I’ve been watching the café door for forty-seven agonizing minutes.
The Pear & Birch sits pressed between an antique shop and a shuttered bookstore, its windows aglow with warm amber light, its sign swaying gently in the wind like it has nowhere better to be. The place looks soft, quiet—the kind of space where people pretend life doesn’t follow them inside. Chalkboard menu with little hearts around the word “chai.” Inside, Dalia is meeting a woman tied to a missing person. To a cult. To things neither of us fully understand yet.
And I’m parked thirty feet away, powerless.
Rain whispers against the windshield in slow, steady taps. Not enough to run the wipers, just enough to keep the glass blurry. I lean forward, trying to catch a glimpse of her silhouette through the window’s condensation. I think I see her—navy jacket, brown hair—but it could be anyone. That’s the point. She’s supposed to disappear in there.
I shift in my seat and the upholstery groans beneath me. The dashboard clock ticks over. Forty-eight minutes.
I rub a hand down my face and force myself to breathe. In. Out. Just like we practiced with victims on the edge of panic. Only now it’s me. No panic room or exit strategy. Just me, the steering wheel, and the phantom shape of Dalia behind fogged glass. She’d told me not to follow or to intervene unless something happened and I agreed, because I trust her instincts, but right now I hate it.
My coffee sits cold in the cup holder. I don’t even remember buying it.
The cult gathering night keeps replaying in flashes in my mind. Her voice hoarse from the nightmare, screaming for Wren. Her hand in mine. The weight of her against my side. The way she’d looked at me—just for a second—with nothing guarded in her eyes. Maybe that’s what’s tearing me apart now. I’m not afraid she can’t handle Raina, I’m afraid she’ll do it too well. That she’ll go too deep and not know how to come back.
The sky darkens and rain turns to mist. People pass by with collars up, umbrellas bobbing like black flowers. The café door opens. A man steps out, then leaves.
I grip the wheel.
She’s in there alone with someone who knows this cult from the inside and we have no clue what Raina wants. Redemption? Control? Or is she just another lost voice echoing someone else’s orders?
I lean back in the seat and close my eyes. All I can think of is the firelight catching the edge of Dalia’s jaw. The way her hands trembled around the necklace. The scent of sweat and metal and dirt after the ritual and how I couldn’t do a damn thing to help her except hold her afterward and hope it was enough.
A crack of laughter bursts from someone across the street. I jolt up, scanning the sidewalk. Just two kids going home after school, oblivious.
God, I hate this.
My phone buzzes once on the dash and I snatch it up, hands slightly trembling. Not her. Just a precinct update.
I toss it back into the cup holder. Forty-nine minutes.
I wonder what I’ll do if she doesn’t walk out, but just then the café door swings open and Dalia steps out.
She’s slower than usual, shoulders rounded against the drizzle, jacket zipped up to her chin. For a second, I think she’ll glance my way but she doesn’t. She turns left—away from me—toward the corner of the street like she doesn’t know I exist. Because, of course, I don’t. It’s the smartest move.
Raina follows her out just a breath later, standing beyond the café awning. She lingers long enough to look both ways before heading off in the opposite direction.
Dalia doesn’t look back and disappears around the corner like smoke. I don’t start the engine. Not yet. The wipers twitch once. I keep my hands on the wheel, every muscle buzzing with the ache to move. But surveillance 101—wait. Don’t spook the tail. Don’t shatter the illusion. Let the curtain fall before you go backstage.
Five minutes.
A pair of teenagers pass. A bike rattles by. The street resumes its rhythm like nothing just happened. I wait until the last of the foot traffic clears, then ease the car into motion quietly, like I’m just another part of the scenery. I round the corner.
There she is.
Dalia stands just out of view from the main road at a bus stop, hood up, one hand gripping her phone. Her eyes flick to the car as I pull to the side and the passenger door opens with a soft creak as she slides in without a word, closing the door shut behind her like she’s sealing off another world.
I check the mirrors and merge back onto the road, windshield smearing rain into the softest blur.
For a few seconds, we don’t speak. She shifts in her seat, pulls her hood down. Her hair—dyed a soft brown—clings slightly to her cheek. “She didn’t sound hostile. More like… curious. Like she thought I passed a test.”
I exhale through my nose. “That’s good. You sold it.”
“Maybe.” Dalia’s gaze stays forward, unreadable. “She invited me to meet more of them. Outside of the Circle, at a commune.”
That word freezes in the air between us. Commune.
I glance at her. “They live together?”
“Some of them,” she says. “It’s not required. But the devoted ones—she called them ‘keepers’—they stay there long term. There’s a rhythm to it. You get pulled in, step by step. Assimilation.”
I drive a little slower. “Proper cult vibes. You think Ruth was living there?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t bring her up.” Her hand tightens around her knee. “Raina said most new members are chosen at their first Circle. If Ruth came in through the same door I did…”
“She was marked from the beginning.”
Dalia doesn’t respond to that.
The wipers sweep across the glass again. Outside, lights blur across storefronts and puddles. Inside, the tension knots tighter between us.
“She asked me what I was searching for,” Dalia says finally. “They find the wound first, then they offer the salve.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told her I lost someone,” she says.
I don’t say anything to that.
“I didn’t have to fake that part.”
I glance over. Dalia’s face is calm, but I can see it—just beneath the surface. The ache. The splinter still lodged too deep to pull free. I want to reach for her, say something useful, something that doesn’t sound like I’m scared out of my damn mind. She leans back in her seat and closes her eyes, letting the hum of the car swallow the rest of the day, but her fingers keep twitching, like some part of her never made it out of that café.
And I keep glancing her way, like if I stop looking for too long, she’ll disappear.
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
The scent of wet pavement clings to my coat as we step back into the precinct. Dalia brushes past me first, her expression unreadable, but her jaw’s tight, the muscle there twitching like she’s still hearing Raina’s voice in her head. I try not to look at her too long. We’re both running on fumes and adrenaline and whatever threads still keep me tethered to professionalism.
Inside, Kelsi’s already waiting, half-lurched across her desk in the tech cave, face lit by the bluish cast of four monitors. She raises a brow without lifting her head.
“You two look like roadkill. Good roadkill. But still.”
I ignore her. So does Dalia.
Kelsi gives us a side-glance, half amused, half wired. “Sooo, anything useful from your field trip?”
“There is a commune,” Dalia says flatly. She sets her notes down on the edge of the desk. “It’s a couple hours out—private land, closed perimeter. They call it a sanctuary.”
Kelsi snorts. “Yeah, so did Jonestown.”
Dalia nods. “Raina invited me.”
Kelsi’s fingers twitch toward her keyboard. “I’ll start mapping it.”
We’re barely two minutes into planning when the door slams open.
“Rowe. Wexler.” Captain Everett’s voice is a gunshot in a quiet room. I have almost forgotten about the bastard. He beckons to us to follow him.
Everett’s pacing behind his desk when we step inside, face weathered and flushed from whatever storm he’s been stewing in all day. He doesn’t offer seats, but that’s the usual. Doesn’t even look up right away, just holds up a file—ours, clearly—and then drops it onto the desk with a sharp slap of paper against wood. His bald head is shiny like a freshly polished bowling ball under the fluorescent lights.
“You’ve had two weeks,” he starts. “Two weeks of thin leads, strange detours, and nothing I can take upstairs without getting my ass handed to me.”
“We have new intel,” I say.
He throws a hand up. “From where? Magic?”
“We’re close—” I start, but he cuts me off with a hand like a blade.
“You’re nowhere. You’ve been tailing whispers and theories. No arrests. Not a single piece of actionable evidence I can take to the DA. Meanwhile, the higher-ups are circling like hawks, and Major Crimes is ready to pounce.”
Dalia speaks, voice even. “We found a commune and a woman from the group we think is responsible made contact. It’s the strongest lead we’ve had.”
Everett’s mouth goes tight. “What do you mean ‘contact’?”
Dalia doesn’t blink. “She reached out to our alias on the cult’s page. We set up a meeting.”
“Alias. You’ve been using a fake profile to talk to cult members?”
“We needed to get closer,” Dalia responds. “This was the only way.”
“And your plan is what? Stroll through their front gates without a warrant again and ask nicely if they have been chopping off hands?”
“I know the risks,” I can tell Dalia’s patience is wearing thin.
Everett’s bald head is starting to resemble a red balloon. His eyes flick to me, sharp. “And you knew about this?”
“I was the one watching her back.”
I don’t think I have seen the Captain really angry before. Sure, he was never a gentle leader, but this is a new level of pissed, even from Everett. “You two went undercover. Into an active, potentially dangerous religious compound. Without clearance. Without tactical support. Without telling anyone.”
Dalia doesn’t flinch. “I wore a wire.”
Everett laughs. A bitter, incredulous sound. “Great. So when your cover blows and they bury you out there in the trees, we’ll have crystal-clear audio of the first shovel hit.”
“We got a location,” she snaps back. “A real one. It’s off-grid, fortified, and houses new members. That includes potential previous victims.”
Everett stands. It’s not a dramatic thing, but the motion changes the shape of the room. Suddenly, we’re ten years younger, standing in front of a principal, not a commanding officer. And Dalia? She doesn’t move an inch.
“Sir,” I say carefully, “we acted cautiously. No operational details were compromised. Dalia—”
“You mean Detective Rowe posed as a potential cult recruit, made contact with an unknown element, embedded herself in a situation without authorization, without cover, without so much as a damn heads-up?”
The tension coils tight, a steel trap waiting for blood. I should really just shut up. Everett exhales through his nose, eyes flicking between us. His jaw shifts, like he’s trying not to grind it.
“This isn’t a noir drama. You answer to me. And you don’t get to decide whose life is worth gambling.”
Dalia stays quiet. I want to defend her, but I know when silence is the only thing that holds a thread intact.
Finally, Everett drops into his chair again, pinches the bridge of his nose.
“You got something good,” he mutters. “A location. Names. Faces.”
He looks up. “That’s the only reason I’m not pulling you both off this case and feeding it to Task Force.”
Our breath holds in unison.
“But this ends now. No more improvisation. No more unsanctioned operations. You want to keep your names on this case file, you’re going to file a full written report—tonight. Of everything, from the start. I want it in my inbox before tomorrow morning or it’s over.”
“Yes, sir,” Dalia says quietly.
“And I’m pulling in a babysitter.”
My stomach tightens.
“Someone from Major Crimes is going to liaise from here on out. Think of them as your leash. You’ll brief them on all infiltration progress. Any contact with cult members, any field work—they sign off on it. Not you.”
His eyes fix on Dalia.
“And if I even suspect you’re working around it, I’ll have your badge.”
I exhale slow, steady. Dalia gives Everett a stern nod.
“You can go. And thank whatever god you believe in that you brought me something worth not ending your careers over.”
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