Sheriff Stilinski sauntered into the police station, still full from his lunch and hoping he might be able to zone out for the rest of the day. Very rarely was Noah that lucky, especially when he made a point to do something as foolish as wish for things, but he stopped by the front desk to check in with Amalia, their very green receptionist.

He leaned against the counter she called a desk and waved at the recent college graduate, whose mother worked in a separate department. And he'd never been more glad that this hadn't been a nepotism situation as he was with her.

Amalia Rivers had earned her place here, garnering his respect quickly in the very short amount of time she'd been around. And Noah was glad he hadn't listened to the oppositions, some from even himself.

"Welcome back, Sheriff Stilinski," she offered, beaming brightly at him.

She barely tore her eyes from the screen, her typing never faltering as she barrelled ahead to finish her report.

"Amalia, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Noah?"

She blushed shyly, obviously uncomfortable with the invitation, like she had all the other times he'd requested the name change.

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't think I can do that," she admitted softly. "It's like when a professor asks you to call them by their first name, you know?"

Noah chuckled and shook his head. "All right, all right," he conceded. "Anything exciting happen while I was gone? Earthquake? Fire? Riot?" He paused, chewing on the inside of his cheek, hoping to find something that would get her to stop. "Sharknado?"

She giggled and folded her hands delicately over her keyboard. "No, Sheriff. No calls. But there is a special package for you on your desk. I put it on top of the regular mail."

"Special package, huh? Sounds like a bad joke," he quipped.

Amalia giggled again, much more high-pitched than before, hiding her mouth behind her hand. "I didn't mean it like that, sir, I promise."

"I know," he grinned wide, nodding along with her clarification. "I'm fairly certain your head would explode if you even tried to make a dirty joke."

She shook her head and started to type again as he smacked the desk and straightened up, heading to his own office. "Good work, Amalia!"

She blushed once more, and beamed again, jumping slightly as the phone rang, while he made his way to his own space.

He left the door open, as he always did, and picked up the stack of mail on his desk, right where Amalia had told him it would be. Sure enough, there was a thick Manila envelope on top, but he made sure to at least flip through everything else first.

Whatever was inside that package had the distinct opportunity of distracting him for the rest of the day, and since he still had bills to pay, he knew he should at least pretend to care about the rest too. He had to keep the lights on. And Stiles had gotten his ADHD from somewhere.

Definitely not his mother.

But as he finally allowed himself to focus on it, he frowned deeply, taking note of several things at once as his eyes scanned the front.

Without opening it, he walked back to the front desk. "Was that call important?"

Amalia looked back at him expectantly as she replaced the receiver in its holder, clearly ready to tackle whatever task he might give her.

She shook her head. "No, it was just Mrs. Forrester. She keeps swearing that someone is secretly trimming her hedges at night while she's asleep. She, uh, wants us to send deputies out to patrol her neighborhood. You know... just in case."

He laughed and rolled his eyes. "She just can't accept that she's the one who cuts them crooked, huh?"

"Nope," she agreed. "What's in it?"

She nodded toward the package clutched tightly in his hand. "Haven't opened it yet," he confessed. "You said it was in the mailbox? No one dropped it off with you directly?"

"Yeah, it was in there with everything else.''

"Thing is... there's no postage. No return address. Just ours. You didn't see anyone out there, did you?"

"No... no one," she answered, concentrating very hard on something before her eyes went wider than Noah thought possible. "Oh my God," she whispered. "Do you think it's dangerous? Umm, who do I need to call?" she stuttered, fumbling with her Rolodex. "Poison control? It could be anthrax, right? Or the bomb squad?" She frowned, deep lines etched in her young face. "Do we have a bomb squad?"

"Okay, someone's been watching way too much TV," Noah teased. "This is Beacon Hills, Amalia. I know we have strange things crop up from time to time, but we're not exactly a place terrorists would target."

He shook the package and she flinched anyway, causing him to laugh again. "It sounds like a bunch of paperwork. I was just curious. Maybe I'll find out more if I actually open it, huh?" Another shake of his head as he headed back to his office. "Thanks, Amalia. Don't call Homeland Security just yet, all right? But if I blow up in a second, I give you permission to tell me I told you so."

She let out a strangled laugh at his attempt to diffuse the situation, looking as nervous as he'd ever seen her, closing the door to his own office as a precaution.

As he sat behind his desk, wondering if he was going to regret this lackadaisical approach in a few minutes, he sighed deeply, picking up a pen and easing open the flap on the back of the envelope.

But, as he'd suspected, there were only a bunch of documents inside. A lot. And as he dumped the contents on his desk, he settled in to sort through them properly.

There were several reports, but his eyes were first drawn to a folded up piece of blue notebook paper. And he started there, opening it warily and reading it a few times. But even though he'd meant to stay calm, his heart rate picked up as he let the all caps, typed letters sink in fully.

HE SET THE HALE FIRE.

Noah tilted his head as he tried to understand, smoothing the note out and meticulously lining it up with the edge of his desk calendar before he turned his attention back to everything else.

An insurance policy, listing Peter Hale as the recipient in the event of Talia Hale's death.

A copy of her will, indicating Peter Hale was to be bestowed with all her earthly possessions given that any of her children were still minors. Otherwise, everything was to go straight to them.

A copy of the fire department's report stating that the fire was likely accidental, but could have been arson.

And photos. Blurry photos. Two men waiting in an alley. It was dark and they were wearing baseball caps, so Noah knew it wouldn't be feasible to discern anything that might point him in the direction of a positive identification.

He flipped the first two pictures over and read: UNGER AND REDDICK.

Then he switched over to another of Peter Hale walking out of the same alley. He was facing the camera and the streetlamp was illuminating his face. His hands were firmly in his pockets, but the alley was empty behind him.

With his brows furrowed, he stood and headed straight for the bullpen and to one of his most trusted deputies' desk.

"Hey, Garrett. Got a minute?" he questioned, leaning against his cubicle.

Garrett leaned back in his chair, pushing back from his desk and giving Noah a nod. "Sure, what's up?"

"You, uh, were pretty involved in the Hale Fire investigation, right? I was around for it, but only on the fringes."

"Yeah, I had my hands in a little bit of everything, once upon a time," he declared. "You got questions, Sheriff? That case has been cold for a while. Did you, uh, get a new lead?" He bent forward, placing his elbows on his knees in anticipation.

"More like dotting some Is and crossing some Ts," Noah lied. "Like the insurance policy. That was checked out, right?"

"Yeah, it was cleared. Peter was always set to be the recipient. No one had changed it for years. And she wasn't married. Her kids were young. And it stuck since Derek was the only one who survived."

"That was in the will too, right?" Noah pressed.

"Yep. Same terms, all checked out. Seemed like it was the plan all along to have Peter be in charge if anything happened to his sister."

"And the arson was only suspected? Never proven?"

Garrett shook his head. "Never proven," he affirmed. "The scene was vague enough that the investigator in charge wasn't cool with marking it down as 100% accidental. But that old man was pretty damn sure. The signs of arson were slim, at best. He was just a stickler, remember? Always played by the book. Hated guessing." He smirked up at Noah. "Kinda like someone else I know."

"Sure, sure," Noah remarked. "Do the names, uh, Unger and Reddick mean anything to you?"

Garrett contemplated the question seriously, running a finger over his mustache as he stared off into space for a second. "Actually, yeah. They do. They were career criminals who'd committed arson in the area once before. It seemed like they skipped town right after the fire, which was pretty suspicious. But we never found any evidence they had even been around the Hale house. And since we were all sure it was an accident, no one bothered to put out an APB or anything."

He eyed Noah curiously. "Isn't this all in the official case file?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. I'm sure it is. I'm just too lazy to drag it all out."

Garrett snorted his laughter and shook his head again, knowing that Noah was the furthest thing from lazy anyone could get.

"Plus, you know me. I'm old school. I wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth and all that." Noah paused briefly, pushing off from the cubicle wall. "Thanks, Garrett. Sorry for wasting your time."

"No problem, Sheriff," Garrett replied. "But, uh, if you want my two cents, I'd say trying to solve a cold case to get some points for the next election cycle probably isn't the way to go."

Noah chuckled and hung his head, hands on his hips, happy that Garrett hadn't caught on. "Yeah, you're right. Just a thought."

A few minutes later, sitting back down at his desk comfortably, Noah couldn't stop himself from picking up the phone as he placed everything back into the envelope carefully.

"Hey, Wes. It's Noah Stilinski." A pause as he allowed the man on the other end to greet him too. "Good, good. How are the kids?" He waited again, but he'd stopped really digesting anything he was saying as he folded the tab back. "That's great, man. Uh, listen, I had an anonymous package delivered to the precinct today."

He waved his hands in the air as the tone from his friend became frantic, though Wes couldn't see him. "No, uh, nothing dangerous. Just some information. But I was hoping you might be able to pull some prints off the envelope or something."

He sighed when Wes consented to try, but explained it was probably pointless. Usually when people went to the trouble of dropping off a letter like this one, they didn't do something stupid like leave incriminating evidence behind.

"Yeah, yeah. That's what I thought. Nah, it's all right. I'm sure they wore gloves, like you said. And the notes inside were typed. They were smart," he reasoned. "Yeah, exactly. I'll hang onto it, but it's probably just someone trying to stir up trouble or something. Nothing seemed all that actionable."

He nodded again, sitting up and propping his elbows on the desk. "Yeah, thanks. You too."

As he hung up, his eyes were drawn to the nondescript, seemingly innocuous envelope.

Even if it was nothing, and it might very well be, he couldn't let it go. He didn't have it in him. And he sat there tapping his fingers like Stiles often did when his mind was occupied with matters very much not at hand.

He had to check it out, follow the lead, trust his training. But it could be a trap too, something in the back of his mind tried to argue. Maybe whoever had sent this to him knew all this and the fact that he'd be morally obligated to see it through.

But before he had time to process what was happening, he was up again, poking his head out of his office.

"Hey, Amalia."

She looked over at the sound of his voice, and he struggled to ignore Garrett's eyes trained on the side of his face. "Can you pull up all the Hale Fire case files and bring them to my office when you get a chance?"

"Sure thing, boss."

As he watched her rush off to the file room, he sent up a silent prayer that he hadn't just sentenced a whole lot of people to a world of hurt that they'd assumed they'd buried a long time.

And sure, his hunches had never been wrong before, but there was a first time for everything.