Christian asked, his voice a low rumble, “No?”
“No.The troopers are in town, and I think it’d be best if outsiders handled this.Not that they’re going to give Brock a choice.Now isn’t the time to fight for the right to have a sheriff.”Dutch sighed.“Trust me, they ain’t happy about that situation.”
“I don’t care,” Christian said.“We’ve always had a sheriff here and usually we’ve stayed out of the troopers’ way.”
Dutch straightened.“I agree.So let’s continue doing that so we can keep Brock as your sheriff, because the town needs him.”
This was too much.How could Jarod have died in his truck right in front of her house?Had he gone inside?He had never cared about boundaries, so it was possible.What if he’d been killed in her home?Amka looked over at Christian.“We should probably get going if they’re waiting for us.”
Christian gave Dutch a look.“I need to talk to you afterward about another attack on Amka last night.Her brakes were cut.”
Dutch sucked in a breath and leaned in, his gaze scouring her.Concern glowed in his faded brown eyes.“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”But was she?The world kept tilting sideways, like her center of gravity had shifted and hadn’t reset.
“I’ll call you,” Christian said, his jaw visibly clenching.
Dutch stepped away from the truck.
Amka rolled up her window and shivered.“I can’t believe somebody killed Jarod.”
“We don’t know that.”
“We don’t know what?”she asked.
Christian turned back down the road toward town.“We don’t know that someone killed him.All we know is his body was found.”
That was true.She looked down at her bare legs and the socks still covering her feet.“May I borrow your phone?”
“Sure.”He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone, handing it to her.“I take it yours is in the bottom of the river.”
“Everything.My whole purse is,” she murmured.Her wallet, phone, ID, the bar keys, and even her favorite lip gloss were in that purse.It had probably washed all the way down the river by now.She looked at the phone.It was locked.
“Zero-eight-zero-two,” Christian said.“My code.”
She glanced over at him.“Isn’t that your birthday?”
“How do you know that?”
“I don’t know.I must’ve heard it at some point,” she said, frowning.“Didn’t your brothers try to throw you a party at the tavern a few years back?”
He angled his head to glance up at the somewhat blue sky.“We only lasted inside for about a half hour, and then we took off.Went snowmobiling.”
She studied him, wanting to know more.How did he feel about last night?She couldn’t find the right way to ask him, so she went with the next best question.“How do you know your birthday?”
The legend of how Hank found the young Osprey brothers after an avalanche in some tiny settlement in the middle of nowhere was well known.They all looked like brothers—or cousins, or something—so they were probably related.But no records had ever been found.
“The circus came through when we were kids, and Hank paid a fortune teller to give each of us a birthday.He said it mattered and that we should have something normal.”Christian’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile.“She said that August second should be my birthday because I was quiet, stubborn, and always watching the exits.That I was a Leo.I didn’t argue.”
Amka studied him.“I think that’s kind of sweet.”It made sense, too.Leos were known for protectiveness and strength, and that early August day occurred in the deep of summer where a man like him would be most alive in the wild and wouldn’t want to be boxed in by four walls.“I get that.August is when everything starts to shift.The land, the air, and even the forest feel like they’re holding quietly with calmness above an oncoming wild storm.”
He glanced at her.“Storm?”
“Yeah.”She’d only tapped the edges of that last night.He held back and she knew it.“There’s a lot bubbling under your surface.I always suspected it but now I know.”
“You don’t know.A few hours together doesn’t give you insight.Don’t make me into something I’m not.I’m not a good guy.”
Right.Because good guys didn’t jump into freezing water, risk their own lives, just to save a woman who was engaged to somebody else.She’d argue later.Right now, she typed in the code and then quickly called Daisy.
