Page 115

"His horses," I say.

"Don't tell him whose they are." Knox puts the truck back in gear. "He'll quit fighting the nurse."

I laugh. It hurts my whole face, and I laugh anyway.

"Jesse keeps a first-aid kit behind the seat," Knox says. "There's ibuprofen in the top pocket."

I look at him.

"That's not an order," he says. "It's a fact about my brother's truck."

I find the kit and shake out two tablets one-handed. I dry-swallow them. Then I prop my bandaged hand on the dash, up high, the way the paramedic told me.

"You caught his arm," I say.

"I told you I'd stand between you and his hands."

"You did." I watch him drive. "You also told Torres what to do with his truck like you were the one wearing the badge."

"She did it."

Pointing Torres at that truck was the smartest move anybody made out there. I don't tell him so, because I'm still too angry to give him that.

Knox watches the road. On a night he's hit a man in anger, he won't hold me or give me one order, and I don't ask him to.

I want him to anyway. I want his hand on the back of my neck and his voice telling me to sleep. I can't have either tonight.

At dawn on Sunday, in his kitchen, he snapped his shirt closed at my throat and asked if I'd wear his collar someday. I told him someday, and I meant it.

Less than an hour later, in his horse barn, Audrey handed me a copy of my daddy's marker with Knox's initials on the back.

I don't know if I'll ever let him put a collar on me now. I don't know if I can trust what I wanted that morning in his kitchen.

Nobody's sitting on the main gate at Devil's Acre tonight. Hector's in a hospital bed in Fredericksburg, and everybody else was on Whitlock's hill.

Knox gets out, swings the gate open, drives through, and climbs back out to chain it behind us. Before he gets back in, he thumbs a text to his brother Beckett with the dome light on and shows it to me.

Main gate when Torres turns you loose. I'm sitting up with Delilah.

He pulls up between the main house and the guest house and shuts off the engine. He doesn't say which house. He waits for me to choose.

His kitchen window is dark. The guest house has sat locked and empty since Torres sealed that door.

"The guest house," I say.

"I'll be on the porch."

I wait by the truck while he punches the code into his back door. He comes out with a rifle from his gun safe.

He walks me to the guest house steps with it slung on his shoulder and stops at the bottom. I climb them, dig the brass keys out of my pocket, and unlock the door.

Inside, I flip on the lamp. The bottom drawer of the dresser stands open and empty. Royce's boots and knife are gone, sealed in Torres's evidence bags.

I shut the door, and I turn the deadbolt myself.

It slides shut with the same clack as the bolt at the top of Whitlock's cellar stairs. I flinch at the sound. I leave my hand on the bolt until my fingers quit shaking.

Dutch is in handcuffs. Whitlock is in the back of a federal car with his hand broken. This bolt is on the inside of the door, and I'm the one holding it.