Connor rushed through the yard.
The front door stood open.Inside, the house carried the residue of family life.Shoes near the mat.Backpacks by the stairs.Somewhere deeper in the house, a television blared gunfire and galloping horses.
Selena met him in the hall.
Her face told him enough before she spoke.
“Connor.”
He looked over her shoulder.
Victor sat in an armchair in the living room, head bowed, one hand hanging loose near the cushion.Blood covered the front of his shirt and had run in a dark sheet down the chair.His skin had the waxen cast of death under the morning light filtering through the curtains.
Connor’s heartbeat kicked hard.
Selena touched his arm.“Are you okay?”
“Vic… He was one of my best friends.”His voice sounded wrong to him, too flat and too rough at once.“Moved here about ten years ago.His wife, Marlene, used to invite me to every family barbecue.His kids…”
The rest caught.
In the corner, Matt Price had stopped taking photographs.Camera lowered, eyes fixed on Connor with concern he did not try to hide.
An older deputy stepped in from the kitchen doorway.Chuck Danner, fifty-something, solid through the middle, gray at the temples.Connor had trusted him from the day he took office.
“Sheriff,” Chuck said.“You okay?”
Connor took a breath and forced it down.“Yeah.”
The lie needed a moment to turn true.It didn’t.Connor’s mind swirled.Hate.Vengeance.All of it.But there was Selena’s face.The calm in the storm.He took a breath.
“Have you met Selena?”Connor asked.
“Just a few minutes ago,” Chuck said.
Connor held back the emotion as best he could for what had just happened.Meaningless chit chat came to the fore.Monotony the only antidote for the terrible realities of life."Chuck...Chuck stayed on to show me the ropes when I came in as Sheriff."
Chuck gave Selena a tired nod.“You can blame me for any of his mistakes.”
Connor managed a smile.It did not last.
“I’m sorry about Vic, Chief,” Chuck said.
“So am I.”
Moving into the living room, he knelt beside Victor’s chair.The television kept playing, volume too high.A cowboy shouted from the screen about a posse coming over the ridge.
Connor reached for the remote on the side table and muted it.
Quiet fell hard.
“I’m so sorry, Vic,” he whispered.
Matt stepped closer.“Sheriff, if this is too close to the bone, Agent Raven and I can handle it.”
Connor kept his eyes on Victor.
The dead man’s left slipper had come halfway off.One of the kids had left a drawing on the side table.A crayon sun, five people holding hands, a dog larger than any of them.
