The neutrality cracks. Just a hairline fracture, there and gone, but I catch it. A tightening around his mouth, a shift inhis weight. The reaction of a man who just heard something he wasn't expecting.
"You're threatening me with the FBI based on grief and a theory." His voice is still level, but the temperature in the room just dropped. "That's a dangerous game for a bull rider with no leverage and a lot to lose."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's advice. Free of charge." He pushes off the desk, straightens his jacket. "You're a talented rider, Grant. Top of the standings. You've got a career ahead of you. Don't throw it away chasing answers that aren't there."
"And if they are there?"
Merrick opens the door. Sunlight pours in, carrying the sounds of the rodeo, the crowd, the announcer calling the next rider's name.
"Be careful," he says. The words land flat and heavy, stripped of anything that could be called warmth. "The circuit's a dangerous place. Always has been. Men get hurt all the time, and not always on the back of a bull."
I step through the door into the sunlight and the noise and the smell of dirt and livestock. My hands are steady. My pulse is level. Everything inside me is cold and certain and calm.
Merrick knows. Whether he ordered it himself or he's covering for someone who did, he knows what happened to Tyler. I saw it in the fracture when I mentioned the FBI. I heard it in the careful, measured way he told me to back off without ever saying the words directly.
A man with nothing to hide doesn't warn you to stop looking.
I find Rainey behind the chutes, camera down, face tight. She saw me go into the trailer with Merrick.
"What happened?" she asks.
"He knows. Didn't admit anything outright, but he knows. Told me to stop looking, warned me the circuit's a dangerousplace." I roll the tension out of my shoulders. "He's either running this thing or protecting whoever is."
"That's not the same as proof."
"No. But the way he reacted when I mentioned the FBI told me everything I needed to know."
She goes pale. I watch the fear move through her, the way her fingers tighten on her camera strap, the way her breathing changes. Then I watch her swallow it.
"Then we'd better move fast," she says.
I nod. "Find Flint. Tell him it's time."
She goes. I watch her walk across the grounds with her camera bag bouncing against her hip and her shoulders squared against everything that's coming, and I memorize the way she moves. The specific rhythm of her stride, the angle of her chin, the auburn hair catching late afternoon sun.
Just in case I don't get to see it again.
Vic Sutton appears from behind the stock pens. He's jumpy, eyes darting, sweat staining the collar of his shirt despite the evening cool.
"Corbin. I need to talk to you."
"About what."
"About when and where they're planning to move on you." He swallows hard. "They pulled me in for the Las Cruces setup. Needed someone who knows how to dose the animals. While they were going over the details, I heard the rest."
"What details?"
"They're going to make it look like a bull wreck, same as Tyler. Drug the bull you draw, make it go berserk. And this time they'll make sure the bullfighters are slow getting to you."
"When?"
"Las Cruces. Two days."
I look at Vic. He's terrified, and he should be. If Merrick finds out he's talking to me, he's dead.
"Why are you telling me this?"
