Wilson.
She parked beside a mud-splashed F-150 and shut off the engine.
What if she’d misread everything? What if this ruined what little was left?
She got out anyway.
The cabin sat back from the road, tucked into laurel and rock. Rough-hewn logs. A deep porch. Old boots by the door. Warm lightspilled from the windows. Inside, a record crackled—Otis Redding, “These Arms of Mine.”She climbed the steps and knocked.
The door opened. Scout stood there in a gray T-shirt and worn jeans, sleeves pushed up, a gun-cleaning mat spread across the coffee table behind him. His rifle lay open—bolt removed, oil rag folded. Football highlights flickered silently above the fireplace.
He blinked once. “Agent Quinn.”
“Deputy.”
They held each other’s gaze a beat longer than necessary. Then he stepped aside.
“Come in.”
Heat brushed her face as she stepped through. The faint scent of gun oil hung in the air. The place was what she’d pictured: solid furniture, clean but not fussy, books stacked where a man actually read them. Photos lined the mantel.
She held up the manila folder. “Got something.”
He nodded toward the table. “Set it there.”
A beat.
“Beer?”
“Yes,” she said, too quickly.
He opened two, handed her one. She took a pull and laid out the first printout.
“Country Road Farms Nursery & Garden Center,” she said. “The violet left in my cabin wasn’t a grocery-store plant. Specialty greenhouse out on Hall Town Road. Owner’s got cameras.”
Scout stepped closer as she pointed to the first timestamp.
“Margot Holt,” Tessa said. “Last week. She bought them again—same type as the one in Raines’s office. Same silver tag.”
“Sinclair’s girlfriend,” Scout said.
“Partner,” Tessa said. “But yeah.”
She flipped to the next image.
“Professor Raines,” she said. “Cash purchase. Same greenhouse.”
He grunted. “When?”
“The day the violet showed up in my cabin,” Tessa said. “Margotbuying more violets is background noise. She does that all the time. Raines walking in on that exact day and buying one himself—and never mentioning it? That’s signal.”
Scout set his beer on a coaster cut from a stump and leaned in.
“So the one in his office could be from Margot,” he said slowly. “But he went out and bought another one on his own.”
“Exactly,” Tessa said. “He told us the truth about where that office plant came from. He just left out the part where he decided to join the club.”
Scout’s jaw worked once. “Great. Two trails. Same rabbit.”
