Black and white night vision. Wind cuts through the microphone; a distant animal whuffles. Then a figure moves. Quick, practiced, almost casual in the way he steps between the floodlights’ reach.
I freeze before I can help it. The walk is a thing you only notice if you know it.
There’s cadence in the stride, the tilt of the shoulders, the shrug of one hip. A jacket that hangs the same way in the chest. A habit of glancing left, then right, a man counting exits.
“Stop it,” I say before my brain catches up to my mouth, and the room goes even quieter.
Clint is the first to look at me. His profile is hard. “What is it?”
“He’s not a stranger,” I snap.
I hit pause, and the pixels hang mid-step on the screen. Zoom in. Frame by frame. There… a flash of a card in the pocket, the way his right hand rubs the waistband when he walks.
I’ve seen that motion before.
“That’s Derek,” Reid says.
He doesn’t need to ask which Derek; there’s only one who moves in that way in this town. Thomas Buck’s assistant.
The man who shows up at the council meetings with a polite smile and expensive shoes. The man who strolls through town, collecting favors and looking for weak doors.
My stomach drops. It’s not random vandalism. It really is a plan.
Clint does what Clint does. He clamps down. His jaw tightens so hard I can see the line of it work. “You sure?”
I don’t have to be poetic about it. “I’m sure. That walk. The jacket. The pocket card. He’s been in and out of the Buck truck around town.” My hands are still, but inside there’s a coil of cold that won’t unwind. “This really is for the land. All of it.”
Reid lashes out, slamming a fist palm-first into the table. “So it’s a scare campaign. Squeeze Clint to sell quickly. Drive the price down, make it look unsafe, desperate.” His laugh is ugly in the room. “Classy.”
Clint’s eyes flash. “That son of a?—”
“Hold on,” I cut in, because the anger’s hot enough to burn us if it gets rolling without a plan. “We have what we need now,right? We can take this to Sheriff Miller. Get him moving, at last.”
Clint looks over at me, still simmering with anger, but there’s a shift in his gaze. Something calculating. He knows I’m right.
Reid stands up from the table, a low, frustrated sound escaping him. “Miller had better not screw this up, or I’ll make sure he’s the next one on the receiving end of a little ‘pressure.’”
I glance at Clint, catching the storm in his eyes. “We go in with everything we have, and we don’t leave until they listen. This ends now.”
Clint grits his teeth, his jaw tight with that quiet fury. “I’ll make them listen.”
The three of us share a look. This is bigger than just the ranch now. It’s about fighting back against the manipulation.
Against the idea that people like Thomas Buck and Derek can just waltz in and take whatever they want without consequences.
And as I stare at the screen, that figure still frozen there, a plan starts to take shape in my mind.
We’re not backing down. No way.
The drive to Sheriff Miller’s office is a blur of tense silence, broken only by the hum of the truck’s engine and the occasional creak of the old vehicle’s suspension as it rumbles over the uneven road.
Clint is focused, his hands tight on the wheel, his jaw still set in that hard line that’s become all too familiar. Reid’s in the back, his arms crossed, tapping his foot impatiently.
My mind’s racing, what we just saw pushing me into overdrive. We finally have something concrete.
But we can’t afford to let any more time slip away.
Clint glances over at me, his eyes sharp. “You think Miller’s gonna listen this time? He hasn’t before.”
