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“Eunice is going to want to talk about the case.”

“Tell her I’ll come by later and spill the tea.”

He kisses me softly and leaves.

I stand in my kitchen in my socks, listening to my Wrangler back out of the gravel drive, and the cottage settles into the quiet of a place that has just had someone in it and is adjusting to the absence.

But he’s coming back, and that’s a reward that I have earned—and so has he.

I pour more coffee, sit at the kitchen counter, and open my laptop.

I have three emails from Colbeck’s clerk regarding the filing of the final order.

One from Kaz about the federal case timeline.

One from Aldridge’s firm, that is, I notice with satisfaction, the administrative closure of the Whitman matter—three lines, no pleasantries, the correspondence of a law firm that has lost and is executing the loss with minimum ceremony.

I forward Aldridge’s email to Clara. She’s going to want to see it.

I am about to write an email about another matter to another judge when I hear a sound.

It comes from the back door.

The sound is the result of my back door having a problem because it has a catch that requires knowing where to push.

I put the coffee down.

I am, before I am anything else, a woman who grew up in a place that taught her to trust what her body knows. And my body knows what it means when a sound occurs that shouldn’t.

I go to the bedroom.

I keep calm. Being flustered isn’t going to help me.

It’s not that I’m not afraid—the fear is present. But the alarm and the quiet inside of me are not incompatible.

The lockbox under the bed takes four seconds.

It opens with my thumbprint.

The SIG Sauer P238, which Elder Nokoni gave me when I moved to my first apartment in Aspen alone, is exactly where it has been since I moved to Wildflower Canyon, cleaned and loaded.

I have shot at a range in Delta every month.

I am, my instructor told me, a damn good shot.

I rack the slide.

I stand in the hallway.

I wait.

I’m not surprised to see Trafton. I recognize him from his mugshots that Sheriff Dillon showed Clara and me. He comes through the back of the house like a man who has done this before and is not concerned about the outcome.

He should be concerned about the outcome.

He’s in the kitchen before he sees me—and then he stops.

He processes what he’s looking at.