I tried to tell myself it was just another case, just another set of bad decisions in a town that had always been too small to keep its secrets. But the truth was, I’d never hated anyone in my life the way I hated Billy Rawlins right then. Not just for what he’d done to Ransom, but for what he’d tried to do to Levi—for making a scared, lonely kid think the only way to survive was to keep his mouth shut.
I could feel the old anger boiling up, the kind that had gotten me into trouble more than once. My hand shook as I reached for the mug on my desk. The coffee was cold, but I drank it anyway.
Ransom came back into the room. He didn’t say anything—just stood there, looking at me with those dark, careful eyes. I wondered if he knew how close I was to burning the whole town down.
“Latham’s bringing him in,” I said.
“Good,” Ransom replied. He sat down in the chair across from me, arms folded, as if he planned to wait all night.
We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to. Sometimes the only thing that matters is knowing the other person isn’t going anywhere.
After a while, I stood up and walked to the window, looked out at Levi. He was sitting on the bench, feet not even touching the floor, head bowed like someone had taken the air out of him. There was something so familiar about the way he hunchedhis shoulders—like he was bracing for the next blow, already convinced it was coming.
I thought about my own childhood, about the years of pretending, of hiding what I was because the world had told me it wasn’t safe. I thought about Ransom, and the shop, and the way the two of us had survived everything thrown at us, only to find ourselves back here, still fighting.
This was my job. My town. My responsibility. But it was more than that, now. It was personal.
I watched Levi for a long time, until the sun started to go down and the lights from the parking lot flickered on. I thought about all the things I’d do to keep him safe. To keep Ransom safe. To keep myself from losing what I’d finally managed to claw back from the world.
When I turned around, Ransom was watching me. He gave me the smallest of smiles, just a tilt of the mouth, but it was enough.
“You ready?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. I am.”
And for the first time in a long, long while, I actually meant it.
Chapter Twenty-One
~ Ransom ~
The sheriff’s department built their interrogation room with all the warmth and grace of a medieval oubliette. Two-way glass, cinder block walls painted a migraine shade of white, a single table bolted to the linoleum, and lighting that could make a saint look like he’d just strangled a busload of kittens. If you ever doubted that cops were sadists, five minutes in here would cure you.
I stood behind the mirror, nails biting into the meat of my palms. Every muscle in my body was wound up tight, from the balls of my feet to the hinge of my jaw. My reflection stared back at me, red-eyed and wild, like some fucked-up spirit haunting the department.
Floyd stood beside me, good hand in his jacket pocket, the other cradled up in a sling. His face was still a roadmap of old and new bruises; the butterfly bandage above his left eyebrow was nearly as white as the wall. He watched the scene inside with a surgeon’s detachment, but I knew him. Under the surface, he was barely keeping it together.
Billy Rawlins sat on the far side of the table, wrists cuffed in front of him, sweating rivers into a county-issued jumpsuit. Kid had always looked more animal than human—a bear in the body of a teenager—but today he looked like someone had turned the thermostat up to broil. His hair was slicked to his skull. His skin shone with terror.
Deputy Latham ran the show, his voice just loud enough to make it through the glass. “Let’s start from the top,” he said. “You broke into Inked Rebellion on January twenty-sixth. You spray-painted the wall, smashed the display case, set fire to the back room, and then attacked Sheriff Hardesty when he responded to the scene.”
Billy slumped lower, eyes flicking up and away, a dance I recognized from every kid who’d ever gotten caught stealing cigarettes or hotwiring a tractor for a joyride. But this wasn’t shoplifting. This was blood.
Latham leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Why don’t you tell me what happened next?”
Billy looked at the cuffs, as if he could Houdini his way out if he just glared hard enough. Then he spoke. “It was supposed to be just a scare job. Smash and grab, make that McKenzie guy freak out, maybe get him to leave town for a while.”
Latham raised an eyebrow. “Who put you up to it?”
For a second, Billy looked at the mirror. Looked right through me. I felt it, like a punch to the gut. His eyes were bottomless. Then he swallowed and said, “Vivian Hardesty.”
The sound hit me so hard my knees went loose. Vivian. Floyd’s ex-wife, my nemesis, the woman who’d tried to turn Floyd’s heart into a trophy case for her own broken dreams. The same woman who’d wept at his hospital bed, pretending to care.
Floyd’s whole body went still. I could feel the heat radiating off him, could see the pulse at his temple hammering away. If I hadn’t been there, he might’ve put his fist through the mirror.
Billy kept going. “She said it was a business thing. Said the town’d be better off without the freak show on Main. She gave me cash, five hundred up front, the rest after. Told me exactly when to hit the place so the cops would be busy with the DUI checkpoint at the county line.”
Latham didn’t flinch. “And the fire?”
