9-The teen's identity
CLAIRE
It was official. Grayhaven wanted me blind.
It felt unbelievable how there was still not a word from the county. No updates, no follow-up, not even a whisper. The boy’s death had already slipped into rumor—twisted, softened and smothered under the same silence this town lived on.
I’d seen it before, back in L.A. Cases that disappeared because someone in power needed them to. Files that went missing, evidence lost in “clerical errors,” reports rewritten until the truth was unrecognizable. That kind of silence didn’t happen by accident. It happened because someone wanted it that way.
And Grayhaven was no different.
They looked at me like I was the problem. Like I’d dragged death here in my suitcase and dumped it at their cliffs. But the problem wasn’t me—it was them. Their fear. Their gossip. Their refusal to face what was right in front of them.
That’s what made me angry. Not just the cover-up, but the ease of it. The way they acted like a boy’s life was just another story they could fold into the sea and forget.
Not this time.
That morning I told myself I’d walk into the county office and rip the truth out of them, whether they liked it or not. Badge or no badge, small town or not.
I was still a licensed investigator. I knew the law. I knew my rights. And I knew how to fight when someone thought they could bury the truth under paperwork and smoke.
So I walked into that squat brick building, with my coat collar high. I didn’t care if they all stared. Let them.
Because today, I wasn’t leaving without answers.
Behind the counter sat a clerk. Hair in pink rollers. A cigarette was drooping from her lips and the ash looked ready to fall onto the typewriter in front of her. She didn’t look up when I walked in. Didn’t even twitch. She just kept pecking at the keys like an old bird tapping on glass.
I approached her “I need a copy of the report,” I said. “The boy from the cliffs. I gave my statement. I want to see what’s been filed.”
The clerk dragged from her cigarette with the ember flaring. Smoke streamed lazily from her nose. She still didn’t look up. “Ain’t no report.”
My jaw tightened. “There has to be. You wrote down every word I said. Or at least pretended to.”
“Closed case,” she said flatly, like she’d been repeating the same line all her life. “No report.”
I laughed once“Closed? Already? He had bruises, fractures, wounds no fall could explain. You close that in a week and a few days?”
The clerk shrugged, typed another lazy line, slid a folder into the desk drawer. She might as well have spit in my face.
I pulled my card from my pocket and slapped it on the counter, it was hard enough to make her ash jump. “Claire Monroe. Licensed private investigator. That means I’m entitled to access records that pertain to a suspicious death. And whether you like it or not, that boy’s death qualifies.”
Finally, her eyes flicked up. She looked at my card, then back at me, she seemed unimpressed. The cigarette wobbled between her fingers. “Not open. Not suspicious. Not your business.”
Nora Quinn.
She walked out like the hallway belonged to her, like she’d built it brick by brick. Same messy bun, same badge crooked on her belt and same too-casual shirt. She looked half-drunk on boredom, but her eyes—those were sharp. Watching me and Measuring me.
“Well, well,” she said. “City girl comes knockin’ again.”
“Sheriff,” I said
“Acting sheriff,” she corrected, leaning against the doorframe like she had all the time in the world. “Don’t go givin’ me titles I don’t hold.”
I ignored that. “Your office is withholding information on an active case. That boy was murdered.You know it. I know it. Yet the file’s locked up like it’s nuclear codes. Care to explain why?”
She chewed on her gum. “Care to explain why you’re still here, Monroe? Most tourists would’ve packed their bags by now.”
“I’m not a tourist.”
“No,” she said. “You’re worse. You’re a meddler. Outsider with too many questions and not enough sense.”
“Meddler, outsider—pick whichever word makes you feel better,” I said, “I want the report. Now. Because no amount of lies can change what I saw—his face beaten, his body broken even before the sea touched him. You can call it an accident if it helps you sleep, but that file is the only chance you’ll have to prove this office isn’t complicit.”
Quinn tilted her head back and laughed.
The clerk looked up at her, with smoke dangling between her fingers, and they shared eye contact that lasted too long, almost like a private joke I wasn’t invited to.
“Well now,” Quinn drawled, “Let’s play pretend. Let’s say I hand you the report right here, right now. What do you think happens? You march off like some crusader, poundin’ on doors, makin’ phone calls, rattlin’ cages that don’t want rattlin’?
Maybe you make a scene in town, stir folks up, spook the families. Maybe you even think you’ll get justice. But here’s the truth, Monroe.”