Page 36

Useless when I had visitors like Jett and Ryder.

Jett raided the fridge immediately, ripping foil off a plate and popping cold bacon into his mouth. Ryder dumped what looked like half the sugar bowl into the cup of gas station coffee he’d brought with him, grimacing after one sip.

“This tastes like burnt tire shavings,” he muttered.

“Stop buying coffee at the gas station,” I said, grabbing a pan from the cabinet.

“It’s on the way,” he said defensively. “And I couldn’t wait for you to make your fancy-pants New York coffee. I was desperate today.”

“I told myself that as I was banging Reverend Dempsey’s daughter last month,” Jett replied. “Doesn’t mean I should have done it.”

I side-eyed him but didn’t say anything as I cracked eggs, threw butter into the pan, and grabbed bread from the counter for toast—movements as familiar as breathing. They gave my hands something to do while my mind did the opposite.

Ryder leaned back in his chair. “How did last night go?” he asked innocently.

“Why do you assume I did something every time I don’t answer your texts?”

“Because that is the only time you don’t answer his texts,” Jett said, his cheeks bulging like a damn chipmunk as he stuffed one last bite of cornbread into his mouth.

I frowned. I’d really wanted that cornbread. I yanked open the fridge, hoping—praying—to salvage something from Marvis’s offerings.

The shelf where she’d left her chili sat as empty as a sinner’s promise.

“Son of a bitch,” I snarled. I slammed the door and went back to the eggs. “She made a full pot.”

Jett swallowed loudly. “Yeah. About that…”

I cut him a look sharp enough to skin, cursing the fact that he was so fucking good at being quiet. It was what made him terrifyingly good at tracking prey through the woods. Unfortunately, it also meant I couldn’t hear the little bastard coming when he stole my food.

“So,” Ryder said, leaning against the counter, “I’m guessing it didn’t go well.”

“It went fine,” I said—too quick, and both of them caught it.

I cracked another egg, hard enough the shell nearly exploded, and forced my breathing steady. “I’m just…feeling jittery this morning.”

Jett and Ryder exchanged a look.

“No,” I said. “Not like that.”

My gaze slid toward the window, to the stretch of pasture where the horses had stood too still at dawn. “You don’t feel it? That it’s beginning?”

Ryder’s mouth tightened, and Jett straightened.

Yeah. They felt it, too.

“How was patrol?” I asked, wondering if Ryder had noticed anything out of the ordinary. There always was when that breeze blew through.

“A couple bar calls. But nothing real. No teenagers in the cemetery, no meth fights behind Curl Up & Dye, no hikers wandering onto ranch land. Just…quiet.”

Quiet in Blackwood wasn’t comfort. Quiet was the inhale before the blow.

Jett glanced at his phone and lit up like a kid at Christmas. “I found something.”

“If it’s your search history, no thanks,” I said.

“Rude,” Jett said. “Accurate, but rude.”

He turned the phone toward me so I could see the trail cam stills. They were grainy but clear enough. And they showed a figure crossing the southern ridge.