Chapter 8
A Father's Burden
Sheriff Miller watches Angela’s descent into obsession with growing alarm. He sees the toll the investigation is taking, the way her personal history is entwined with every clue. He knows the original Green River investigation intimately, and he also harbors secrets about Angela’s mother's disappearance, details he’s kept buried for years, fearing they could shatter Angela or put her in even greater danger. He attempts to pull her back, to remind her of protocol and the risks involved, but his warnings are met with her increasingly tunnel-visioned focus. The weight of his past decisions presses down on him as he grapples with how much more he can hide.
Sheriff Miller watched Angela from his office doorway, the fluorescent lights of the precinct casting a pallid glow on his already weathered face. She was hunched over her desk, a chaotic constellation of case files, crime scene photos, and printouts spread before her like a morbid mosaic. Her brow was furrowed, a deep crease etched between her eyes, and her fingers, usually so precise and steady, tapped a frantic rhythm against the worn wood. He saw the familiar glint of obsession, a dangerous fire that had been smoldering since she was a child, now fanned into a roaring inferno by this new wave of killings.
He remembered the night he found her. Six years old, a tiny, trembling wraith in the drenching Seattle rain, her eyes wide with a terror no child should ever know. Her mother, a ghost in a case that had gone cold faster than the winter air, had vanished without a trace. He’d taken Angela in, his gruff exterior a shield against the raw grief and fear that clung to her like the damp chill. He’d raised her, watched her grow into a sharp, determined woman, and then into a detective who chased shadows with a ferocity born of a deeply personal loss. But this. This was different. This was drowning.
He cleared his throat, the sound a rough rasp in the relative quiet. Angela didn't look up. "Angela," he said, his voice softer than he intended.
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