The next morning, the town felt quieter—not peaceful, just waiting. The protest had left its fingerprints everywhere: banners crumpled in bins, chalk slogans half-washed by rain, the air still thick with the memory of voices.  

Emily parked outside the municipal building, took a breath, and counted slowly to five. She’d been called in “for clarification,” the kind of phrase that usually meant trouble dressed as diplomacy.  

Grace had texted her at dawn: *Don’t apologize. Don’t let them spin it. Be clear, be kind, be unshakable.*  

Emily typed back only one word before stepping out of the car: *Trying.*  

Inside, the meeting room smelled of old paper and air-conditioning. Mayor Collins sat at the head of the long table, jacket off, tie loose, expression patient the way predators can be patient.  

“Ms. Rhodes,” he said. “Quite a performance yesterday.”  

“I spoke to the people who asked questions.”  

“And created quite a few new ones.”  

Two aides exchanged glances. A screen on the wall replayed part of the protest footage—her standing on the stage, hand on the microphone, the crowd’s roar just before silence.  

Collins paused the video. “You understand how this complicates our position?”  

“I understand that people feel unheard. That’s not new.”  

He leaned back. “You’re supposed to make them feel comfortable, not inspired to riot.”  

“They didn’t riot.”  

“Not yet.”  

Silence spread like spilled ink. Emily’s pulse beat in her throat, steady but loud.  

“Mayor,” she said finally, “if the plan can’t survive a few questions, maybe it isn’t a plan worth defending.”  

One of the aides smirked. Collins didn’t. “You’re passionate,” he said, “and I admire that. But passion doesn’t fund projects. Investors are skittish, and after yesterday, they’ll be more so.”  

“So you want me quiet.”  

“I want you strategic.”  

He smiled, slow and practiced. “Let me handle the messaging. You just keep your face neutral and your reports neat.”  

Emily gathered her papers, holding them like armor. “If neutrality built anything, Hollow Creek would already be thriving.”  

When she left, the hallway lights flickered. She didn’t notice until she realized she was gripping the folder too tightly.  

Outside, the sky threatened rain again.  

Liam was waiting by her car, leaning against the hood, hands in pockets.  

“How bad?” he asked.  

“Define bad.”  

“You still have your job?”  

“For now.”  

He searched her face. “They’ll make you the scapegoat.”  

“Probably.”  

“Then leave it. Walk away before they—”  

“No,” she said. “If I leave, they rewrite the story. I can’t give them that.”  

He exhaled, frustrated. “You don’t have to fight every battle alone.”  

“I don’t know how to do it any other way.”  

A few drops of rain began to fall, soft but persistent.  

“Come by the shop later,” he said. “I have something to show you.”  

“Is it coffee?”  

“Better.”  

By the time she reached her rented office in the old courthouse, the rain had turned steady. She flicked on the desk lamp. The room was lined with boxes—files, maps, permits. Most days they looked organized; today they looked like evidence.  

She set down her bag and opened her laptop. Grace had sent another message: *City Hall leaked something. Check your shared drive before they scrub it.*  

Emily’s heart ticked faster. She opened the folder titled *Redevelopment Master Docs* and scrolled through the recent uploads. One file blinked new: **HC_MILL_PROP_CONTRACT.pdf**.  

She clicked. Pages filled the screen—construction schematics, purchase orders, approval signatures. Nothing unusual until page nine.  

A signature sat at the bottom of the document.  

Her father’s name.  

**Arthur Rhodes.**  

The date beside it: ten years ago. Long before his death. Long before the redevelopment plan even existed.  

Her breath caught. She zoomed in, tracing the familiar loop of his handwriting. It was real—or an excellent forgery.  

A memory flashed: her father in his study, late at night, blueprints spread like maps of the future. “Every town grows,” he’d told her once. “The question is, who gets to decide how.”  

She leaned back, eyes stinging. *Did he know? Did he start this?*  

Thunder rolled outside, low and distant.  

Grace called. “Tell me you saw it.”  

“I did.”  

“Is it real?”  

“I don’t know. The date’s wrong. The signatures—Grace, he was already sick by then.”  

“Could someone have used old documents?”  

“Or someone made it look that way.”  

Grace’s voice dropped. “You realize what this means, right? If that contract’s valid, your family technically owns part of the mill site.”  

Emily froze. “That can’t be.”  

“It can—and it makes you the face of the problem *and* the key to solving it.”  

Lightning flashed against the courthouse windows.  

“Grace, I have to go.”  

“Where?”  

“To the mill.”  

She grabbed her coat and the printed file, rushing into the rain.  

The mill stood at the far edge of Hollow Creek, where the lake’s water turned shallow and the reeds whispered. Its brick walls were streaked with time and moss, windows boarded or broken. The sign out front still read *Riverside Textiles*, though no fabric had been woven there in two decades.  

Liam waited under the eave, holding two paper cups.  

“I figured you’d come,” he said, handing her one.  

“You said you had something.”  

He nodded toward the locked doors. “Blueprints. Old ones. Noah found them in the back storage. They don’t match the current layout.”  

Emily unfolded her printed contract beside his papers. Rain speckled the pages, ink bleeding like secrets.  

Her father’s signature glimmered faintly under the damp light. Liam noticed. “Is that—?”  

“His name,” she said. “From a document dated ten years before this plan.”  

“Your father was part of the project?”  

“I don’t know. But someone wants it to look that way.”  

They stood in silence, rain ticking on metal. Inside, the dark shape of the mill loomed like a memory refusing to fade.  

“What if he did sign it?” Liam asked quietly.  

“Then I’ve been fighting against my own family’s legacy.”  

“And if he didn’t?”  

“Then someone’s using him to keep this project alive.”  

The wind shifted, carrying the scent of wet stone and rust.  

Emily folded the papers carefully, as if the act might hold them together. “Either way, it means Hollow Creek was never just about the town.”  

Liam met her eyes. “It’s about you.”  

“No,” she said, her voice thin but steady. “It’s about truth.”  

She tucked the file into her coat and turned toward the lake. The reflection of the mill rippled across the water, broken, reforming, broken again.  

Behind them, a faint sound—metal against wood. Liam looked back toward the door. “Did you hear that?”  

“Probably wind.”  

“Or someone inside.”  

They listened. Only rain.  

Still, the sense of being watched lingered.  

Emily took one last look at the signature before the paper blurred under raindrops.  

Her father’s name, smudged but still visible, seemed to whisper through the storm: *Find what they hid.*  

She closed the folder and said softly, “Tomorrow, we start digging.”  

The wind carried her words across the lake, disappearing into the dark hum of Hollow Creek.