Page 99

The Silver Bend sign came out of the snow at shoulder height.

WELCOME TO SILVER BEND, MONTANA.

The snow had pasted itself across half the letters, leaving SILVER and nothing below it, as if the town had been renamed for the weather.

My breath left me.

Four blocks of false-front buildings lay ahead, dim behind storm light. The Bluebird's neon was off or invisible. Pickups sat parked nose-in beneath cottonwoods that thrashed bare branches over Main. Snow moved waist-high around the benches. No gossip. No unlocked doors. No one discussing the stranger's truck by noon.

Home.

The word arrived whole.

Carrow Creek waited eight miles beyond town. Boone might already be there. The calving barn would be lit amber. Heat lamps. Iodine. Straw. Blood. Work. Every part of my body turned toward it.

My hands even shifted on the wheel before the intersection came.

Right led toward the ranch road.

Straight led past the Bluebird to the county building.

I had decided near Norris.

Not because I was certain. Certainty was a luxury I had been trained to fake. I had decided because if I went to Boone first, I might let being held become the end of the work.

It wasn't.

Derek had counted on my shame. On me wanting the threat over more than I wanted the truth recorded. He had counted on closed doors and private bargains and the old voice that said making trouble was worse than what had caused it.

The screenshots were evidence.

My statement was a fence.

Fix the fence.

I drove straight.

The county building crouched across from the Bluebird, brick gone dark with wet snow, one office window lit. The flag snapped so hard overhead the rope struck the pole in frantic metal beats.

I pulled into the lot.

My tires slid through the turn, found gravel beneath the snow, and stopped crooked across two spaces.

For a moment, I sat with the engine running.

The heater blew against my wet feet.

My hands stayed wrapped around the wheel after the truck was still.

The ranch was eight miles away.

Boone was somewhere I could not see.

I wanted him with a force that made the whole narrow cab hurt.

Then I took the keys, opened the door, and went inside to put Derek Kane on the record.

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