Guilty by Proximity

Chapter 5— What The Land Deal Buried

Liam turned the planner around fully now, sliding it across the table so it sat between them instead of in his hands. Hazel didn't touch it right away. There was something about a dead man's handwriting that made her want to handle it carefully.

"Read the last two weeks," Liam said. "Tell me if you see what I saw."

She did. Most of the entries were exactly what she'd have expected from a man who taught fourth-period World History and sat on a town council nobody paid much attention to. Grade quizzes. Council prep — parking ordinance. Call plumber re: staff room sink. Small, ordinary, a life measured out in errands.

Then, three weeks back, something changed.

Mill site records — request county file. Underlined twice.

A few days after that: Called EPA regional office. No callback yet.

Then, in handwriting noticeably tighter than the rest, like he'd pressed the pen harder without meaning to: Confirmed. Site was never remediated after '09 closure. This isn't a paperwork gap. Someone buried it on purpose.

Hazel read that line three times.

"Keep going," Liam said quietly. "It gets worse."

The entries from the final week were shorter, more clipped, a man clearly running out of patience with whatever bureaucratic wall he kept hitting. DR pushing vote up. Why the rush? Two days later: Spoke w/ DR directly. He says site's clean. He's lying. I've seen the file.

And then, the second-to-last entry, dated four days before he died:

Meeting Thurs. Bringing documentation to council. This needs to be public before the vote, not after.

The last entry in the planner was blank.

"DR," Hazel said slowly. "Declan Rhys."

"Yeah." Liam's voice had gone flat and careful, like he was trying not to show what it was costing him. "My dad."

She looked up at him. "You knew about this."

"I didn't know about this." He gestured at the planner. A couple at the next booth glanced over, and he lowered his voice. "I knew there was tension about the mill sale. I knew Holloway was asking questions my dad didn't love. I did not know it was—" He tapped the underlined line. "Someone buried it on purpose. This."

"Your dad told the council the site was clean."

"My dad tells people whatever gets him what he wants." The words came out before he seemed ready for them. He exhaled and looked down at the planner. "Sorry. I don't usually say things like that out loud."

"Why not? If it's true."

"Because in my house, it doesn't matter if it's true. It matters if it's useful." He paused. "I've spent my whole life being the person who's supposed to make the Ashworth name look good. Every room I walk into, I'm already representing something. I don't get to just be angry at my dad. I have to think about what happens if I am."

Hazel sat with that for a second. It wasn't an excuse. It was simply something she had never known about him.

"So what do we do with this?" she asked.

"I don't know yet. If my dad found out Holloway had proof, and Holloway was about to make it public—" Liam stopped himself before finishing the sentence.

"You think your dad might be involved."

"I think my dad had a reason to want this to disappear. I don't know if that's the same thing." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I know how bad that sounds. Believe me, I know."

"It doesn't sound bad. It sounds like you're actually looking at this honestly, which is more than I expected from you a week ago."

She meant it as something close to a compliment, and from the way his mouth twitched, half surprised, half something else, he took it as one.

"That's the nicest thing you've said to me since freshman year."

"Don't get used to it."

***

Milo was at the kitchen table doing math homework badly when Hazel finally got home, later than she'd meant to, her head still full of underlined handwriting and a dead man's warnings.

Desa was still up too, curled into the corner of the couch in pajamas covered in cartoon foxes, fighting a losing battle against sleep. She perked up when the door opened.

"You missed story time," Desa announced, like this was a serious offense.

"I know, Des. I'm sorry." Hazel dropped her bag and crossed over to press a kiss to the top of her head. "Did Milo read to you?"

"He did the voices wrong."

"I did the voices exactly right," Milo said, without looking up from his homework. "She just has unreasonably high standards."

"You made the wolf sound like Dad."

"The wolf sounds like Dad in my heart."

Desa seemed to consider this a satisfactory answer, because she yawned enormously and slid off the couch, padding over to loop both arms around Hazel's waist in a hug that lasted exactly as long as five-year-olds' hugs ever lasted before something else became interesting.

"Bed," Hazel said, steering her gently toward the hallway. "I'll do the voices right tomorrow."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"You smell like diner," Milo said, not looking up.

"I was at the diner."

"With Ashworth."

"Working. With Ashworth."

"Sure." He erased something hard enough to nearly tear the page. "Dad left dinner in the microwave. Des already ate. I saved you the good fork."

"There's no good fork, Milo."

"There's a good fork. You just don't appreciate it." He glanced up finally, something quieter underneath the deadpan. "You look tired. Like, actually tired, not your usual dramatic tired."

"It's been a long week."

"Yeah." He didn't push past that, just went back to his math, and Hazel let herself feel, for a moment, the specific relief of being somewhere nobody needed her to explain anything further than that.

Desa appeared in the doorway a minute later in mismatched pajamas, clutching a picture book like evidence.

"You said you'd read me the dragon one."

"I did say that but I had just put you to bed now, Des" Hazel was startled. She had, in fact, said that approximately four days ago, and clearly Desa had been keeping score. "Five minutes. Let me eat something first."

"Three minutes."

"Four."

"Fine."

Desa climbed up onto the chair beside her anyway, not waiting for the fork to even reach Hazel's mouth, tucking herself against her side with the easy, uncomplicated certainty of someone who'd never once had to wonder if she was allowed to.

Hazel let her stay there.

She almost didn't go back out. It was already dark, and she had a physics set due tomorrow she hadn't started, and every reasonable version of the evening ended with her in bed by eleven. But her phone buzzed with a text from Liam.

Brynn wants to talk. Says it's about the mill. Says it has to be tonight.

Reasonable stopped mattering. She had to be there.

Desa had already fallen asleep by her side. She put her to bed and tucked her carefully before leaving.

They met her behind the school, near the loading dock where the drama kids smoked when they thought no one could see them from the parking lot. Brynn was already there when Hazel and Liam arrived, arms crossed tight against the cold, looking like someone who'd talked herself into this and was actively fighting the urge to talk herself back out of it.

"I shouldn't be here," Brynn said, before either of them could speak. "If my dad finds out I said anything, he loses his job. You understand that, right? He's worked mill security for eleven years. It's the only thing keeping us afloat since my mom left."

"We understand," Liam said carefully. "You don't have to—"

"I do, actually." Brynn cut him off, glancing between them, something raw and unsettled in her face. "Because I've been carrying this around for a week, trying to decide if it matters, and then Holloway died, and now I can't stop thinking maybe it does."

Hazel kept very still, the way you did when you didn't want to spook something. "What did you see?"

Brynn wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

"The week before he died. There was a car at the mill gate, late, after my dad's shift usually clears everyone out. I was waiting for him to finish up, sitting in the lot." She glanced at Liam, apologetic. "It wasn't your dad's car. I know his car. I know most of the cars that go in and out of there."

"Whose was it?" Hazel asked.

"I don't know. That's the thing." Brynn shook her head, frustrated at herself. "I didn't recognize it. But my dad let it through the gate like it belonged there. Like whoever it was had clearance, or knew the code, or—I don't know. I didn't think anything of it at the time. It's a mill. Cars go in and out."

"When, exactly?" Hazel's pulse had picked up without her fully noticing.

"Tuesday. The Tuesday before." Brynn's voice dropped lower, like saying it any louder might make it more true than she was ready for. "Three days before he died.”