Hawk straightened by degrees, his gaze locked so tight on mine I lost the ability to breathe. He ended the call a minute later and slid the phone into his pocket. “One of the deputies found something at your shop. It’s addressed to you.”
17
HAWK
Callie stood on the porch, waiting for me when I walked out with my keys. Cody stood beside the door with Colt at his side. She crossed her arms at my approach and set her jaw in that mulish, stubborn line that I’d never been able to forget. “I’m coming with you.”
I took a good look at her wrapped hands, the smudges beneath her eyes, and the way she held herself together with sheer willpower. A tiny burn marred the side of her neck and dipped beneath the collar of her shirt. Did she even know about it? It hadn’t been treated.
I could tell her no, but she’d find a way to follow me. Unless I had a good reason that would convince her, I might as well let this battle go. “Get in the truck.” The harshness that grated out with every word sounded worse than I thought, and I ran a hand down my face, pulling the muscles out of their rigid tension. “Please.”
She kissed Cody on top of the head, muttered something about being good, then pinned Colt with a look. “I’m trusting you, Colt.”
His shoulders straightened. “I won’t let you down, Callie. I swear it.” His hands settled on Cody’s shoulders, and he squeezed. “We’re going to have a great time.”
“Yeah, I get to show Colt what you taught me about engines.” Cody fist pumped the air, spitting out the hoodie strings in favor of leaping around the porch until his shoes lit up.
Diesel walked around the back of the house and gave me a thumbs up that meant he’d finished installing the new cameras and checked all the locks. We were as secure as possible. “Stay close to the house.” I motioned toward Colt and Cody. “You might want to stay inside. Away from windows. Watch the back gate.”
“Got it under control.” Diesel took out his phone and showed me the cameras panning left and right on his screen.
Colt swallowed hard when Cody said something else about the shop. “I promised we’d go to the shop. We’ll go right to the house after.”
I let it go at that. Colt wouldn’t let anyone near his son. He might be a flight risk but he had this. One hundred percent.
The drive to the sheriff’s station took half an hour, and Callie did not say a single word the entire drive. All the things I wanted to say were more likely to need extra time, and we both needed to focus on the threat coming at us instead of letting the potential fallout from a sideways threat distract us.
I opened my door. “You don’t have to say anything to them.”
“Is that your way of telling me to be quiet?” She opened her door and slid out, catching my eye before slamming her door shut.
I walked around the hood and caught up with her. “Are you going to take everything I say as a challenge?”
“Are you going to make them all sound that way?” She kept pace with me, her strides loose and fluid despite the tightness in her frame. Only Callie could pull off that precise contradiction.
Not now. I reminded myself of my own flaws and prickly edges as I pulled the door open and walked through behind her. The air conditioning brushed my skin and cooled the heat gathering across my neck. Plain brick walls with a single line of previous sheriffs lined one wall, and a woman sitting behind a desk stood. “You must be Mr…um. Sorry.” She dug through the papers on her desk.
“Hawk is fine. I’m supposed to meet Deputy Reeves.”
“Right. Right.” She rounded the desk. “Right this way.”
Callie closed her eyes slowly shaking her head side to side. “Are you serious right now?”
The question barely reached me. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head again.
Deputy Reeves met us halfway down a narrow hallway and pushed open a door to a small office with two chairs in front of a desk covered in stacks of manila folders. Not exactly a neat kind of operation he had going on, but as long as he did his job, I wasn’t going to say a word. “Thank you for coming in today. You too, Ms. Jameson. It’ll save me some time if I can get your statement while you’re here.”
“Of course.” Callie perched on the edge of the chair closest to the room, forcing me to scoot around her and take the other chair next to the wall.
A hemmed in feeling settled on my shoulders but I pushed it aside. “What did you find?” The smell of old coffee mixed with industrial cleaner when Deputy Reeves shifted some papers and moved a half-full cup of coffee to the edge of the desk.
He picked up a clear evidence bag and held it out. “Fire crew found this in the debris near the back of the structure. Surprised it was protected enough to survive once the roof starting caving in.” He set the bag on the table and pushed it toward me. “We can’t release the original, but I can show you photo documentation. And you can look at the original through the bag. Do not open or touch it. I can’t risk a break in chain of command.” With that, he picked up several pictures and held them out. “This is where we found it and the condition of the paper.”
I plucked the pictures from his hand and leaned toward Callie so she could see them too.
“Best we can tell, it’s a cheap, universally used sheet of notebook paper. Nothing exciting about it or the pen used to write the note. If it wasn’t for the wording itself, we might not have even realized it had any relevance.”
