Page 49 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

Father.

The weight of it settled over the room. Over Noah. Over Jessa. And Deacon felt it hit him too, quiet and heavy, like the start of something none of them was ready for.

A soft knock hit the doorframe before Deacon could respond to Noah. Deputy Kincaid stepped inside, holding a thick manila envelope in gloved hands.

“Sheriff, you’ll want to see this,” he said. “Courier dropped it off at the front desk. We scanned it. No explosives, no powders, no tech. It’s addressed to the sheriff’s office.”

The deputy set the package on the desk. Deacon slit it open with his pocketknife and pulled out a stack of documents. Official looking. Stamped copies, notarized pages, even what looked like emails printed from Roman’s business account.

At the top of the first page, bold letters screamed:

Proof that Roman Creed knew Jessa’s parentage from the beginning and concealed it to control the inheritance.

Deacon’s chest tightened. He flipped through the pages. Financial statements. Legal correspondence. A timeline of Lauren’s adoption of Jessa and Roman, annotated with accusations. Claims that Roman hid the truth from Jessa. Claims that he manipulated legal documents for personal gain.

Bullshit.

But dangerous bullshit.

Jessa stepped closer, her face draining. “Roman would never… He would never do that.”

Noah frowned. “These look engineered. Someone put real effort into this.”

“Yeah,” Deacon agreed, still scanning the pages. “And they want me to believe Roman had motive to commit fraud.”

“There’s no return address. Courier said the sender paid cash,” Deputy Kincaid pointed out.

Deacon set the documents down, the weight of them thick and toxic on his desk. Whoever sent this wanted destruction. They wanted chaos. And they wanted Jessa and Roman caught in the middle.

Jessa shook her head hard, her breath catching. “These are lies.”

She pulled out her phone and stepped a little aside, but he could see her tap her brother’s name. Deacon listened to the clipped tone of her voice even without hearing the words. She didn’t put the call on speaker, but he could see the tension in her posture, the way her hand tightened on the phone as Roman answered.

A few seconds later, she lowered the phone and looked at Deacon and Noah, her face pale with anger. “Roman got copies too,” Jessa said. “And some of the stuff has already been sent to the press. Not the most damning info but enough of it to cause trouble.”

Noah swore under his breath. “Someone’s playing a very ugly game.”

“Yeah, and a dangerous one,” Deacon added. “It’s not a smart move to piss off a man like Roman Creed.”

Noah made a sound of agreement, and he reached for the stack of documents on Deacon’s desk. “I can have my tech team analyze these.” He lifted his phone, opened a scanning app and began taking images of the pages with a steady hand. “If these were fabricated, and they almost certainly were, we’ll soon know.”

Deacon watched him send the files off with a few taps.

The tension in the room thickened. A false paper trail. A coordinated delivery. And now the press involved.

Jessa lifted the phone back to her ear, listening. Her expression shifted in small, tight ways while Roman spoke on the other end. After a few seconds, she murmured. “Okay. Let me know.” Then she ended the call and turned toward Deacon and Noah. “Roman says he’ll dig into this and get back to us as soon as he can.”

Before Deacon could respond, another knock sounded. Deputy Marlene Ortiz stepped in, clutching a tablet against her chest. “Sheriff, I found something interesting on that deep dive I was doing on Shade.”

Deacon gestured for her to continue. “What’d you find?”

Marlene tapped her tablet. “Shade has been visiting Clayton Hargrove’s widow, Lila, in prison.”

Deacon felt his pulse kick. “Visiting her,” he repeated, trying to wrap his head around that. “As in they know each other?”

“Looks that way,” Marlene said. “He’s been seeing her weekly for the past six months. There are logs. They talk for about thirty minutes each time. He’s not on any official visitor list as a family member or legal rep. He listed himself as a friend.”

Jessa let out a breath. “Shade and Lila. That can’t be coincidence.”