I sat on the edge of the bed for a beat, letting my feet acclimate to the shock of cold boards beneath them, and watched him breathe. In the new light, he looked impossibly fragile—skin almost translucent, veins webbing his wrists, collarbone like the edge of a flint blade.
If I hadn’t seen him plow through a tray of cinnamon rolls in one sitting, I might have thought he’d shatter if I blinked too hard.
The blankets had slipped to his hips, baring the long line of his back, the faint arch that—fuck it, yeah—was sexy as hell even now. My thumb itched to trace the outline, but I knew better.
I tucked the blankets around him instead, cocooned him in as much insulation as a man could buy at the Black Butte general store.
The scraping of tires grew louder, slowing as it hit the potholes near our gate. A single vehicle, heavy, idling in neutral before the engine cut. I mapped it to a four-door, maybe a Crown Vic, which meant either law enforcement or some asshole who didn’t know how to drive a truck.
The room was haunted with the smell of Jojo—sweet, a little citrus, something earthy underneath—and, now, the sharper note of his fear, left over from the night before. I tried not to think about the trauma layers I was grafting onto his life.
The Sig was exactly where I left it, magazine loaded, safety on, round in the chamber. I slid it into the waistband of my pants and then checked the corners of the hall before moving.
Downstairs, the house had an after-battle feel. In the kitchen, the crime scene was untouched except for the chalk outline of blood where the sun hadn’t quite reached to dry it. My eye went straight to the table, the dead chicks, the neat little arrangement like a florist’s offering from a mortician.
I hated that Jojo would have to see it. I hated more that I’d have to clean it myself before he did. For now, I left the carnage untouched. Let the sheriff see it raw.
The front door’s old brass lock felt warm in my palm as I turned it, almost hot from where the morning sun hit the handle. I cracked the door an inch, enough to get a full 180 view of the yard.
Sheriff Calloway’s cruiser sat in the gravel, dust still floating around the tires. The man himself stood by the hood, arms crossed, one hip cocked out in a pose that said he’d been up all night and blamed me for it. His sunglasses were perched high, not because the sun was bright, but because he liked the intimidation factor.
Small-town lawman trick.
I waited a beat, then opened the door wide. “Took you long enough,” I said, voice flat as the tabletop. His thirty minutes had turned into an hour.
“Evening, Steele.” His voice had that gravel-pit resonance. “You leave the light on for me?”
I didn’t answer, just gestured for him to follow. I watched his boots track the dirt onto my porch, then counted the steps it took for him to sweep the entryway with his cop eyes, cataloguing the layout, angles, any sign of threat.
Respectable.
I might have liked the guy in another universe.
We went straight to the kitchen. He stopped cold at the threshold, taking in the tableau. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even bother with the notebook, just let his gaze sweep over the evidence, then lingered on me.
I respected that. He could have started with the formalities—questions, statements, “Can you walk me through what happened.” Instead, he asked: “You got a guess who did it?”
“Hargrove,” I said, before he finished the question. “Met him at Miller’s Feed. He wants this place.”
The sheriff pulled a latex glove from his pocket, slipped it on with a snap. He leaned over the chicks, then scraped some of the white powder into a plastic bag. “You know what this is?” he asked, holding it up to the sun.
“Lime,” I said. “Pest deterrent.”
He grunted. “Or a message. Old timers used it to scatter the scent of blood from predators.” He pocketed the evidence and gave me a look that bordered on respect.
I watched him work, the way he catalogued every detail, the way his hands didn’t shake even when he scraped tissue into another baggie. He’d seen worse, maybe. Or he just had the kind of nerves they don’t teach anymore.
He straightened, peeled off the glove. “You’ve made an enemy already. Fast work.”
I shrugged. “I’ve always been efficient.”
He let the silence hang, then: “You want protection? Patrols?”
“Not unless you plan to camp out here for the next decade,” I said, and I meant it. “I can handle my own perimeter.”
He almost smiled. “I thought you might say that.”
The kitchen smelled like copper and the acidic ghost of disinfectant, a note of death that made the hair on my arms rise. There was a tightness in my chest that hadn’t been there before—like something vital had been cored out and left to chill in the open air.
