The rain had begun to fall again, slow and soft like a memory being replayed. Outside the window, the world was washed in grey. The steady rhythm of droplets tapping the glass was the only sound in the quiet room. Rose sat curled in the corner of the faded armchair, her knees drawn to her chest, eyes fix on the man across from her.
Mr. Crane is here.
Detective Elias Crane didn't move. He sat patiently, his expression unreadable, a folded paper still laying on the table between them – another drawing he had handed her moments ago. A sketch of hand, fingers smeared in charcoal, reaching for something unseen. Something lost.
Rose hadn't spoken. She never did. But something had shifted in the air, since the paper had passed from his hands to hers. A subtle unthreading of the wall she'd build around herself. Crane didn't know why that particular drawing had been the key – maybe it mirrored something in her, maybe it stirred a memory too raw to ignore – but now her silence felt... different. It wasn't retreat. It was hesitation.
He didn't pushed her. He simply waited.
Rose fingers paled, hovered near her lap. The sketchbook she had always held close – hidden, guarded like a scared thing – rested beneath her arm. For a long while, she stared at it. Her thumb traced the worn leather corner. Her breath but quiet but uneven. Then, slowly, she began to move.
She didn't look at him as she placed the sketchbook on the table. The act was cautious, almost reluctant, but it was enough. Crane leaned forward, gently as if afraid the moment would vanish if he moved too quickly. He didn't touch it yet. He looked at her.
Her eyes flickered to him. Not long. Just a second. But in that glance, he saw what he had come for – not answers, not confessions, but trust. Fragile. Trembling. Real.
With reverent hands, he opened the book.
The first page was simple – her own other drawings or sketches, flowers, trees, a child's drawing of a town. But as he turned the pages, the sketches grew more darker, the lines more urgent. Shadows emerged in charcoal and pencils – twisted scarf on the tree, a man with no face, a door slightly ajar, limp body being dragged into the woods.
Each turned told a story she could not voice.
Crane didn't ask questions. Not yet. He let the images speak.
One sketch caught his breath. It showed the back of a house – old, crooked, drawing from the perspective of something watching from behindtrees. A silhouette stood by the window. A man. In his hands, something sharp and long glinted under the faint moonlight.
Another page. A forest. Dark paths. Drag marks in the dirt. And there – just barely visible in the smudged charcoal – a show, feminine, half buried beneath leaves.
Crane's fingers tightened on the page.
He knew the area. He knew the trail.
And she had seen it all.
When he finally looked up, Rose was no longer watching him. Her eyes were distant now, lost somewhere inside her memories. Crane closed the sketchbook gently, like one might close the lid on a fragile box of secrets.
"I believe you," he says quietly.
She flinched, just a little, as though the words had weight.
"I don't know what you saw that night, not completely," he continued, his voice low, careful, "but this –" he touched the book "– this is your voice. You've been speaking all along."
Her lips parted, just slightly. No words came, but her eyes shimmered with something unshed. No tears – no, Rose hadn't cried in years, the last time she cried was at her parents funeral – but something deeper. A silent scream that had lived inside her for too long.
Crane stood. The sketchbook remained on the table, between them now like a thread binding there secrets. "I'll find the truth, Rose. I promise you that."
As he walked at the door, the storm outside swelled. Thunder cracked in the distance. He paused on the threshold, one hand on the knob. Then he turned.
"And when you're ready," he said, "show me the one you haven't drawn yet."
Her head snapped up.
He gave her a knowing look.
"There's someone you haven't put on these pages. The one you're still afraid of. The one watching."
The door shut behind him, leaving only the whispering rain – and Rose, seated in a room full of silence, holding stories only she had seen.
But now, she wasn't alone in them.