I’ve been at The Ranch since she vanished, and the place that usually steadies me has turned into a cage with too many exits I can’t use. Men move around me. Boots on gravel. Gates opening and closing. Radios murmuring. Somebody’s coffee going cold on a counter.
None of it touches me.
All I can see is her in that boutique window.
And then she was gone.
I replay it like punishment.
Because I was right there. Ten yards away, leaning against my truck like I had all the time in the world.
My phone was at my ear. My eyes were scanning. My posture was loose on purpose, the way you do in a small town when you don’t want to draw attention. Like I’m not a man built to turn a street into a war zone if I have to.
I was doing my job.
And still, they took her.
Gray had me on the line. Voice low, clipped, the way it gets when he’s staring at something ugly on a screen and trying to keep it from bleeding into his tone.
“We cracked the drive,” he said.
My spine went rigid so fast it hurt.
His next words tore right through it.
“Dave Michaelson is on it. Served with Marcus Quinn. They were close.”
For a second, the name didn’t land.
Then it hit.
Uncle Dave.
The one on the phone.
“Dave Michaelson,” I repeated, tasting rage in the syllables. “You sure?”
“Sure enough to bury him,” Gray said. “But he’s one of many. We have names. Access. Contacts. Locations.”
My grip tightened on the phone until my knuckles went white.
I could hear my own pulse, steady but wrong. Like it wanted to go hunting.
“How many names?” I asked.
“Enough to start a war,” Gray answered. “Enough for Homeland to get interested. Your girl is not safe.”
My girl.
Gray was always good at seeing past the composed face.
Then the boutique door opened.
A woman stepped out.
Not Sierra.
A couple walked past.
