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"Good," he says.

That's the whole conversation. When I told him the offer had come through, he listened to all of it and said nothing about what I should do.

"Brenda says your saddle's in the secretary's office, and she's keeping the extra gas money."

"I know. That's why I paid it."

He hooks one finger through the front belt loop of my jeans and draws me in against the rail on his right side. The fence is at my back, and he's between me and the grandstand. He doesn't consult me about where I'd like to stand. He puts me there and leaves his hand on my hip. "Stay."

"I'm not a heeler, Carrick."

"You've stood still for me before."

Heat climbs my throat, and his mouth moves at one corner. I shift my weight against his hand, and his grip settles on the bone and holds me where he put me. The sun has baked his shirt warm, and his pulse beats slow and even against my arm through the cotton.

Out in the arena, the grounds crew has dragged the dirt smooth. Families gather in the center in a loose half circle.

Kenna Corbin stands with Colt Holloway on one side and Dax on the other. A dark-haired woman beside Dax holds a camera lens-down at her hip. The announcer introduces her as Rainey Weathers. I know her as the photographer whose pictures helped put Hayes Merrick in prison. A few people from Abilene stand a step apart with their hands locked together, and the announcer calls them Tyler Brennan's family.

A volunteer passes a stack of cards along the rail. The front carries both riders' competition photos. On the back, the circuit has printed a statement in plain black type.

The Southwest Circuit formally recognizes that Grant Corbin and Tyler Brennan were murdered. Their deaths were crimes committed by people who profited from this sport, and this circuit failed to see what was happening in its own arenas. We deeply regret that failure. We have placed livestock transport and compliance under independent oversight and established a confidential reporting line so that no rider's warning goes unheard again. From this day forward, we will call their deaths what they were.

The language isn't elegant. It's a board of directors and a lawyer choosing their words carefully, and I read it twice.

For years, the official record called those two deaths occupational hazards. Now a document with the circuit's name on it says otherwise, and it rests on a conviction instead of a rumor. Merrick's case closed with a verdict, and the evidence chain from it runs straight into the files that put Steve Hendricks in a cell.

Merrick ordered Grant's murder, Dale Thornton managed it, and Vic Sutton put the needle in the bull. Merrick is serving his sentence. Thornton died before he could stand trial, and Vic's remains came out of the desert near Socorro.

The money Kenna traced ran up to Steve's office, and the prosecutors mean to prove where the approval came from. Steve sits in federal detention without bond, waiting for a trial that hasn't started. Every hand the record can name is dead, imprisoned or waiting on a trial.

Clint Wilson and Neil Vogt face the charges built around the women. Their names don't belong in the same breath as Sandy's.

Two pickup men ride into the arena side by side, each leading a saddled horse with a pair of boots turned backward in the stirrups. They take the horses once around the fence at a walk. The grandstand goes quiet enough that a calf bawling in the back pens carries to the far rail.

Slade takes off his hat. He holds it against his thigh, and his eyes stay open. He watches the riderless horses make their circle, and when they pass our stretch of fence, his hand tightens on my hip until it almost hurts.

When the horses leave the arena, someone moves up to the rail on my left.

"Carroll," Torres says. She looks past me. "Carrick."

"Torres."

She's in jeans and a windbreaker with no letters on the back, and her sunglasses are pushed up into her hair. I've rarely seen her anywhere but under fluorescent lights. She looks smaller in the open air and every bit as dangerous.

"Your New Mexico officer tells me you've been boring," she says to Slade.

"I'm working on it."

"Keep working. The AUSA wants you on the stand when Hendricks goes to trial."

"Tell him where to find me."

She turns her attention to the arena, where the families are drifting back toward the out gate. "I wanted to see this one in person. Flint told me years ago that riders on this circuit were dying on purpose. Grant Corbin died in this arena before his package ever reached my desk. His sister carried it in afterward, and for a long time after that, I didn't have enough to move." Her jaw tightens. "My investigation is closed. The AUSA owns the rest."

Years of work, and she lets go of it in one breath.

"Tolliver," Slade says.