We lost one of our best waitresses last year.

Calla speared her mother's trowel into the hard, frozen earth.

"Crazy story, actually," she said aloud, to the old oak tree and the gray sky and the dead, brittle grass. The trowel cut through dirt and stone, clay and mineral. High overhead, the oak tree of her childhood swayed in the bitter wind, branches creaking in warning. Buried secrets, they whispered. Buried deep in the deep dark, where they belong.

Calla tore the trowel from the ground. Brought it back down.

Thunk.

Again.

Thunk.

Again.

Thunk.

Again.

One of the bouncers found her strangled to death in her car when she didn't show up for her shift.

That. Fucking. Waitress.

Liberty. Fucking. Schwartz. 

A nothing girl with a nothing name.

"Nothing but a loose end," Calla muttered. A loose end to be tied with a finishing line wrapped tight around her neck.

As if I wouldn't see right through him and all his talk about tying up loose ends.

Calla discarded the trowel, hands braced against her knees, sucking down the cold, cold air into her cold, cold lungs. She did not want to die as Liberty had—thrashing against the inevitable, tears streaming down her face. Cornered. Helpless.

Alone.

It was why Calla was here, raking her claws through the muck and mire. Desperation clawed at her belly. Tore her wipe open.

Fascinating animals, rats. Their survival instincts are incredible.

Calla glared at the trowel. "I am not a rodent," she declared.

The wind howled around her in answer.

"Fine," she snapped, reaching for the trowel, the broken seashell in her pocket prickling her skin as she stretched. She'd found the unusual little thing, brown with age and soil, on the far side of the oak tree. A marker to the treasure beneath.

Stephanie sells seashells by the seashore.

Mad. Stephanie was mad. And brilliant. And mad.

Maybe Calla had gone a bit mad, too. 

She attacked the earth with renewed vigor. "I'm—" The trowel breaking through earth and ice, "—not." Roots cracking under its blade. "A—" Fingers scraping aside stones and little birdy bones, "—loose—"

You're going to get us all fucking killed.

"End."

The hole she'd carved out was just a shallow thing, but as she scraped aside another layer of earth, she saw it: a scrap of dirty fabric, ballerina pink, jutting out from the earth like the first of the spring flowers in bloom, desperate for sunlight.

Calla tossed the trowel aside and used her fingers to dig around the square of cloth, tearing away old pieces of cardboard—the remnants of the shoebox Stephanie had buried here, rotted to mush over the years. It didn't take much to pull the fabric free. And with it, nestled within those layers of cotton and polyester: a black, nondescript flashdrive, sealed safely away inside the same ziplock baggies her mother liked to keep stored in the kitchen.

Shivering, Calla ripped open the plastic and clenched the flashdrive in her fist.

Another of the detective's loose ends. And now it was hers.

And what of my own loose ends? Calla thought, kneeling over the hole she'd made. Tracy. Michaels.

Astrid.

"I'm working on it," she said to the oak tree.

Unsurprisingly, it remained silent. Because it was a fucking tree.

Frowning, Calla stood, pushing away from the ice and the bitter earth. It did not take long to cover her tracks. Fill the hole, she recited to herself. Clean the trowel. Put it back where you found it. Take off those filthy jeans. Run the laundry. And for God's sake, Calla... 

Wash your hands.

She'd just started the washer when she retreated to her bedroom, flashdrive tucked in her pocket, right by the little seashell Stephanie had left behind as a token. The sound of the spin cycle filled the corners of her mother's house, driving away the silence as she closed the door and lingered there, staring at her empty bedroom.

Natalie would be back from lunch soon. 

That thought drove her over to the bed. She would have to make this quick. Just one quick peek, she told herself, grabbing her computer from the open sleeve of her backpack.

"Here goes nothing," she muttered, plugging the flashdrive into the computer's USB port. Almost immediately, a digital folder popped up on her screen. And in that folder, a single clip. Thirty-one seconds.

Calla opened the clip. A grainy black-and-white image materialized. Frame by frame, Calla watched the next thirty-one seconds unfold.

And she smiled.

# # #

Calla very nearly called Cooper right then and there to tell him what she'd discovered. But there were things that needed doing first. Farewells that needed to be said.

And so, some two hours later, Calla found herself hugging her mother goodbye. "You don't have to wait to come around for the holidays," Rosalind chided, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. "Promise me you'll come home more."

"I will," Calla promised, knowing she wouldn't. She memorized her mother's face. Committed it to memory. "Love you, Mom."

Rosalind tucked a stray hair behind Calla's ear. "Be safe."

Neither woman had ever been one for tears; her mother's eyes were dry as she waved to her daughter from the doorway. Calla wondered if, perhaps, Rosalind was as empty as she was.

Does it get easier? she wanted to ask, knowing she could not. Will I ever know what it feels like to be someone I'm not?

But Rosalind had only ever seemed like anyone else. Like everyone else. Perhaps it was Calla's father, then, whose brain had been broken. Like hers.

She only wished she had the time to go looking for those answers.

A ridiculous thought. Calla had other worries. Bigger problems. And so she dragged her suitcase down the road, crossing the short distance that separated her childhood home from Cooper's.

Amelia was already waiting for her at the front door. "Oh, I can't believe you two are already leaving," she complained, wrapping Calla in a surprisingly forceful hug.

"Mom." Cooper's voice floated in from the living room. "Please don't crush my girlfriend to death."

Amelia just rolled her eyes, elbowing Calla conspiratorially. "Girlfriend is his new favorite word," she whispered.

"Is that right?"

"He never shuts up about you."

"Excuse me." Cooper glared at them from around the corner. "I can hear you."

"Good." Amelia beamed at him. "I was just telling Calla how utterly in lo—"

"Alright!" Cooper cut in, blushing as he took Calla's backpack and luggage, dragging it over to the corner with his own belongings. "Enough of that."

Calla followed him over to their bags, cognizant of Amelia Daniels as she retreated to the kitchen. "I have it," Calla told him quietly.

Cooper rubbed his index finger over one of the scuffs on her suitcase. "That sounds ominous."

"I dug up the flashdrive Steph buried."

"Yup." He started on a second, larger scuff mark. "Ominous. I love being right."

"Half-right. This is a good thing," Calla emphasized, growing more animated as she spoke. "Michaels screwed up. He—"

Cooper shot her a warning look. "Not so loud."

"He killed her," Calla whispered, looking up to make sure Amelia was still in the kitchen. "Jeannette Michaels. Bashed her over the head with a tire iron."

Cooper flipped her suitcase over, analyzing its other side. "Just when I thought I couldn't hate the guy more, let's add a dash of domestic violence to the picture." He paused his assessment of her luggage to ask, "How exactly did Steph find this information?"

"The footage came from the gas station on the edge of town." Calla waited to see his reaction. "You know the one." He nodded. "The security cameras caught everything. If I had to guess, she probably was trying to make a run for it, but he caught up to her. It looked like he was trying to talk her out of it, at first..."

Cooper grimaced. "At first."

"And when that didn't work, out came the tire iron. Looked like he was in shock, after the fact. Like he hadn't planned on hurting her."

"Jesus." Cooper straightened, suitcase forgotten. "How the hell did Stephanie get her hands on the video?"

Calla had been wondering the same. "No idea. But right before the clip cuts off, Michaels looks directly at the camera. Like he just remembered it was there. I'm guessing he had to pull some serious strings to get the evidence erased."

"Until some seventeen-year-old girl came along and hacked who knows what to dig it back up." Cooper shook his head. "The FBI should recruit her, or something. It's honestly impressive."

"Coop," Amelia called from the kitchen. They both looked up, startled. "Do you want to take this casserole back with you?"

He forced a smile. "Do you even have to ask?" 

"Well, silly me." She set the casserole aside and held up a warning finger. "Do not steal my good tupperware, young man. You'd better bring this container back next time. You hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am," Cooper mumbled. Calla watched on, thoroughly amused by the scolding. "Oh, hush," he said, taking her hand in his. He led her down the hall to his bedroom.

"Where do you think you're going?" his mother asked. 

"Forgot something in my room," he called back.

"I bet you did," she said to their retreating backs. "Keep that door open!"

Calla suppressed a laugh. "I'll keep him honest, Ms. Amelia."

Cooper dragged her into his room, impatient. "You've got jokes. I'll keep him honest," he mimicked. "As if you aren't the one who taught me how to lie."

She followed him over to the bed. "What did you forget?"

He shot her an exasperated look. "Nothing. We needed somewhere more private to talk about death and destruction. I didn't think the foyer wasn't cutting it." He sat on the edge of the bed, gesturing for her to do the same. "So. This evidence you dug up. What are you gonna do with it?"

The million dollar question.

"I don't know yet," she admitted, sitting so that her thigh was pressed against his. The contact soothed her frayed nerves. "But this changes things."

"Michaels has dirt on you, too," Cooper pointed out.

"He does." She ran a finger over the front pocket of her jeans, feeling for the flashdrive she'd stashed there. "It's mutually assured destruction."

"I burn, you burn," Cooper muttered. 

"Yes. But Michaels doesn't want to burn." She stared at the carpet between her feet, Cooper's eyes scorching right through her. "You heard Steph. He's working on his loose ends. Which means he fully intends on walking away from this mess. Unscathed." She looked at him then. "Do you understand?"

He took one of her hands in his. "I understand..." He traced the outline of her hand with his index finger. "I understand this will put pressure on him. Make him rethink blowing up your life, now that you can blow up his." She shivered as he brushed the top of her knuckles. "Until he decides he doesn't care anymore. Then he'll fuck you over just because he can, Calla. Mutual destruction be damned."

"I know," she murmured. That's why Michaels has to believe he's won the game. That's the only way to get his guard down. Calla closed her eyes. Savoring the sensation of Cooper's skin against hers. "I don't intend to let him live long enough to get to that point."

"Calla..."

"You know that's how this has to end," she whispered. "If you're ever going to find peace and have that white picket fence life, Cooper, Michaels has to go." She opened her eyes, drinking him in. "I can use the evidence on this flashdrive to buy the time I need to...to make that happen."

Time. She wanted that time. She wanted him more than she'd ever wanted anything. The revelation pained her. And what a surprise it was, to feel that pain. To feel it and taste it and then swallow it whole, because she could not let herself give into it, not when she had a promise to keep.

You're going to live a long, happy life, Cooper Daniels. That's a promise.

Cooper tightened his hold on her. "If we're ever going to find peace," he corrected her softly. "And we will. I know we will. We still have time, Calla."

She couldn't bear the empty spaces between them, so she crawled forward, straddling his waist. "We still have time," she agreed. 

But not enough. It will never be enough.

He smoothed his palms over the contours of her spine. "Calla, I—"

Something buzzed in her back pocket.

Cooper pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat. "Ignore it," he murmured. Open door be damned.

The buzzing stopped. Calla sighed, running her hands over his shoulders, his lips a brand against her neck—

Bzz-bzz. Bzz-bzz.

Calla ripped her phone out of her pocket, having half a mind to throw it across the room.

Until she saw the name on the screen.

Cooper's lips were still against her neck when she answered the phone. "Michaels," she drawled. "Your timing, as always, is wretched."

Cooper froze against her.

"The professor is still alive," Michaels greeted. Right down to business, as usual. "Can you tell me why that is?"

"A Christmas miracle?"

Silence.

Cooper squeezed her waist. She glanced down long enough to catch his warning look. Play nice, he mouthed.

"The professor will be dead soon," she promised dully. Cooper's eyes tightened in understanding. And dread.

"He'd better be," was all Michaels said before ending the call.

Calla crawled out of Cooper's lap with a heavy sigh. She could feel his questions bubbling between them. Questions she was not sure she wanted to answer.

Questions she was not sure she could answer.

"Coop!" Amelia's voice danced down the hallway. "It's getting dark outside, baby. You two probably need to go on and head out."

They shared a look. This conversation isn't over, his eyes said. And then he walked back out into the living room. 

Amelia was waiting for them with casserole in hand, her eyes sparkling. "What'd you forget?" she teased, handing over the casserole.

"Um..." Cooper scrambled for a believable answer, face flaming. "Charger."

"Uh-huh." Amelia winked at Calla from over his shoulder as mother and son embraced. "Drive safe. And Cooper?"

"Yeah?" he asked, passing Calla the casserole while he went to retrieve their bags.

Amelia looked suddenly uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot as she followed them into the foyer. "Well..."

Cooper looked up, noting the change in her demeanor. "Mom. What is it?"

"This apartment." She eyed the faded walls and the portraits that hung there. Cooper, Calla and Vincent in their graduation gowns. Cooper's senior picture. Cooper at a football game, Vincent's arm slung carelessly over his shoulders. "I know you grew up here...what would you say if I told you I was thinking about selling it? I've been looking at some properties in the city." Her words were coming faster now. "It's just so much closer to work over there—"

"Honestly, Mom?" Cooper walked over and kissed her on the cheek. "Sell the apartment and get the hell out of this place."

"Language!" she chided, swatting his shoulder. But she looked relieved. "Go on, you two. And text me when you get there!"

"I will," Cooper assured her, and Calla knew he would.

In no time at all, they were speeding past the city limits, Greenwitch a blur of pine trees and twinkling lights in their rearview mirror, shrinking steadily into oblivion.

Calla did not think she would ever see that town again.