Immediately, a wave of resentment bubbles from her as she recounts the past week; a neighbor’s recording of a SWAT team barging into the Sweet Pea Cottage Preschool, children crying on camera, and she, clad in black, dragging a teacher screaming out of the house. The press conference afterwards was a nightmare.

“I’m not saying that it was our fault we got the wrong guy,” she could hear herself saying through gritted teeth. “The Chief of Police wouldn’t have put me in charge if she didn’t know that I’d do anything to track the bastard down.”

This bastard of course, was the infamous Lipstick Killer, known for brutally strangling women and writing a message, usually to the police, in lipstick, on their bodies. The last message had suggested to Nicole that he had connections with young children, and so she had spent the past few days triangluating the schedules of his victims to find out which school was nearest to their paths crossing. She zeroed in on Sweet Pea Cottage, but…

She was wrong.

She was in the Chief of Police’s office, fists clenched, as she listened intently to her supervisor’s words.

“I have put a lot of faith in you, Lieutenant Kim. I respect you and the work that you’ve done for this department,” she started, tenting her fingers. “I just think you need a break for a while. You’ve been working very hard on this case and I think the Issaquah Police Department could use your expertise. I hear there’s a missing person’s case…”

“I was trained in homicide, with all due respect, Chief—“

“—Nicole. If you respect me, you will go. I will see what we can do to have you back in Seattle soon. In the meantime, I have to clean up a PR nightmare that you caused.”

All this was racing through her mind as she speaks.

“No. I’d rather walk. Get a scope of the town,” she grumbles, clenching and unclenching her fists. Gerald crosses his arms, annoyed.

“It’s nearly ten miles from here, Officer. You can’t possibly—“

“I will walk, thank you.“

Gerald’s cheeks flush slightly, and he opens his mouth to say something to the new Detective Lieutenant, but thinks better of it. He turns slightly and motions to a young woman in uniform who stands nearby.

“Fine, Lietenant Detective,” he says, thoroughly exasperated. “At least let me introduce you to Officer Rayna Williamson. She was going to drive us back to the station.”

Rayna smiles and waves slightly at Nicole. It’s clear that she senses the tension and is trying desperately to smile through it.

She has been looking forward to the new detective’s arrival. Having just recently finished training at the academy in Burien, Rayna still has stars in her eyes for big city homicide detectives.

Her training wasn’t really oriented toward policing a small town like Issaquah, and part of her longs to live vicariously through Detective Kim’s stories of life in Seattle.

Of course she has heard the story of why the Detective Lieutenant has been transferred, and while the idea of scaring a bunch of small children sounds pretty bad to her, the Lipstick Killer sounds a lot scarier.

The captain continues, “Rayna, this is Detective Lieutenant Nicole Kim.” He pauses, waiting for Nicole to extend a hand or say hello, but doesn’t actually give her enough time to respond. “The two of you are going to be hiking buddies.”

Rayna looks at him, confused. “Uhh… Captain?”

The Captain ignores her, and instead looks Nicole in the eyes, a slight smirk on his face. “I’ll see you both back at the station.” He checks his watch. “If you start now, you can probably get there in time to file paperwork.”

With that, he returns to the squad car he and Rayna had arrived in and drives away. Rayna stares in disbelief. She turns back to Nicole. “What just happened?”

As Chief Lee strolls over to the car, Nicole’s gaze shifts to Rayna as she raises an eyebrow.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she starts brusquely, but then pauses, looking momentarily sheepish. “No—what I meant to say is…I didn’t mean to drag you into this.”

She looks genuinely apologetic as she takes the moment to shake Rayna’s hand. “Rayna, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Nicole.”

Rayna nods and clasps Nicole’s hand warmly, a broad smile playing across her face. “It’s nice to meet you too, Nicole.” Her demeanor says, think nothing of it. She releases and motions southward with an open palm. “Come on, let me show you my beat.”

Rayna turns and starts to lead the way deeper downtown. There’s a bounce to her step, and she seems unfazed by the Chief’s behavior. She looks very at-home here, brimming with a bubbly confidence.

The smell of freshly baked chocolate chip scones wafts from nearby.

Nicole follows behind her a few steps, taking in the sights and smells of early morning Issaquah. Some closed wineries and antique stores, a bakery… she frowns deeply. Everything here was so… quaint. Boring.

But, she reasons, she’ll be out of here soon. She’ll be back on the homicide beat again, chasing after a merciless killer.

She inhales deeply as she smells the chocolate chip scones and eyes the baker who pauses from her kneading to blink at her—an unfamiliar sight.

“So…” she starts, aware that in her thoughts there has been a long silence. “Tell me about the folks here. What kind of secrets do they have?”

“Secrets?” Rayna laughs lightly, amused by the question, but grateful to be engaged. “Well I guess the same kind of secrets you’d find in the city.”

As they walk, she elaborates. “Most people think nothing’s going on in a quaint little town like this. I think it’s the opposite.”

They’ve entered a park area. There’s well-maintained grass, a baseball field, swings and play structures for children. But it’s early still, and the sounds of children playing have not yet begun. A blanket of dew covers everything. The sidewalk, wet, has illegible chalk markings on it.

“I think people here have a lot going on, on the inside. There’s nowhere else for it to go. But they’re not like city folk. They bend. I think they bend a lot under the pressure.” She stops abruptly to pick up a piece of trash, a crumpled fast food bag. She makes a small tsk noise, and stands back up.

“They bend…” She lines up a shot at a nearby trash can, 3-pointer style. “But they just… don’t…” She tries for the shot. It bounces off the rim and lands on the sidewalk. “Break.” Her shoulders slump slightly.

Nicole picks up the piece of trash that missed the rim and tosses it neatly into the trash can with a small smirk. She’s been crawling inside the head of one man for over six months, so she understands the concept that Reyna is talking about.

“What do you mean?” she asks. She can’t exactly imagine people being stressed out about anything beyond missing their kid’s baseball game.

“Well…” Rayna nods and chews it over for a second.

“I guess it’s like this: imagine you live somewhere where you know everybody. And I mean everybody. Everyone at the grocery store, at every restaurant, every bar, anywhere you could think to go that isn’t straight out of town.” She looks off into the distance. Two kids are slowly making their way onto the baseball field, carrying large athletic bags.

“And then one day, you mess up real bad. You betray someone, or hurt someone, or someone hurts you.” A stiff breeze blows over the two of them, and Rayna shivers slightly. “But everyone you know knows them too.”

“Where can you go to get away from your mistake? Where can you go where people won’t know what happened?”

She looks at Nicole. For a moment the bubbly optimism seems disrupted. Not a mask, but a cool pond, rippling from a thrown stone.

“You hold it inside. Or you break. Some people freak out, or leave town, or both. But for the most part, people here, they just eat it. They pretend it doesn’t happen.”

She looks downcast for a moment, but then seems to recover, looking back up and smiling at Nicole. “Heh. Can’t be healthy… You ever get that kind of thing up in the city?”

“Um. No, not really.”

Nicole has an inkling of the chill in the conversation; she wasn’t great at reading people, but she can tell when a conversation goes slightly sour.

“Well, that’s not exactly true. I guess people in the city hold things in, too… it just eventually comes out, onto a stranger, or worse, someone you know.”

She shrugs as she picks up the pace towards the police station, wondering if physically moving locations would stifle the chill of the breeze.

“It’s just that no one knows anyone there, so it’s more of a tree falling in the woods, if you get my drift. Must be strange.”

Nicole’s attention is drawn elsewhere as she spies a donut shop at the edge of town. It’s a stereotype, she acknowledges, but she really does love donuts.

“Well, I’ve been up since ass o’ clock, so why don’t we grab some coffee and maybe a ride?” she says, gesturing to the donut shop. Maybe she could pocket an eclair without Rayna noticing.

Rayna brightens up and the tension disappates almost immediately. “Ooh! I love that place. Yes, absolutely, let’s do that.” She almost breaks into a sprint, catches herself, and walks quickly, leading the way over to the donut shop.

An old, discolored sign announces the name of the place as simply “Donuts & Coffee”. A huge donut sits like a halo over the roof of the building, which stands alone on a slight hill. A few cars sit parked outside, along with a dinged grey police cruiser.

As they approach the door, Rayna spots another officer ordering from the counter inside. “Ah! Matty is here!” She turns and looks knowingly at Nicole. “He’ll give us a ride back to the precinct. He owes me one.” She smiles wickedly.

Nicole smiles back thinly back as she sidles up to the counter and rests her elbow on the counter, looking down at the delicious confections within. She tries not to lick her lips in public, and instead focuses on the officer named “Matty.” He’s a tall, lanky police officer who looks like he barely passed police training. It looks as if he’s ordering for himself and a few other officers; his hands are full of donut bags and coffee.

When he spies Rayna, his eyes light up. “O-oh! Hi, Rayna! N-nice weather we’re having,” he sputters, teetering on his spindly legs.

Meanwhile, Nicole is surreptitiously trying to get the cashier’s attention by eyeing them. They don’t seem to notice; they’re too busy filling the rest of Matty’s order.

“Hiiiiiiii Matty!” Rayna holds out her hands and nods at the cardboard tray of coffees he is balancing on his forearm. “You look like you could use some help.” She smiles warmly.

Nicole notices a slight blush on the other officer’s cheeks as he hands over the tray. He re-adjusts his bags of donuts. “Th-thanks, Rayna. What brings you out this way?”

Rayna cocks her head and ponders for a moment. “Just taking a nice stroll across town. Any chance you can give us a lift back to the precinct?”

Matty looks confused. “Us?” He finally notices Nicole. “Oh! Y-yes, of course I can drive you and, uh…”

“Nicole!” Rayna offers, brightly.

“Of course I can drive you and Nicole back.” He extends a donut bag to Nicole, realizes he is holding a donut bag, sets it down on the counter, and holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Nicole!”

The cashier finishes filling the last bag of donuts and sets it on the counter. “That’ll be $32.76, officer.”

A montage of emotions cross Nicole’s face—first apprehension, then interest (at the donuts), and then an aggravated disappointment settles on her face when she realizes the donuts are farther away than her reach.

She eyes Matty’s outstretched hand and then forcefully grabs it, shaking it.

“You can’t possibly be eating this many donuts,” she comments, intending it to be a joke, but the words she speaks have a mocking tone.

Matty reddens, his palms becoming sweaty as he looks away. “N-no, I mean… it’s for the station.”

“It was a joke,” Nicole responds flatly, to which Matty frowns uncomfortably.

“D-do you want a donut?” he asks, hopefully.

“No.”

“Oh. Um…” he looks back to Rayna with a “please help me” face, unsure how to continue pleasantries.

Rayna brushes past the awkward moment, extending a hand. “Here, give me the keys. You finish paying, and I’ll carry these out to the car.”

Matty pauses sorting through what seems to be a small mountain of coins and hands her the keys to the cruiser. The cashier seems annoyed, but Matty is carefully avoiding making eye contact with anyone in the establishment.

Rayna hoists the bags and the coffee carrier, effortlessly tucking objects under, around, and over her right arm and shoulder. She pushes through the entrance door with her left and leaves Nicole alone with Matty, the cashier, and a few other patrons.

Matty finishes paying, mumbles something about the restroom, and disappears into the back of the store.

A variety of delicious-looking donuts call to Nicole from behind the glass of the display case. The cashier comments, “you new here or just not a donut fan? Thought I’d met everyone on the force at this point.”

Nicole looks over her shoulder at the cashier. “Temporary transfer to the Issaquah Police Department. Detective L– Officer Kim, at your service.” She smiles grimly. Technically, she shouldn’t be waving around her Detective Lieutenant badge—seeing as she’s on forced transfer to the Issaquah force.

Looking behind her to make sure Matty or Rayna isn’t looking, she puts a finger to her lips and silently hands the cashier a bill, indicating a particularly colorful-looking jelly donut from the case.

The cashier winks at her and hands her the donut in a paper bag which she stuffs into her duffel bag. No reason to perpetuate the stereotypes, but… she does love a good jelly donut.

Waving to the cashier, she walks back out to the car where Rayna and Matty are waiting.

When they get to the precinct, the Captain is in his office, and Nicole can’t help but notice a desk beside Rayna piled high with paperwork. Matty is behind the two of them, and he quickly thanks Rayna for the help with the offer of a besprinkled chocolate donut.

Nicole sighs.

“Guess this is me, huh.” She swings her duffle bag down on her seat and takes a look at the top file. Just as she’s about to read the top page of the file, the Captain’s door swings open and he struts out, his expression back to its friendly demeanor. “Rayna,” he says, “Good on you for convincing this one not to walk all the way.” He jabbed a thumb in Nicole’s direction, who shrugged.

“Ladies, I just got off the phone with a counselor from Camp ‘Quah—we have ourselves an investigation.”

Rayna beams and stands, setting her unfinished donut down on a ceramic plate she keeps at her desk. It looks hand-painted.

“What’s the situation, Captain?”

Gerald cleared his throat and stood up straight. “Looks like a camper has gone missing last night. Their name is Winston Cross. You know the story, probably had a breakup, wanted to clear their head and listen to some music, got lost.” Nicole raised an eyebrow. The chief seemed to be speaking from personal experience.

“It’s likely the councilors will find them before sundown tonight, but they requested our help, so it’s our duty to show up and support them as part of the community. Besides, if you stay past sundown, there’s probably s’mores in it for you.”

“Any other requisite details?” Nicole interjected. “Besides s’mores?”

Gerald grinned at her. “Well, legend has it that a spirit still haunts the lake of Camp ‘Quah. If you hang around there late at night and spot it, it’ll drag you into the deEeEeEpths belOoOow!” He wiggled his fingers at Nicole who returned his jokes with a flat expression.

He looked over at the two of them. “So whaddya say? Camping trip?”

Rayna smiled, the idea of s’mores evoking visceral sense-memories of her own time at Camp ‘Quah, a common experience for locals who grew up in the area, by all accounts.

The ghost story the Chief told had a ton of variants over the years, and you could always tell when someone went to Camp by which version they remembered.

Rayna’s year, the lake spirit was said to take the form of whatever your heart desired most, visible just beneath the water. But when you dove in to get it, you found yourself hopelessly tangled in weeds, before being quickly lost in the depths. She felt an involuntary shiver make its way up her back.

“If only it were so simple, chief. We’ll head out right away.”

As she and Nicole left the station, Rayna looked over knowingly at her new partner. “He wasn’t kidding about the s’mores, but we should definitely take this seriously. Getting lost in those woods is no joke. Hopefully they’ll have someone from the Ranger service who can help us out.”

As the last of the midmorning fog burned away, the two pulled away from the station in an old cop car. Perched on the roof of the building, a lone crow watched curiously and let out a piercing cry.