Maya's POV
The whiskey burned going down, but not enough to erase Brian's words. "Your corruption scandal embarrassed the family."
I poured another glass, my hands shaking so badly the bottle rattled against the rim. My brother—my only family—had looked at me like I was garbage he wanted swept off his doorstep. In front of his employees. In front of strangers. Like the fifteen years we'd spent protecting each other after Mom left meant nothing.
The studio apartment above the bait shop smelled like fish and salt water. One room. A bed that sagged in the middle. A kitchenette with two burners that only sometimes worked. This was rock bottom. This was what happened when you tried to do the right thing in a world that rewarded lies.
My phone buzzed. Another news alert about the "accidental death" of Emma Chen. The article included her school photo—a smiling girl with braces and hope in her eyes. Seventeen years old. Dead on the rocks because she got too close to unstable cliffs.
Except that was a lie.
I'd been a homicide detective for six years before Marcus destroyed me. I knew what murder looked like. Emma's hands had defensive wounds—she'd fought someone. The angle of impact was wrong for a simple fall. Her shoes were found thirty feet from the cliff edge, tossed there to make it look like she'd slipped out of them.
But Chief Harris had looked me straight in the eye and called it an accident. Told me to stop seeing crimes where there weren't any. Suggested I was "traumatized" and "unreliable."
The same words Internal Affairs used when Marcus framed me.
I downed the whiskey and poured another. The scar across my ribcage throbbed—phantom pain from the knife Marcus's friends had used to "convince" me to keep quiet about his trafficking operation. They'd left me bleeding in an alley with a simple message: Shut up or die.
I'd survived. Barely. But I'd lost everything else.
My phone rang. Unknown number. I almost didn't answer, but something made me swipe to accept.
"Ms. Reeves?" A woman's voice, older, with an accent I couldn't quite place. "My name is Carmen Chen. I'm Emma's grandmother."
I sat up straight, suddenly sober. "Mrs. Chen, I'm so sorry for your loss—"
"I know you found my granddaughter's body." Her voice was steady, controlled, but I heard the ocean of grief underneath. "I know you tried to tell the police it wasn't an accident. I know they dismissed you."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good." Something fierce entered her tone. "Because I need someone who sees the truth. Someone who won't be bought off or scared away. I'm hiring you to investigate Emma's murder."
My throat tightened. "Mrs. Chen, I'm not sure I'm the right person. My reputation—"
"I know exactly who you are, Maya Reeves. I spent the last twelve hours researching everything about you. LAPD detective. Excellent record. Destroyed by a corrupt partner when you discovered his crimes." She paused. "You lost everything for doing what was right. That's exactly the kind of person I need."
The words hit me harder than I expected. Someone believed me. Someone saw past the lies Marcus had spread.
"The police won't cooperate with a private investigation," I warned her. "Chief Harris made it clear he wants me gone."
"Then we work around them. I have resources. My grandson has more resources than God." Carmen's voice dropped. "Emma was seventeen. She was scared in the days before she died. She told me she'd seen something terrible and didn't know what to do. I told her to go to the police." Her voice cracked. "I sent her to the people who got her killed."
I closed my eyes. Another teenager dead because the adults who were supposed to protect her had failed.
Just like the girls Marcus had trafficked in LA. The ones I'd been too late to save.
"I'll do it," I said. "But I need to be honest—I might not find answers. If this town is as corrupt as I think, people won't talk. Evidence will disappear. We might hit nothing but dead ends."
"Then we hit dead ends together." Carmen's strength reminded me of my own grandmother, gone five years now. "Come to my house tomorrow morning. Nine o'clock. I'll have everything you need—Emma's journal, her phone records, names of her friends. And you'll meet my grandson."
"Your grandson?"
"Daniel Chen. He raised Emma after our son and daughter-in-law died. He was more father than brother to her." Carmen's voice softened with pain. "He's not handling this well. But he needs to meet you. Needs to know someone else is fighting for Emma."
We hung up after she gave me her address. I stared at my phone, my mind racing. A real case. A chance to use my skills for something that mattered. A way to prove I was still a detective, even without the badge.
But also—a murdered teenager. A corrupt police force. A town hiding secrets that got people killed.
Everything that had destroyed me in Los Angeles.
I should pack up and leave. Drive away from Crimson Bay and never look back. Find some other small town where no one knew my face or my failures.
Instead, I pulled out my laptop and started researching.
Emma Chen. Seventeen. Junior at Crimson Bay High School. Honor student. Volunteered at a youth center downtown. Her social media was filled with pictures of friends, beaches, books. A normal kid living a normal life.
Until something made her so scared she videoed herself saying she'd seen something terrible.
I dug deeper. The youth center where Emma volunteered was funded by the mayor's charity foundation. Mayor Victoria Ashford—from old California money, beloved by the town, always smiling in photos at ribbon-cutting ceremonies and fundraisers.
Something about her smile bothered me. Too perfect. Too practiced.
I searched for Victoria's background and found layers of legitimate businesses. Real estate. Import-export. The yacht club. All respectable. All profitable.
All perfect for laundering money and moving illegal goods.
My cop instincts screamed that I was onto something. But instincts weren't evidence. And without evidence, I had nothing.
A knock on my door made me jump. It was past midnight—who the hell would be here?
I grabbed the kitchen knife I kept by the bed—the only weapon I had since giving up my service weapon—and approached the door quietly.
Another knock. Harder this time.
"Maya." Brian's voice, rough and desperate. "Please. I know you're in there."
I froze. Part of me wanted to pretend I wasn't home. He'd made his choice when he rejected me in front of his employees. But another part—the sister who'd bandaged his scraped knees and helped him with homework and held him when Dad died—couldn't ignore him.
I opened the door a crack, keeping the chain lock engaged.
Brian looked terrible. His eyes were red. His hands shook. And his face—God, his face had a fresh bruise blooming across his jaw.
"What happened to you?" The question came out before I could stop it.
"I can't talk here." He glanced over his shoulder at the dark street. "They're watching. They're always watching. But I needed to warn you." His eyes met mine, terrified. "Maya, you have to leave Crimson Bay. Tonight. Don't wait until morning. Don't tell anyone. Just go."
"Brian, what are you talking about—"
"Emma Chen saw something she shouldn't have. That's why she's dead." His voice cracked. "And if you keep asking questions, they'll kill you too. Please. I already lost Dad. I can't lose you."
Before I could respond, headlights cut through the darkness. A car pulled up across the street—black sedan, tinted windows, engine idling.
Brian went white. "I have to go. They can't know I was here." He grabbed my hand through the crack in the door. "Promise me you'll leave. Promise me, Maya."
He ran before I could answer, disappearing into the shadows between buildings.
The black sedan sat there for another thirty seconds. Watching. Waiting.
Then it drove away slowly, like a predator that knew its prey couldn't escape.
I closed the door and locked it, my heart pounding. Brian's terror had been real. The bruise on his face was fresh—someone had hit him recently. And his warning...
They're always watching.
Who were "they"? Victoria? Chief Harris? Someone else entirely?
I looked at Emma's smiling photo still open on my laptop. A seventeen-year-old girl who'd seen something terrible and paid with her life.
My phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
Just four words: "Stop or join her."
And attached—a photo of me taken five minutes ago through my apartment window, the bottle of whiskey visible on the table beside my laptop.
Someone had been watching me. Right now. Taking pictures while I sat here thinking I was safe.
My hands shook as I pulled the curtains closed. But closing curtains wouldn't help if they'd already decided I knew too much.
I should run. Pack my car and drive until Crimson Bay was nothing but a dot in my rearview mirror.
Instead, I pulled up Carmen Chen's address and set an alarm for eight AM.
If they wanted to scare me into silence, they'd picked the wrong woman.
I'd already lost everything once. They couldn't take anything more.
But as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, one thought kept me awake:
What if Brian was right? What if digging into Emma's death got me killed too?
And worse—what if my brother was involved in whatever got Emma murdered?
The bruise on his face. His terror. His knowledge that "they" were watching.
They can't know I was here.
Brian wasn't just warning me.
He was hiding something. Something that could destroy us both.