“Dillon ran the numbers on projected market weight for the first crop of steers,” Sully said.He leaned against the barn’s sliding door and looked out at the pasture where the calving mothers grazed in the fading light.“Jenna about fell over.”
“In a good way?”
“In a way where she swore out loud and then sat down very fast.”Sully grinned fondly.“The Charolais cross is going to put serious weight on these animals.Jenna and I talked it over, and we’re going to keep the heifers as breeding stock.”
Gray looked at the nearest calf—a big cream-colored heifer lying in the straw beside her mother, legs folded neatly, blinking at the world with the serene calm.“Sometimes a disaster turns out to be a windfall in disguise.”
“That’s unusually philosophical for a man who practically runs on spreadsheets,” Sully observed.
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain a frightening number of notebooks is what you contain.”
Gray smiled.His first genuine smile of the day.
He checked on Blizzard, who was getting bigger by the day and already developing the muscular chest of his Charolais sire, and strolled back to the bunkhouse as the last daylight drained from the sky.
In his room he opened his laptop and pulled up the evidence file he’d been building for Cooper.He added today’s notes: Bonnie’s agreement to search the mayor’s files.The insurance report as the primary target.Cooper’s timeline for tracing the email addresses.
His phone buzzed with a text from Bonnie.The mayor didn’t come back after lunch.His office was empty all afternoon.
He read it twice.She was telling him something specific.The mayor’s absence meant she’d had the office to herself.
A second text:I found something.Can we meet tomorrow?
His pulse kicked up.He typed back:Same place.Noon?
Her reply was immediate:Perfect.I’ll bring lunch.
Three people, circling the same terrible truth from different angles.She had the access.He had the analysis.Cooper had the investigative skill to turn raw evidence into a case that could survive scrutiny.
Together, they were going to unravel what Lucas Shoemacher had built and buried.
He read all evening, catching up on the homework that had eluded him recently.At midnight, he turned off the light and lay in the dark, listening to the wind move across the Montana front range.In the calving barn, a newborn calf bawled for its mother.The sound was thin and urgent and alive.
He thought about how Bonnie showed up at the station with a plan and refusing to take no for an answer.And he thought about how she’d saidpartners.The word had sounded like both a declaration and a leap of faith.
He picked up his phone and typed one more message.Deleted it.Typed it again.Sent it before he could talk himself out of it.
You’re the bravest person I know.
Three dots appeared.Disappeared.Appeared again.
Her answer came back:That’s either awesome or alarming.I’m not sure which.
He recognized her words from the storage unit, weeks ago, when she’d teased him about his memory.He liked the fact that she remembered.The fact that she could still be funny after some of the worst days of her life.
He typed:Most people land on awesome, eventually.
She sent back a single emoji.A coffee cup.
He set the phone on the nightstand and closed his eyes.Sleep, when it came, was deep and dreamless.
13
The mayor didn’t come to work on Wednesday.
His doctor called the office at eight forty-five before Bonnie had even finished her coffee to say Lucas was having chest pains again and needed to stay home for at least two days.Maybe the rest of the week.The doctor’s voice had the strained patience of a man who had been telling Lucas Shoemacher to rest for months and was running out of polite ways to say it.
