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Chapter 7: The Name In The Shadows

Author: Maraden
last update Last Updated: 2025-07-09 03:06:04

The audio file played over and over in my head, even after I shut the laptop and shoved it back into its evidence bag. Hearing Kaden’s voice again had cracked something open inside me—grief, rage, fear. But beneath all of that, something colder, sharper:

Focus.

He left me this for a reason. Not just because he trusted me, but because he knew I wouldn’t stop.

After my shift, I didn’t go home. I drove to the old community library in Newtown. It’s one of the few places left with no surveillance, no questions, and no digital trail. The kind of place Kaden used to say “feels like the truth still lives here.”

I found a back corner desk and opened the envelope again. The articles were old, yellowed, clipped without care for neatness. Red ink circled headlines about bribed judges, missing weapons caches, dead informants. All of them connected loosely through locations, names, or companies.

Then I saw it. A name written not in the articles, but scribbled in the corner of one clipping.

“R
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