN-13 : 978-1968792459