Walter gave chase.
His legs were longer. His boots were better. He’d chased men through strip clubs, cornfields, and once through a Mardi Gras parade in full riot gear. This? This was just cardio, and he was finally in the best shape of his life.
Until his mailbox exploded.
A sharp crack behind him split the air like a hammer to concrete. Walter ducked instinctively, pivoting in the mud as shrapnel hissed by like angry bees. His ears rang. Bits of charred paper drifted like snow.
He kept running.
The guy slipped at the creek line, fell hard, scrambled again. Walter tackled him from behind, both of them slamming into wet ground. Fists flew. Elbows. The guy had a knife—cheap, dull—but Walter yanked it away and flung it into the mud. Took a hit to the cheek, gave two to the ribs. Flippped the guy onto his gut.
“You idiot,” Walter snarled, planting a knee on the guy’s back. “You blew up a federal officer’s mailbox. That’s a felony in every zip code.”
The guy thrashed. Young, maybe twenty. Skinny but wiry. Brown buzzed hair, jittery eyes, twitchy hands. Probably juiced up on something besides caffeine.
“Walt!” Ena’s voice came from the porch—sharp, alert.
He looked up in time to see her sprint barefoot across the gravel in a camisole and sleep shorts, rain plastering her black hair to her shoulders. One of his handcuffs flew through the air. He caught it, still pinning the guy.
God, she looked good. Soaked, pissed, and hotter than hell. No makeup. Just raw beauty and a sharp mind that could cut through all the crap the world flung at a guy like a buzz saw.
He snapped the cuff onto one wrist, then the other, yanking the guy upright. “You picked the wrong address today, jackass.”
Paper fluttered in the air. Something charred and curled landed at Walter’s feet, partially soggy but still legible. He bent and picked it up. A scrap of what used to be an envelope. Inside, a half-burned note, blackened around the edges but clear enough in the center to make his gut tighten.
They’ll kill everyone, I’m afraid.
—Tyler
Walter’s fingers clenched around it. “Damn it, Tyler,” he muttered.
Ena stepped closer, her focus on the note. “What is that?”
He held it up. “A dead man’s warning.”
The rest of the mail was toast. Ashes smeared across the driveway and into the grass. Bits of carbon curled in puddles. He could make out part of a bank logo on one scrap and something that might’ve once been a jury duty summons. The only thing intact was Tyler’s note—and only because it had been sealed inside a plastic baggie.
Walter yanked the hoodie off his suspect’s head. “Name.”
“Screw you.”
Walter grabbed a handful of wet sweatshirt and dragged him toward the FBI replacement vehicle he’d requisitioned—an older green SUV parked at the curb. “I can work with that.”
The guy kicked, slipped, cursed all the way to the back of the rig. Walter flung open the hatch, shoved him inside, and slammed it shut. It wasn’t regulation, but it was effective.
Rain poured down. Walter wiped a hand across his face, mud streaking his jaw. His left knuckle throbbed. Probably bruised. Maybe cracked.
Ena stepped up beside him, arms crossed over her chest, a dark strand of wet hair stuck to her cheek. “You okay?”
He looked at her. Really looked. Wet camisole. Flushed cheeks. Barefoot in the gravel. The woman had just sprinted outside and helped him subdue a suspect without flinching. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.”
She raised an eyebrow, sharp and amused. “You look like you wrestled a pig.”
He glanced down at himself covered in mud, bleeding from one knuckle, soaked through. “Better-looking than a pig.”
“That’s debatable.” She smirked.
He glanced back at the ruined mailbox, now a smoking crater with a bent post and scorched weeds. “That was a good mailbox.”
