The corner of her mouth ticked. “Clever.”
“Efficient,” I said.
She put the folder away, turned on the step, and looked back at me over her shoulder. “This isn’t over. I’ll see you in court, and I’ll win. I always win.”
I waited a beat, then said, “That’s the difference between you and me. I’m not trying to win.”
She didn’t answer, but the wind caught the edge of her coat and flared it out like a flag of some country that’s never existed outside a boardroom. She walked back to the SUV, head high, not looking at the two men inside, not even glancing back at the porch.
I watched her get in, close the door, and say something I couldn’t hear. The SUV reversed, rolled down the drive at exactly the posted limit, and took the turn at the end without hesitation.
Rawley’s truck was just visible behind the fence line, idling in park. I imagined him on the CB, reporting in, saying nothing because there was nothing to say.
I let the cold work its way through my jacket and into my bones. I flexed my hands, then reached for the radio.
Burke’s voice was already waiting: “Tree-line vehicle’s heading east, no deviation. You want me to make sure they don’t double back?”
“No need,” I said. “She’s not coming back tonight.”
A beat, then Macon’s dry baritone, like gravel in a coffee can: “She got a nice ass for a lawyer.”
I snorted. “Thanks for your input, Macon.”
A low chuckle, then silence.
I stood on the porch for a while, counting the seconds it took for the adrenaline to flush out of my system. My breath made clouds in the air, each one fading to nothing in the empty space between me and the now-vacant drive.
Inside the house, it was still warm. The woodstove had worked overtime, and the air smelled like birch bark and old hope.
I went to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of tap water, and drank it in three fast gulps. I looked out the window, not at the road, but at the horizon.
There was nothing left to see. Just the slow, patient return of a winter morning.
I closed my eyes, and let the win sink in for a moment before heading for my truck.
The ranch road east was a solid sheet of rutted ice, the kind that grabbed at your tires and kept you honest. I drove with both hands on the wheel and the windows up, the cab a bubble of warmth and engine noise.
I let my thoughts run the perimeter, checking each weak spot again even though the show was already over. The truck’s headlights threw two yellow cones ahead, flattening every snow bank and bare branch into a world of black and gold.
The Decker-Jasper place sat low and unpretentious, tucked behind a windbreak of chokecherry and elm. The kitchen window glowed yellow, the rest of the house dark.
I killed the engine and crunched up the walk, boots leaving a set of fresh prints in the crusted snow. It was colder here thanat the main house, the wind meaner, but the air was so clean it almost hurt to breathe.
The front door was unlocked. Inside, the kitchen was as warm as a body, the air thick with old coffee and a memory of bread. There was an undercurrent of something antiseptic—hydrogen peroxide maybe, or the last round of kitchen cleaner. On the wall, a cork board bristled with to-do lists and cut-out recipes, half of them scribbled over with Decker’s small, militant print.
Liam was at the table, back to the window, a mug steaming in front of him and Emilio cradled in the crook of one arm. The baby was dead asleep, mouth hanging open, a thin line of drool tracking down his wrist to the cuff of Liam’s sleeve.
The mug in front of Liam was untouched, the surface gone from a shimmer to a dull skin of heat. He didn’t look up when I came in, just kept his eyes on the center of the table as if the universe was reassembling itself right there.
I took the chair across from him, sat down, and let the silence play out. The only sound was the faint burble of the baseboard heater and the tiny, whistled exhale every time Emilio’s chest rose and fell.
“She’s gone,” I said, not bothering to soften the edge. “Her muscle is gone, too. East road, no deviation.”
He nodded. His thumb traced lazy circles on Emilio’s shoulder, the movement more for him than for the kid.
“Rawley said to stay here,” he said, quiet. “He said if anything changed, he’d call. He said you’d come by.”
I nodded.
