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Not as security. The page on my visor says so, in her handwriting, with Garrett’s and Owen’s signatures under mine.

The terms don’t get less binding because the road is empty. They don’t have an exception for my instincts.

If I see something, I report it. I don’t pass her. I don’t close a gate. I don’t decide that being afraid for her gives me my old job back.

The first twelve miles are nothing. Ranch gates. Cattle guards. A school bus.

At the last crossroads before her clinic, a silver stock trailer pulls out behind me. Older dark pickup. It leaves one car between us through two speed changes.

I slow from fifty-eight to fifty-one. It slows. I go back to fifty-seven. It settles in after the same delay.

That’s a pattern, not proof. My old job trained me to act before a pattern becomes contact. Her page tells me to report and nothing else.

“County lead,” I say into the radio. “Possible tail. Dark pickup, silver stock trailer, one vehicle behind me. Matched two speed changes. No plate visible.”

The scene commander tells Sofia to keep going and moves a marked unit up from the crossroad. He doesn’t tell me to pass her or block the trailer. He doesn’t ask me what to do.

The pickup drops back when the marked unit shows. It turns east at the next farm road. Fresh red wire is twisted through the trailer’s rear latch.

“Vehicle turned east,” I report. “No contact.”

Sofia’s truck stays ahead of the state vehicle. She doesn’t speed up or change course because I saw something behind her.

I watch the back of her truck for nine more miles and think about her hands. About the way she said here and put my palm on her waist instead of her face. About the way she said you and pulled me down by my shirt.

I think about how it would feel to lose her now, after that, and my chest locks up so hard I have to breathe through it.

Half a mile from her clinic, the dark pickup comes out of a side road ahead of the marked unit, and the silver trailer swings in behind her.

The red wire flashes in the sun.

I report it. The marked unit is two intersections back.

Sofia turns in at her gate. The stock trailer speeds up.

Chapter 11

Sofia

The stock trailer is gaining on my rear window before I clear my own gate.

Becca is standing by the outdoor treatment bay with a gray gelding on a lead, one hand up against the sun. The county released the front yard and the open bay an hour ago. The office, the records room, and the back door are still behind yellow tape. That leaves me one patient lane, one locked medicine cabinet, and nowhere useful for panic.

The gelding belongs to Mr. Salazar, who’s been waiting with a relief vet for a bandage check. He’s quiet now. A pickup and a trailer and a broken gate can change a horse’s mind fast.

I lean on the horn and point toward the west recovery lot. “Becca! Horse through the side lane. Mr. Salazar, follow her and shut the red gate. Lock the blue cabinet.”

She doesn’t ask why. She turns the gelding and walks him away from the drive at a steady pace and throws the dead bolt on the cabinet on her way past.

I drive past the bay and park behind the concrete water barrier. In my mirror, Cole’s truck stops outside the gate, because his page says he stays outside, and he stays.

The dark pickup hits my gate with its front bumper.

Steel folds, drags, tears loose at the top hinge, and slams into the side of the trailer hard enough to peel a bright strip of aluminum off it. The gate wedges under the axle and the whole rig stops.

The driver is out before the dust settles. Pale cap low over his face. Clear safety glasses. Tan shirt, no logo. He runs to the back of the trailer, rips the red wire out of the latch, and yanks the door open.

Two steers come out backward and fast. A red white-face lands on one hock, scrambles up, and bolts into the open space between my truck and the bay. A black steer with a yellow ear tag jumps sideways and turns toward the road.