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H olden wanted to punch something. To ram his fist so far into a fucking wall that the pain drowned out the other stuff. The anger that rushed through his veins. The dread that sat in his gut at the possibility that he wouldn’t find Clara in time.

“What if we’re too late?” he asked, his fear spilling out into the air.

“We’re not going to be too late.” Jesse took his eyes off the road to glance over at him. “You know that as well as I do.”

“I can’t lose her.”

“You won’t. We won’t.”

Holden scanned the streets. Nothing. And the half dozen deputies in addition to Becket who were also looking for her hadn’t found Clara yet either.

Dammit.

“Maybe she drove to the street fair,” Jesse said, almost to himself. “She could have wanted to blend into the crowd. Hide where there were lots of people.”

Holden shook his head. “No. There are families and kids there. She wouldn’t have put anyone else in danger. She didn’t have a phone, and she needed to get to safety. The only place I can think that she would go is—”

“The sheriff’s station.” Jesse sped up.

“I still can’t believe it’s been Briar this entire time,” Holden said quietly, so fucking mad at himself. “She was right there. I’ve been to her house a dozen times. I built her a damn kitchen.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me either. She was working the morning Malcolm was drugged. She only would have been one hour into her shift when his attack happened. There’s no way she would have had the opportunity to drug him.”

“Maybe Malcolm did do it to himself.”

“Maybe.” Jesse’s radio suddenly crackled, and he lifted the mic. “You got something?”

“A civilian just called in a car crash involving a red Volkswagen Beetle and a Ford Escape.”

“Clara and Briar.” Holden cursed.

“Where?” Jesse asked.

“At the end of Fifth Avenue and Oak Street right in front of the hardware store.”

Jesse sped up. “We’re only a street away. Clara and Briar weren’t spotted?”

“No.”

Holden lifted his Glock, pulse speeding up and muscles tensing, ready to move.

Jesse turned onto the street, and Holden saw it. The Ford had hit the side of Clara’s Beetle, and shit, it looked bad. The side of the Volkswagen had a huge dent, and the Ford’s airbags had deployed. Neither of them would have come out unscathed.

The second Jesse stopped, Holden was out of the car and running. He checked her Volkswagen while Jesse checked the Ford.

“Empty,” Jesse said.

“They’re gone.” Holden scanned the street.

“We need to search the streets. I’ll go this way, you go that way.”

Holden nodded and went to step away, when Jesse called out to him again.

“And Holden, if Briar wasn’t the one to drug Malcolm, and Malcolm didn’t do it to himself, then—”

“There are two of them.”

Clara tried to tell Helen with her eyes to keep going. To not step foot inside the florist.

But the other woman didn’t walk away. She gripped the handle of the door and stepped inside the shop.

Clara frowned, confusion swirling in her belly. Why would she step in instead of running for help? And why was she wearing gloves?

“Is everything okay?” Helen asked.

Briar kept the gun trained at Clara’s head. “You showed up right on time.”

Clara’s heart stopped. They were in on this together?

“This bitch won’t tell me where the USB is,” Briar continued. “But I don’t care anymore. She needs to die, and she needs to die fast.”

Helen nodded, like this was a perfectly sane conversation.

Briar shot a look at Helen. “I got Lauren and Deb. You only took out Malcolm. You owe me.”

Clara’s jaw dropped when Briar handed the gun to Helen. Helen looked at the pistol. Then, she reached out and wrapped her fingers around the grip.

Clara’s heart beat so hard that she could hear it. Feel it through her limbs.

This was it. Helen was going to shoot her.

Briar was just turning back to face Clara when Helen lifted the gun, pressed the muzzle to Briar’s temple, and fired.

Clara screamed and stumbled back, hitting the wall behind her.

Jesus Christ.

“Wh-what did you do?” she gasped. She was going to be sick. Bile crawled up her throat, threatening to break free.

“Murder-suicide,” Helen said calmly, as if it made perfect sense. “Things need to be wrapped up, and I can’t risk Briar sharing my involvement with anyone.”

“I don’t understand.”

Helen removed the magazine and checked the bullets in the gun. “Well, Clara, seeing as you’ve got about a minute left to live, there’s no harm in sharing that Malcolm really pissed me off.”

“You had an affair with him, too?”

She scoffed. “Fuck no. You know that revolutionary sepsis protocol everyone keeps congratulating him on?”

Clara frowned. “Yeah.”

“ I developed it.” Helen finally looked at her, fire in her eyes.

“I spent years refining the approach through direct patient work. There’s documentation, emails, meeting minutes—all proving it was my original idea.

Malcolm made a couple of minor contributions and received not only all the credit but consulting opportunities, speaking fees, and all the recognition. ”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” she whispered.

“I did . But he was louder, and then it was too late because of the press, and hospital politics prevented any correction.”

Clara shot a look at Briar and immediately regretted it. Blood…there was so much blood. “How does Briar fit into this?”

“I knew what happened between them. I knew how angry she was that she’d divorced her husband for Malcolm, only for him to leave her for that massage therapist. She’s always been stupid, so I floated the idea of making his patients sick to discredit him and get her payback.

At first, she didn’t go for it. Then she learned that Lauren was due to come in for surgery. Suddenly, she was all in.”

Jesus, they were sick. Both of them.

“I made it sound like we were a team ,” Helen continued. “And I guess we kind of were. We covered for each other. Took turns stealing patient drugs so no one knew who was responsible.”

“But you tried to kill Malcolm,” she whispered.

“Because even after everything , he was still getting congratulated for my fucking protocol! Do you know how many times I tried to talk to him about it? Reason with him? He wouldn’t bend.

I knew it wouldn’t end until he did. And yeah, he’s not dead…

yet .” Helen aimed her gun. “I’m sorry about this, but I can’t afford to keep you alive. ”

Clara dropped behind the counter a second before a bullet exploded into the wall behind her. She grabbed a pair of scissors off a shelf, opened them, and held one side like a knife.

“Clara…you’re just making this harder than it has to be.”

Blood roared between her ears as she heard Helen’s footsteps grow closer.

Calm, Clara. You can do this.

The quiet words in her head made the shaking in her fingers lessen.

The second Helen’s leg appeared, Clara kicked.

Helen cried out and dropped, and the moment she was on the floor, Clara lifted the scissors high and plunged them into her shin.

As Helen screamed, Clara pushed to her feet and lunged toward the gun. She’d just grabbed it when Helen snatched her ankle and yanked her down. Her cheek hit the floor hard, the pistol falling from her hand and sliding across the shop as pain radiated through her skull.

Immediately, she rolled to her side and kicked Helen, getting the other woman in the shoulder, then the nose.

A loud crunch sounded, and Helen dropped, suddenly unmoving.

Was she unconscious?

Clara didn’t wait to find out. She pushed to her feet and scanned the floor, quickly searching for the gun, but when she couldn’t see it, she ran, sprinting toward the door.

When she reached Briar’s body, her foot slipped on blood and she hit the floor again. Blood coated her front, the wet, sticky liquid slipping between her fingers as the metallic smell hit her nose.

Bile filled her throat but she ignored it, forcing herself up.

She opened the door and ran out, only to scream when she hit a large chest.