What Remains Unsaid

Chapter Nine-The Unravelling

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the precinct that morning was the silence. Not the usual kind, this one was heavy, deliberate. Conversations stopped when I passed. Papers shuffled louder than necessary. Someone had been talking about me.

I set my coffee down on my desk and opened my laptop.

The Hale case file blinked on the screen, the same one I thought I’d buried beneath a mountain of other reports. But it had been reopened. A new tag sat on the header in bold red: “Independent Review: Active.”

Lee’s desk was empty, but her jacket hung on the chair. She was here somewhere.

The sound of footsteps came from behind me, Chief Donnelly, flanked by two people I didn’t recognize. Suits. Not locals.

“Crowe,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “This is Agent Rosner and Inspector Hale from Internal Affairs. They’ll be going through our open and closed casework this week.”

“Internal Affairs?” I forced a half-smile. “Didn’t know we were that interesting.”

Rosner didn’t smile back. “We’re starting with the Hale case. We’ll need your original reports, evidence logs, scene photos everything.”

My pulse thudded once, sharp and deep. “Of course,” I said. “I’ll have them by noon.”

When they walked away, I sat still for a moment. The hum of the fluorescent lights above me felt deafening.

Lee appeared a few minutes later, holding two cups of coffee. “Morning,” she said, too casually. She set one by my desk.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound normal. “You hear about the review?”

“Yeah.” She leaned against my desk. “They asked me to hand over my field notes too.” Her tone was easy, but her eyes didn’t leave mine. “Guess they’re being thorough.”

“Guess so,” I murmured.

She hesitated, then added, “You know, Alan… I’ve been going over the report again. Something doesn’t add up.”

I looked at her, forcing confusion. “What doesn’t?”

“The security logs from the neighborhood,” she said. “They show a vehicle parked near the Hale residence around midnight the night of the murder. You logged Marcus at a motel two towns over by then, right?”

“Right,” I said slowly. “He checked in at 10:43 p.m.”

“Then why does the timestamp show your badge code accessing the same motel’s security feed at 11:10?” she asked quietly. “After you already filed it?”

For a second, the room seemed to shrink. The hum of the lights grew louder, pressing in.

I exhaled. “Maybe a system glitch. Happens all the time with the old logging software.”

She nodded, but the silence between us stretched thin. Then she said, “Maybe.”

The rest of the day passed in fragments — Rosner’s voice in the distance, the shuffle of old files, the slow scrape of time.

By late afternoon, I was in the records room, pulling the original evidence chain from storage. My hands didn’t shake, but my mind did — replaying every move I’d made that night, every detail I thought I’d covered.

The blood pattern on the carpet. The broken vase I’d deliberately shifted. The phone I’d wiped and placed in Marcus’s truck.

Fifteen years of hate had planned it perfectly. But hate never accounts for everything.

Behind me, the door creaked open. Lee again.

“I figured I’d find you here,” she said softly.

“You shouldn’t be,” I replied without turning. “Review’s restricted.”

“I’m not here for the review,” she said. “I’m here for you.”

I turned then. She stood in the doorway, arms folded, the same calm look she always wore when she already knew the answer.

“I went to see Marcus,” she said. “After the hearing.”

I said nothing.

“He told me something,” she continued. “About that night — about how Lydia called him around nine. She was upset. Said she’d argued with someone else before he left for the trip. Someone who came to the house.”

Her gaze didn’t waver. “He said she mentioned your name.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

“I didn’t believe him at first,” Lee said. “But then I checked the gas station cameras near her place. You were there, Alan. Ten minutes from her house, right before midnight.”

The room felt colder.

I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “You don’t understand.”

Her eyes glistened, but not from fear. From disappointment. “Then help me. Make me understand.”

For a long time, neither of us spoke. The faint buzz of the old ceiling fan was the only sound between us.

Finally, I said, “She ruined him, Lee. She ruined me. Fifteen years, and he got to live the life I lost. You don’t know what that does to a man.”

Her expression didn’t change, but something behind her eyes cracked. “So you killed her.”

I almost denied it. Almost. But the truth had been waiting too long.

“I made it look clean,” I whispered. “Every angle, every trace. I left him the life he gave me, prison, not peace. He deserved it.”

Lee stepped back, her voice shaking now. “No one deserves this, Alan. Not even him.”

For the first time, I saw fear in her. Not of me, of what I’d become.

I moved past her toward the door, pausing only once. “You won’t tell them.”

She didn’t answer. And that silence said everything.

When I reached the parking lot, the sky was already dark. The wind smelled of rain.

I sat in my car, staring at my reflection in the windshield. The man looking back wasn’t a detective anymore. Just a ghost, still pretending to solve a murder he’d already committed.

Somewhere inside the building, I imagined Lee staring at the same files I’d built, the lies, the evidence, the guilt.

I knew what she would do next.

And I knew it was finally over.