But it didn’t feel like enough.
Not when a man lay dead in the woods. Not when their guests might be wondering if they’d made a mistake by coming here.
Not when Millie had looked at him with those wide, frightened eyes and asked if this was because of her.
He needed to fix this . . . he just wasn’t sure how.
chapter
twenty-nine
Before Caleband Naomi could talk any more, the radio on his belt crackled to life.
“Caleb, you there?” Max’s voice came through, tinny and strained.
Caleb unclipped it and pressed the button. “Yeah, I’m here. What’s going on?”
“Kendra just pulled up. She’s asking what she should do. The dogs still need to be fed and let out. Is that okay?”
Caleb exhaled slowly. Of course. The kennels. The daily routine that didn’t pause just because everything else had fallen apart.
“Tell her to wait,” he said. “I need to check with the sheriff first and make sure we’re cleared to go into the kennel.”
“Copy that.”
The radio went silent.
Caleb clipped it back to his belt and looked at Naomi. “This is going to be a long day.”
“I know.” Naomi moved toward the door, pausing with her hand on the knob. “But we’ll get through it, just like we always do.”
He nodded, though the certainty she carried didn’t quite reach him.
Naomi slipped out, leaving him alone in the quiet office.
Caleb stood there a moment, staring at nothing, trying to pull his thoughts into some kind of order.
Then he rubbed a hand over his face and forced himself to move.
The sheriff would have more questions. The dogs would need care. The residents would need reassurance.
Somewhere in the middle of all of it, Caleb would have to figure out who’d been on his property and why. Who was the dead man? Who had killed him?
And he needed to find those answers before the killer struck again.
The sheriff’s voice carried from the living room, steady and methodical as he worked through his questions with Valentina.
Millie stood at the kitchen counter, a cutting board in front of her and a knife in her hand. It was past time for breakfast but too early for lunch. However, she needed something to do with her hands. Something to keep her from spiraling.
So, she’d started to cut up some fruit. She’d make a salad from it. Something healthy.
Millie sliced into an apple, the blade moving with mechanical precision. She focused on the rhythm of it, the clean cuts.
But her mind wouldn’t settle.
The sheriff was still here. Still questioning Valentina.
The woman hadn’t had anything to add.
