The leftover scent of roasting chicken usually settled into a comforting peace in our home after a big dinner. Tonight, it felt cloying, a suffocating blanket over a simmering unease. I stood by the kitchen sink, watching Clara methodically load the dishwasher, her nimble fingers working the familiar pattern of her latest crochet project – a variegated green and blue monstrosity – into neat rows beside the plates. She hummed a little tune, oblivious. Or pretending to be.
"They're... interesting, aren't they?" Clara said, her voice soft, almost a rhetorical question. She meant Elena and Ryan, Asher's parents.
"Interesting," I repeated, the word tasting flat on my tongue. "That's one word for it."
She chuckled. "Oh, David, don't be so hard on them. They're just a little eccentric. New to town, probably a bit nervous. And Asher seemed perfectly sweet with Zoe."
Perfectly sweet. That was the problem. Too perfect. My mind replayed the entire dinner. Ryan holding his fork like a weapon, Elena dissecting a casual joke about the weather. Their eyes, always watchful, never quite engaging in the easy give-and-take of human conversation. And Asher. The kid moved like he was made of liquid, too smooth, too quiet. But it was the birthday. The damn birthday.
"What are the odds, Clara?" I leaned against the counter, crossing my arms. "Zoe's exactly eighteen, just turned. And Asher, new kid in town, same exact day? It's... statistically anomalous." I heard Elena's precise, even tone in my head. Statistical anomaly.
Clara just shrugged, her gaze fixed on her crochet work. "Coincidences happen, David. It's a big world. A small town. Happens all the time."
But I was a cop. My whole career was built on spotting the anomalies. The things that didn't quite line up. The gut feeling. And my gut was screaming.
Later, in my study, the faint glow of the computer screen illuminated the deepening lines around my eyes. Zoe was already asleep, probably dreaming of that kid. Clara was in bed, the soft, rhythmic sound of her breathing coming from our room. I typed. And I typed.
Standard procedure. New residents in town. Always ran a background check, subtle, of course. Driver's licenses, previous addresses, credit history. Nothing usually flagged. But this wasn't usual. I started with their names: Asher, Elena, Ryan. Common names. Too common, maybe. Like they'd picked them off a list.
The initial queries yielded... nothing. Not 'nothing suspicious,' but nothing. No social security numbers came back clean in the national database. No previous addresses that truly checked out. No discernible credit history beyond what looked like recent, perfectly clean transactions, as if someone had just dropped a wad of cash into new accounts. It was like they'd materialized out of thin air two weeks ago.
My jaw tightened. This wasn't 'eccentric.' This wasn't 'nervous.' This was... a void. A complete, inexplicable blank slate. And that was worse than a criminal record. A criminal record told you who you were dealing with. This told me they didn't exist.
I leaned back, rubbing my temples. They bought the house next door with cash, according to the local records. A lot of cash. No mortgage, no loans. Just... cash. That should have been a flag right there, but in this market, people jumped at cash offers. No questions asked. But I had questions.
My mind raced through possibilities. Witness protection? No, too obvious. And they weren't acting like people trying to blend in as much as people trying to imitate. The way they ate. The way they talked. The way Asher looked at Zoe, that quiet intensity. It wasn't normal teenage infatuation. It was something else. Something primal.
I remembered the surge of electricity I felt when Asher looked up at Zoe in the living room, that brief, undefinable spark between them. My daughter. My peanut. He had some kind of hold on her already. And that made my blood run cold.
I glanced at the framed photos on my desk: Zoe as a toddler, giggling in a sandbox; Zoe, buck-toothed, holding up a crooked, handmade Mother's Day card; Zoe, beaming, holding her diploma from middle school. My little girl. I was the Sheriff. It was my job to protect her.
My fingers flew across the keyboard again, this time opening a secure channel. It was time to go off-book. Time to call in a favor from an old friend, someone who knew how to dig deeper than standard databases. Someone who understood that sometimes, the most dangerous things weren't found in a file, but in the blank spaces between the lines. My gut was screaming. And my gut had never been wrong.