Page 43 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

“Walter.”

Her deputy straightened at Sarah’s voice.

“I want a deputy outside this room twenty-four hours a day. Nobody gets in without clearing it through me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Walter pulled out his phone.

Petey’s room door swung shut. The hallway outside felt too bright after the dim of the room, the fluorescent light flat and unforgiving.

“This isn’t on you.” Sarah faced Hudson.

“It is.”

“No, it isn’t, Hudson⁠—”

“Petey didn’t know Cord existed until I walked into town.” He kept his voice even, because the alternative wasn’t something he could afford right now. “He’s lying in there with a broken arm because I needed information and he was generous enough to give it to me.”

Sarah didn’t argue that one.

She didn’t pretend the logic was wrong, just let it exist between them, ugly and true.

Hudson turned it over again. This had a different shape. A different intent. “This isn’t what they were doing before.”

“How so?” Sarah waited.

Hudson looked back at the closed door.

Two warning shots. Then Petey. Different target. Different objective.

“Before, it was containment. Hide Cord, fire two rounds at a long enough distance that nobody dies, but everybody understands the message.” He stared past her down the corridor. “This is somebody walking up behind an old man in the dark and breaking his bones.”

“You think it’s the same people?”

“They hit Petey after we talked to him. Not before.”

Sarah tucked her pen away.

Hudson kept going. “Which means they weren’t cleaning up witnesses.” He met her eyes. “They were watching us. They’ve stopped trying to keep us from looking. Now they’re trying to make sure nobody talks to us again.”

“Steering us?”

He pressed his lips into a line. “Perhaps.”

Sarah’s jaw tightened. Whatever softness she’d carried into Petey’s room disappeared behind the badge again.

“It’s escalating, Sarah. We should go.”

“Back to the cannery?”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t ask him to explain. She’d already reached the same conclusion, matching his pace down the corridor. Working beside her shouldn’t have felt this easy, but it was.

They were halfway to the truck before Hudson realized they’d left the hospital without saying goodbye to anyone.

Sarah was already reaching for her keys. He was thinking three moves ahead. Neither of them had asked who was taking the lead.

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