"It's live."
He's upright before I finish the sentence, pulling the laptop toward him with one hand and reaching for his phone with the other. I watch his face while he reads. The expression that moves across it is something I've never seen from him. Quieter than rage, heavier than grief, something that lives in the space between vindication and loss.
"There it is," he says into my hair, his chin on my shoulder, his arms around me from behind. "Everything Grant built. On the record. Where it can't be buried."
"Don't make me cry before I've had coffee. I have calls to handle."
My phone starts ringing before I finish the sentence.
The first call is from a wire service. The second is from a regional newspaper in Las Cruces. The third is from a television producer in Phoenix who wants to talk about a documentary.
I ignore all of them and call Torres.
"Have you seen it?" I ask.
"I've seen it." Her voice is careful, measured, the tone of a federal agent processing a development that she didn't authorize and can't control. "Ms. Corbin, I specifically asked you to keep a low profile."
"I kept your investigation out of it. Every piece of information in that article comes from independent sources and my own analysis. Your evidence, your case, your strategy, none of it is referenced."
"The article names Thornton Livestock and describes a pattern of fraud and suspicious deaths connected to their operations. That is dangerously close to the subject matter of my investigation."
"That is the subject matter of public record. Prize money payouts are published data. Stock draw sheets are published data. Rider injury reports are filed with the circuit and available through FOIA. I'm a journalist, Agent Torres. Journalists report stories."
The silence on the line carries the weight of a government employee who recognizes that a civilian has outmaneuvered her on the public relations front. She's deciding whether to be angry or grateful.
"The story is generating calls to our office," Torres says. "Witnesses. Riders. People who have information they've been afraid to share."
"That's the point."
"Some of them have information about Merrick directly. Information I didn't have."
"That is also the point."
Torres exhales. "Don't do anything else without consulting me."
"I'll try."
"Ms. Corbin."
"I will sincerely try, Agent Torres."
I hang up and look at Colt, who has been listening from the chair with his arms crossed and the expression he wears when he's watching me handle someone and enjoying it more than he should.
"Torres?" he asks.
"Not thrilled. But witnesses are calling in, and some of them have direct information on Merrick that she didn't have before."
"So the story worked."
"The story worked."
He stands and crosses the room and cups the back of my neck with one hand. The grip is firm, his fingers spread wide enough to feel my pulse hammering against his palm, his thumb tracing the hinge of my jaw with a pressure that sends heat pooling low in my belly. He tilts my face up to his, the same way he does when he wants me looking at him and nowhere else.
"Grant would be proud of you... so am I," he says. Low. Close. The words land against my mouth, and every nerve in my body remembers what happens when his voice drops to that register. The way Colt delivers a compliment that actually costs him something.
The fallout builds over the next several days, exactly as Colt predicted.
Merrick's lawyers issue a statement calling the article a sensationalized attack on the rodeo industry by a grieving family member with no credentials and a personal vendetta. They demand a retraction and threaten defamation suits against Sylvia's outlet, against Quinn, and against me personally.
