Chapter 9

Seth Coudry sat in the unmarked, driver’s seat reclined just enough to suggest patience, coffee warming his hand, though he hadn’t taken a sip. His partner was inside Crack House—the coffee shop, not an op. Butler liked their cinnamon rolls, said it gave him good karma before a case. Seth just liked not driving and thinking.

It had been a little over two weeks since the murder that shook Cloud View, the kind of place that bragged about its quiet like a smug relative. Then Sebastian Walter’s death reared its ugly head. And ugly it was—his head bludgeoned beyond recognition, and the woman at the scene barely able to breathe through the hysteria.

When she finally calmed down, it was like looking at a human screensaver. No spark. No presence. Just movement. Lights on. Nobody home.

Seth thought back to the first time they saw her, in that bland gray box of an interrogation room.

“Maybe we should get her a jacket,” he’d murmured before going in. She was shaking. Not for sympathy’s sake—just observation.

“Man, chill,” Butler said, brushing past him. “Let’s just get Bonequisha to confess so we can be polishing our shields by morning.”

Seth had flinched. Not visibly, not dramatically. But enough to remember it now. He hadn’t checked Butler on the comment. As a white guy, and with Butler being Black, what was he supposed to say? It was that strange moment when bigotry didn’t come from the direction you expected, and instead of correcting it, you swallowed hard and let it ride.

Butler had gone in hot.

“Why’d you kill him?” he snapped.

Savannah Spencer didn’t answer. Just stared ahead. A blank stare. The kind that unnerved you more than defiance.

“Quit stalling!” Butler bellowed. “We’ve got you dead to rights. Your prints are on the lamp that caved in his skull. You’re covered in his blood. We know you did it. So help yourself. Why?”

Seth had just watched. The evidence added up. Too well, honestly. The scene was tight. Her hands, the lamp, the blood. A to B to C. And yet something about it all made his stomach knot—not the guilt, but the convenience.

She’d called it in herself.

“My husband is dead,” she’d said on the 911 call. “There’s blood. He’s on the floor.”

She never referred to him by name.

Butler opened the passenger side of their shop—the patrol car—and handed Seth his drink. “Half shot,” he said. “They were out of oat milk. Said the vegan order mob ran through earlier.”

Seth nodded and took the cup, radio on low. A quick local news bite mentioned the Savannah Spencer case—again. Something about a twist in the psychiatric eval.

Butler groaned. “Man, can we hear about anything else?” He reached forward and clicked the radio back on.

Seth turned it off again.

They rode in silence for a beat.

And finally, without looking up, he let the thought slip—just loud enough for himself.

“Why would she break into a stranger’s house… only to call 911 and say her husband was dead?”