Page 31 of Silent Bones (High Peaks Murder, Mystery and Crime Thrillers #7)

T he station had gone still.

Not quiet, Noah could handle quiet. But still. Like the air had thickened, just slightly. Like something had shifted without anyone saying so.

He glanced again at the screen. Arresting charge: illegal possession of Schedule II narcotic. Supporting charge: unauthorized trapping on state lands.

He should’ve felt satisfied. They had Mack in custody. Meth on him. The silver Airstream tied to known smuggling routes. But the man wouldn’t say a word. Not a plea. Not a denial. Not a thing. He’d just sat there like he was waiting for someone else to show up at the station and clean up his mess.

But no one came.

Noah leaned back and exhaled through his nose. A dull pressure behind his eyes had started hours ago and settled in like it meant to stay. He clicked off the desk lamp, grabbed his coat, and stepped out through the double doors into the cold night.

The parking lot was nearly empty, just his cruiser and a few scattered civilian vehicles lined up against the wooden fencing.

The wind had picked up, rustling through the pine trees on the edge of the property.

Overhead, the security light flickered once, then steadied.

He walked toward his Bronco, loosening his collar.

Then he saw it.

A small square of white, caught beneath the wiper blade.

He frowned, glancing back at the station windows. Empty. The glass reflected only the weak lamplight and his own figure, hunched and blurred.

Noah stepped to the windshield and plucked the paper free. It was thick, heavier than copy stock. Folded once. It was crisp. The kind of fold someone made when they didn’t want it crumpled, and didn’t want it mistaken for trash. He turned it over.

Six words were centered. Each one was in block print, sharp and evenly spaced.

Some things are better left alone.

Noah stared at it for a long moment.

Not handwritten. Not personal. No sign of smudging, no pressure indentation. No signature. The phrasing, didn’t read like a threat. It read like... advice. A warning, maybe. Like a sign posted just before a cliff edge.

He turned slowly, scanning the edge of the lot. The woods beyond swayed gently under moonlight. Nothing moved. No headlights coming up the gravel. No engines ticking. Just the wind, and the faint rustle of brittle branches overhead.

Noah folded the note and slid it into his coat pocket.

He didn’t get in the vehicle right away.

Instead, he stood beside it, fingers hooked in the belt of his coat, staring out past the parking lot’s perimeter.

He listened, not just with his ears, but with the alertness that lived behind his ribs.

That creeping instinct, honed over years, that told him when something had shifted beneath the surface.

Not an overt move. Not a knock at his door. Just... something stirring.

He got in the Bronco and shut the door. He didn’t turn the key. Just sat with the paper still pressing against his chest. He kept his eyes on the lot entrance. His mind flashing back.

Earlier that day, Sheriff Rivera had said it casually, almost offhand, while they were reviewing the arrest report. “You’re making a lot of noise upstairs, Sutherland. I’m hearing things. Just rumors. But they’re moving.”

She hadn’t said who they were. But she hadn’t needed to.

Noah took out the note. He looked at it again, then tapped it once against the steering wheel, then set it on the dashboard. The interior lights flicked off. Darkness enclosed the cabin.

He looked up again at the woods beyond the fence.

Some things are better left alone.

Not just a poetic turn. But a commandment, a gate nailed shut with a smile. He started the engine. The headlights pushed back the dark a few dozen feet, but only a few.

The hallway outside Rivera’s office was unnervingly quiet for a Thursday morning.

Dispatch was murmuring behind glass. A fresh pot of coffee steamed on the break room counter, untouched.

The morning briefing had been skipped. No one had said it was canceled, just…

skipped. Like everyone was waiting to see who’d blink first.

Noah stood in front of Rivera’s closed door with a notepad in one hand and the folded windshield note in his coat pocket. He could still feel its weight, light, but deliberate. He knocked once.

“Come in.”

Her voice was clipped.

He pushed the door open. Rivera was seated behind her desk, back straight, one hand over a printed memo, the other holding a half-drained mug of coffee. She didn’t look up right away.

Noah stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

“You wanted to see me.”

She nodded, eyes still on the paper in front of her. Then finally she met his gaze.

“You made an arrest yesterday,” she said.

“Mack Hawkins. Found with enough meth to file federal charges. Unlicensed traps, too.”

Rivera leaned back in her chair. “Good work.”

That should’ve been it. A commendation. A nod. Move on.

But she didn’t move on. She just looked at him, the silence folding in on itself. Then said, “You asked a lot of questions over at the DEC headquarters.”

“And?”

Rivera’s jaw tightened, just slightly. “Well, DEC’s made it known they are not happy.”

Noah raised a brow. “Because I did my job?”

“Because you did it too loudly.”

He sat across from her. The chair creaked. “You’re going to have to be clearer.”

Rivera sighed and rubbed her temple. “Look, Sutherland. You’ve stirred up interest in a case that was closed a year ago.

Wallface already cost the state a settlement and a black eye.

You start digging into the family of a high-ranking DEC officer, then link in with it an Airstream full of meth, a smuggling route, five dead kids in the woods, and people upstate start to ask what you’re building. And whether it’s going to hold.”

“I’m not building anything,” Noah said. “I’m uncovering it. Trying to get to the bottom of a messy situation with a lot of moving chess pieces.”

“That’s not how they see it.”

He stared at her, unblinking. “Who’s they, exactly?”

Rivera stood and crossed to the blinds, adjusting them as if needing something to do with her hands.

Morning light cut across her shoulder. “Let me put it this way. I’ve had three phone calls since last night.

Two were from Albany. One from someone I won’t name, because I can’t.

But he made it clear. This case is bigger than what happened on that campsite. ”

Noah’s voice dropped. “I know.”

“Do you?” She turned. “Because if you did, you might have handled things differently.”

“Meaning?”

Rivera walked back to her desk. “Meaning you should’ve brought it to me before hauling Hawkins in. Before poking the Calder file. Before someone felt the need to put a note on your windshield.”

He blinked. “How do you know about that?”

“Word spreads fast in this town. You told McKenzie, He told me.”

“You know, Rivera, how is it that you took this position after the last sheriff ended up in jail? I don’t recall you being with this department.”

“They needed someone with experience. I transferred in to hold down the fort.”

“Convenient.”

“You have something to say, say it.”

He shook his head.

There was a pause, tight, sharp-edged.

She continued, quieter, “Look, I brought you in over another from State because I trusted your judgment. Because I thought you had a read on this place. But if you’re going to pursue things that put our whole department under fire, I need to be honest with you.”

“Go ahead.”

“You need to shift your focus.”

Noah felt his chest tighten.

“To what?” he asked, even though he knew.

“Use the animal angle. Blame some crazy. Use Banning’s podcast if you have to. Tie this up as a myth chasing a myth. The public is getting antsy and so are others.”

“Excuse me?”

“Did I stutter?”

“Do you care about the truth, Rivera?”

“We are not in the business of truth. You of all people should know that. We are in the business of appearances. How do you want this to appear?”

Everything she was saying screamed cover-up.

This wasn't about making a traffic ticket disappear—this was a murder case.

Noah wanted to ask if she was on Luther's payroll, but that would have sealed his fate.

It would have made sense, though. After the last sheriff was put away, they would have wanted someone else in their pocket.

Was she just as corrupt as the last one?

“Back off, Noah. Five teens are dead. You have Mack. It’s clearly connected with a package found at the scene. Tie it together and close this case.”

“And if I don’t?”

She sat back down, folded her hands, and looked him dead in the eye.

“Then I won’t be able to protect you anymore.”

The words landed like a door closing.

Rivera wasn’t angry. She wasn’t rattled. She was precise. She wasn’t making a threat, she was delivering a message that had already been written. Just like the note. Just like the silence in the hallway.

“Um. Let me sit with that for a second.” He paused. “I think you forget, I don’t work for you. I work for State.”

“We work together and as long as we do, how you operate affects us. So decide how you want this to play out.”

Noah stood slowly. “Is that official message?”

“No. That’s personal.” She hesitated. “But the pressure behind it? That’s institutional.”

He nodded once. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

As he turned to leave, she said, “This isn’t about you, Noah. You think it is. You think you’re the one who’s going to bring light to something long buried. But it’s not about you. This place runs on shadows and hard decisions. And sometimes… Some things are better left alone .”

He paused at the door.

“I’ve heard that before,” he said, without turning.

Then he stepped out and let the door shut behind him.

The house was dark when Noah pulled in.

No porch light, no motion sensor flickering on. Just the soft metallic tick of his vehicle cooling and the wind brushing the trees. He stood there for a second longer than usual, hand on the door, eyes narrowing at the cabin.

He hadn’t left it that way.

Inside, the faint smell of beer and wood smoke carried throughout the home. The floor creaked under his boots as he stepped into the kitchen, reaching for the switch. Light spilled across the room, and there he was.

Hugh.

Sitting at the small table, one leg crossed over the other, a half-drained bottle of Genesee in front of him, the other one still sweating on the table.

“Shit, dad,” Noah muttered, stopping in the doorway. “You ever think of knocking?”

“I used a key.”

“Yes, the one that I want back.”

Hugh didn’t answer. He just picked at the label on the bottle with his thumb, eyes not quite meeting Noah’s.

“I got a call,” he said.

The words didn’t land like a bomb. They landed like a shovel against old earth. Familiar and heavy.

Noah didn’t move. “From who? Rivera.”

Hugh gave him a look. The kind that said, you already know. After a moment, he said, “Someone I used to know in Albany. Not a politician. Not a cop. Something in between.”

Noah slid into the chair across from him.

“They said you are stirring up things that should stay settled.”

Noah’s jaw tightened. “That what they said? Settled?”

Hugh nodded slowly. “They daid it plain. Said you're bringing attention where it isn't wanted. That people have forgotten what happened at Wallface, and they don't want to be reminded."

“People,” Noah repeated. “You mean the DEC?”

Hugh’s eyes met his now. Clear. Tired. “You think this came from the DEC? It didn’t. It’s far bigger. It’s the kind of call you get when you’ve kicked a rock and a hundred snakes come slithering out from underneath.”

Noah leaned back. The note in his pocket suddenly felt radioactive.

“Luther?”

Hugh shrugged. “He didn’t sign the call.”

“But I would bet the ink was his.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then Hugh leaned forward, elbows on the table, both hands around the bottle like it was something he could squeeze answers from.

“I know you think you’re doing the right thing.

And maybe you are. But there’s a difference between right and smart.

I learned that very fast a long time ago when I worked for the Sheriff’s Office.

You want to keep your job? Keep your life?

Maybe keep what little is left of our damn name in this town?

You’ve got to know when to push and when to walk away, son. ”

Noah said nothing.

“You’re not going to walk, are you,” Hugh said, not really asking.

Noah reached into his coat, pulled the folded paper from his pocket, and laid it on the table. He opened it slowly.

Some things are better left alone.

He stared at the words for a long time. Then stood, crossed to the sink, and lit a match off the stove pilot. The paper curled, darkened, and vanished in a hiss of flame and black smoke.

He let it burn to nothing before turning back.

“If they’re trying this hard to keep it buried,” he said, voice low and level, “then I’m right where I need to be.”

Hugh didn’t argue. He just took a long pull from his beer and looked out the kitchen window, as if expecting someone to be there. Watching.

Noah didn’t sit again. He just stood there, staring at the flame-stained sink. The warning was received. But so was the answer.