Page 338 of Property of Whiskey

Wren shrugs without stopping her coloring.

Every adult close enough to hear finds a reason not to move.

I walk over. “What?”

Wren switches to a green crayon. “He yells.”

“Who?”

Wren shrugs. “I don’t know him.”

Nope.

Absolutely fucking nope.

Mama sets her coffee down hard enough to splash some onto the table.

“Wren.”

“What?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“He scares the deer.”

“What deer?”

“All of them.”

Then she goes straight back to coloring.

That’s it.

No map to the missing girls. No confession from the woodland monster. No explanation for why my seven-year-old knows exactly the kind of shit guaranteed to keep me awake at night.

Just creepy little kid shit at the exact wrong time.

Twila looks at me.

Later, Mama leaves with Wren while Amelia takes August home. Lottie has packed enough food into both vehicles to survive a natural disaster, Holler bitching the whole time about her stealing every decent snack from the Lockup. Rye handles the security, Vandal drops in behind Mama’s vehicle, and I stand near the old front doors until every taillight disappears through the gate.

Only then does some of the pressure between my shoulders ease.

Not gone.

Ain’t gonna be gone until Crowley’s in the ground or a cage.

But enough.

The clubhouse settles into a different rhythm after they leave. Phones still ring and brothers still rotate through security, but the first burst of panic has burned itself down into work. Somebody turns the television low behind the bar. Coffee gets replaced with beer for the men not on watch, and late-afternoon light stripes the old brick through barred windows.

Twila sits at one end of the old booking desk cleaning her pistol beneath the yellow overhead light.

I watch from across the room.

She notices after about thirty seconds. “Seriously?”

“What?”