A cramped, dust-filled study, illuminated by weak winter light. Objects are reminders of lost purpose and faded memories, casting long, stark shadows.
The light was bad. Always bad this time of year. It filtered through the smudged window, thin and cold, barely reaching the stack of papers on Matt’s desk. Dust motes, thick as tiny snowdrifts, hung suspended in the pale shafts, undisturbed. He swiped a hand across the desktop. A gray film lifted, settled elsewhere. Everything felt that way. Used. Fading.
The Lily March file sat open. The photo, a girl with wide, hopeful eyes, stared up at him. Not a girl anymore, not since that day. The date on the report. Twenty years. Twenty years. And now, a new detail. A sick, twisted detail that had clawed its way out of an old case, dragging him with it.
His stomach tightened. Not guilt, exactly. More like a slow, deep ache. Failure. He’d signed off on this. Back then, it had been airtight. Judge Angus, pillars of the community and all that. A charity gala. Hundreds of witnesses. An alibi you couldn't crack with a sledgehammer. He’d believed it. They all had.
Now. He ran a thumb over Lily’s face. It was just an echo. A scream he hadn't heard. A monster he hadn't seen. He needed to see it. Needed to know he wasn't crazy, wasn't just pulling at old threads because his own life felt too quiet.
The room was a monument to his career, and now, to its collapse. Stacks of case files, binders with faded labels, a half-empty mug of coffee cooling on a coaster. The scent of old paper and dust filled the air. He leaned back in his worn office chair. Springs groaned. His back complained. He ignored it.
“Angus,” he muttered. Just the name felt wrong now, heavy. He remembered the man. Always impeccably dressed. Smooth. Calm. The kind of person you trusted. Everyone trusted him. That was the problem.
He pulled a legal pad closer. Scrawled “Judge A. Fundraiser – Nov 12, [Year – 20 years ago].” He needed names. Faces. Anyone who wasn’t a judge or a politician. The people who were just there. Serving drinks. Clearing plates. Setting up tables. They saw things. They heard things. They remembered.
His old desktop computer hummed, a low, constant drone. He’d kept it for the archives, the obscure databases, the stuff not easily found on a phone. The screen flickered to life, showing a cracked corner. He typed in
“The silence pressed in, a suffocating weight. Helen Pierce. Dead. Another ghost in a lengthening parade of them. He stared at the screen, the blinking cursor, and felt a cold certainty that Angus had planned for this, had ensured every possible loose end would eventually fray and snap.”