“You’ve been without a sheriff for more than six months?” she gasped.
“Yep.” The tone had an edge to it.
She stilled. Now what? Wait a second. “You said that youheard. Don’t attend church?”
“Nope. But I left town beginning of May when the weather finally let us move again and just returned last week. Went on a walkabout to deal with shit. That’s all I’m saying about it.” His tone did not invite additional questions.
Fine. “At least you can tell me about your family.”
“Long story short, since you’re looking into us. We lived in a very small village even farther away from civilization. An avalanche took out the settlement, and only four of us kids survived because we were at a daycare, or maybe a relative’s, outside of the outpost. The caregiver apparently had a heart attack during the avalanche, and we lived on our own for a few days, or so legend says. None of us remember anything about that time. A trapper named Hank found us, took us in, and that’s the end of it.”
“Hank Osprey.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “So, he adopted all four of you.”
“Yeah. Hank wasn’t the most creative of sorts. He named us A, B, C, and, of course…D.” Brock’s tone carried both sadness and anger, with an edge that hinted at a warning.
She shook her head. “He named you A, B, C, and D?”
“Yep. A couple of us might be genetic brothers or cousins or whatever, and we do look alike. All with green eyes and Inuit features. Regardless, when Hank took us, we all became brothers. We lived off the grid and finally visited Knife’s Edge, where the sheriff made Hank give us real names and do formal adoptions. We became Ace, Brock, Christian, and Damian. See? Simple explanation.” Brock shrugged.
“How intriguing. What about birthdays? Do you celebrate those since you don’t remember your childhood before that time?”
He grinned. “Yeah. One year, a traveling circus came this far out, and Hank sat us down with a fortune teller lady. She looked into a crystal ball that appeared more like a marble ball and gave us all birthdates based on horoscopes or something like that. I celebrate on April tenth because I guess I have the characteristics of an Aries, whatever the hell they may be.”
Made sense. Aries held a strong sense of duty and loyalty, and those fit Brock perfectly. “I think Hank chose good names. Plus, Osprey is a strong surname, so you lucked out there.”
“Also Hank’s choice.”
She frowned. “How so?”
“The guy grew up somewhere in the mountains and didn’t have a last name until he wanted to join the Navy at seventeen and see some of the world outside of Alaska.” Brock slowed the truck and parked on the street, probably next to the curb. The sheriff’s station stood two stories, brick and dark. Heavy snow already hung off the eaves and had begun blocking the front door. “Hank saw an osprey flying high above on the way to the enlistment office, and there you go. It’s a good damn thing he didn’t see a pile of dog sh—poop.”
“That’s a fascinating story.” She forced herself to open the door and step into the frigid air. Had the entire town closed down for the day? Seemed so.
The wind cut into her as if also wanting her gone. What had she been thinking, heading to the middle of nowhere to find peace? “Should’ve gone to a spa,” she muttered, ducking her head and trudging up the three frozen steps to the wide, burgundy-colored metal door.
“Amen to that.” Brock kicked snow out of the way and dug a key out of his pocket.
She partially turned toward him, trying to hide her shivers. “Don’t you feel like you need to avenge your guardian? If you loved him like I think you did.” Did she need to unravel family drama?
Brock paused with the key and looked down at her, his eyes a darker green than they had been the day before. “We take care of our own here. If somebody did shoot Hank, it happened by accident, plain and simple. Nobody wanted him gone. I know, deep in my heart, that nobody murdered Hank.”
She swallowed. The mores of a small town, one isolated from the rest of the world, were probably skewed. “The truth matters,” she whispered. They’d already gone over this. It seemed a night to think hadn’t changed Brock’s mind any. “How can you not want justice?”
His chin lifted a micro fraction. “Darlin’? If I needed justice, I’d get it myself.” He turned and unlocked the door, shoving the dented metal open with one powerful shoulder.
She couldn’t hide her shiver this time.
CHAPTER FOUR
Brock kicked several stacks of the local newspaper, published once a week, to the side of the entryway. Chilled air and dust wafted around, and he shut the door behind them. The lonely energy of silence in the long-vacant building—mostly vacant, anyway—hung as heavy as a wool blanket.
“Where is everybody?” Ophelia whispered.
“Not here.” Dusty papers covered the long, wooden door placed over cement blocks that served as a reception desk. A metal folding chair, also stacked with papers, sat on the other side with a file cabinet and blown-up photograph of Knife’s Edge Mountain mounted on the wooden wall. He grunted. The place was a disaster. Even the two chairs and table in the waiting area overflowed with stacked boxes and manila file folders.
Ophelia looked at the mess. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll turn up the heat.” The place ran on the grid, and since the pipes obviously hadn’t frozen and burst, the heat must be running at some level. He strode behind the desk to the hallway that led to the two back offices, conference room, and jail cells. Finding the thermostat on the wall, he twisted the heat setting from forty degrees up to seventy. It wouldn’t hurt to warm the place a bit, anyway.
