Chapter 14: Secrets in the Shadows

ROSEMARY POV

The note appears between the pages of a local history book while I'm restocking the genealogy section. Just a slip of paper with handwriting I don't recognize: You're in danger. Meet me at the old church cemetery at 9 PM. Come alone. - L. Barrett

My hands shake as I read it again. Lucas Barrett, the journalist who was asking uncomfortable questions yesterday. The one Holden threatened with barely concealed menace before escorting him from my shop like a bouncer removing unwanted customers.

I should throw the note away. I should pretend I never saw it. Instead, I find myself checking the wall clock every few minutes as the afternoon crawls by, my stomach churning with a mixture of dread and desperate hope.

By eight-thirty, I've convinced myself this is a terrible idea at least six times. By eight-forty-five, I'm locking the bookshop door and walking toward the cemetery behind the old stone church, my phone clutched in one hand and pepper spray in the other.

The cemetery at night is a different creature than it was during my daylight visit. Shadows stretch between headstones like fingers, and the wind through the pine trees sounds too much like whispers. I pick my way carefully between graves, using my phone's flashlight to avoid tripping over the uneven ground.

Lucas Barrett emerges from behind a marble angel like a ghost materializing. In the harsh LED light, his face looks gaunt, worried in a way that makes my pulse quicken.

"Thank you for coming," he says, keeping his voice low. "I wasn't sure you would."

"I'm not sure I should have." I glance around nervously. "What's this about?"

"You're Rosemary Decker. You inherited the bookshop from Millicent Decker three weeks ago." It's not a question. "You match the profile exactly."

"What profile?"

He pulls out a tablet, the screen bright in the darkness. "I'm not a freelance journalist. I'm FBI. Special Agent Lucas Barrett, and I've been tracking a pattern of disappearances for two years."

My blood turns to ice water. "Disappearances?"

"Women from specific bloodlines. Always in isolated mountain towns. Always during celestial events." He swipes through photos on the tablet—newspaper clippings, missing person reports, grainy photographs. "Margaret Riley, 1998. Sarah Decker, 1971. Elizabeth Morrison, 1944. Going back over a century."

The names hit me like physical blows. Sarah Decker—that has to be family. And Margaret Riley—Sarah's sister, the one Holden admitted to killing.

"They all look like you," Lucas continues, showing me a composite image. "Same bone structure, same coloring. Like variations of the same person across different decades."

The photographs make my skin crawl. He's right—we could be sisters, cousins, different ages of the same woman. All young. All dead before thirty.

"How did you find me?"

"Genealogy tracking and public records. When Millicent Decker died and left you the inheritance, it triggered alerts I'd set up. You're the next in the pattern, Rosemary. The eclipse is in twenty-two days."

"And you think someone's going to try to kill me."

"I don't think it. I know it." His voice is grim. "The man who threatened me in your shop yesterday—Holden Ashworth. His family has been in this town for generations. Every eclipse cycle, an Ashworth man forms a relationship with a woman from one of the targeted bloodlines. And then she dies."

My throat feels like sandpaper. "You think Holden is going to murder me."

"I think he's been preparing you for it since the moment you arrived. The coffee dates, the intimate conversations, making you trust him. It's textbook predatory behavior."

Part of me wants to argue, to defend the man who claimed he was falling in love with me. But Lucas's evidence is laid out in stark black and white—a century of dead women and the families who killed them.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Leave. Tonight. I have a safe house set up three states away. Federal protection until we can build a case against whoever's running this operation."

"You want me to run."

"I want you to live." He leans forward, urgent. "These people have been doing this for over a century. They're organized, connected, and they have resources. Fighting them on their own territory is suicide."

"But if I leave—"

"If you stay, you die. It's that simple."

I stare at the photographs on his tablet, at the faces that mirror mine across decades of tragedy. The logical choice is obvious. Trust the federal agent, accept protection, get as far away from Thornwick Hollow as possible.

So why does every instinct I have scream against it?

"Holden told me he's trying to find another way," I hear myself saying. "That he doesn't want to complete the ritual."

Lucas's expression hardens. "And you believe him?"

"I don't know what to believe anymore."

"Rosemary, listen to me. These men are masters of manipulation. They've been perfecting their technique for generations. Of course he told you he doesn't want to hurt you—that's how predators work. They make you complicit in your own destruction."

"He admitted to killing before. Margaret Riley. He said his father forced him when he was a child."

"And that makes you trust him more?" Lucas sounds incredulous. "He confessed to murder and you think that's evidence he won't do it again?"

"He seemed—" I struggle for words. "Broken by it. Like it destroyed something in him."

"Good psychopaths are excellent actors."

The words sting because they make sense. Everything Lucas is saying makes perfect, logical sense. Holden courted me with mathematical precision, knowing exactly what I needed to hear. His confession could be just another layer of manipulation, designed to make me feel sorry for him instead of fearing him.

"There's something else," Lucas continues, swiping to a new screen. "These murders aren't isolated to Thornwick Hollow. I've found similar patterns in six other towns across the mountain west. Different families, same methods. It's a network, Rosemary. And they're all connected."

The screen shows a map dotted with red pins, each marking a town where women like me have disappeared during eclipse cycles. The pattern is undeniable, stretching across state lines and spanning decades.

"How many?" I whisper.

"At least thirty-six confirmed deaths over the past century. Probably more that weren't properly documented." He closes the tablet. "You're not just fighting one man or one family. You're fighting an entire system that's been feeding on women like you for generations."

The weight of it settles on my shoulders like a physical thing. Thirty-six women who looked like me, trusted the wrong people, made the wrong choices. Thirty-six graves scattered across the mountain west.

"The safe house," I say finally. "How long would I have to stay?"

"However long it takes to build a federal case. Maybe a year, maybe more."

A year of hiding. A year of looking over my shoulder, wondering if they'd found me. A year of being defined entirely by the thing I was running from.

"I need time to think."

"Time is the one thing you don't have." His voice is sharp with frustration. "Every day you stay here increases the risk. These people aren't going to wait for you to make up your mind."

"Just give me until tomorrow night. Twenty-four hours to get my affairs in order."

"Rosemary—"

"Twenty-four hours," I repeat. "I promise I'll give you an answer then."

He studies my face in the harsh phone light, probably cataloging all the ways this conversation could go wrong. "All right. But if something happens—if you feel threatened in any way—call me immediately. Don't try to handle it yourself."

He hands me a card with a phone number written in the same handwriting as the note. "That's my direct line. It goes straight to a secure phone."

I pocket the card, suddenly aware of how exposed we are standing in the middle of a cemetery. "I should get back."

"One more thing." He catches my arm gently. "Don't tell anyone about this conversation. Not your friends, not anyone you trust in town. If I'm right about this network, they have people everywhere."

I nod, though the warning makes my chest tighten. If he's right, I'm surrounded by people who want me dead and have been planning it since before I was born.

"Be careful, Rosemary. These people have had a century of practice at this."

I'm halfway back to the bookshop when I realize I'm being followed.

Not Holden—I'd recognize his presence by now. Someone smaller, lighter on their feet. Someone who's been watching from the shadows while Lucas and I had our clandestine meeting.

I pick up my pace, my heart hammering against my ribs. Behind me, footsteps match my rhythm exactly, staying just far enough back to remain in the darkness.

By the time I reach Main Street, whoever was following me has melted away. But as I unlock the bookshop door with shaking hands, I catch a glimpse of movement in the library windows across the street.

Paige Elliott stands framed in the light, phone pressed to her ear, watching me with the kind of attention hawks pay to fieldmice.

Even from a distance, I can read her lips clearly enough to make out two words: "Town council."