Page 2 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

Hudson waited. Most men filled silence if you let it breathe. The man lasted eighteen seconds.

“I don’t know what⁠—”

“Contact,” Hudson said. “A number, an app. A guy in a bar. However it came to you. Who paid you to sit on me all the way from Fairbanks?”

“I don’t—” The man recalculated. “It was a broker. Some guy online. We do repo work, skip tracing, whatever pays. Job comes in, we don’t ask who’s behind it.”

It had the ugly, unglamorous ring of truth. Cutouts. Layers designed so a conversation like this one would dead-end exactly here.

“Description.”

The man shook his head.

“Payment method? Anything?”

“Crypto. Guy never showed his face, some blocked number texted coordinates and a photo of you.” Sweat beaded his forehead despite the cold. “That’s it. That’s everything, man, I swear to God.”

Nothing shifted in the man’s expression or voice. Either it was the truth or he was a better liar than he looked. Hudson was betting on the former. It was the smart way to run an op. He straightened. Just another locked door, and Aurora Cove was still hours up the road.

Quickly, he searched the man. Wallet. Cash. A gym membership card. A driver’s license that was probably genuine—men this disposable rarely bothered with good fake IDs. Hudson photographed the license before returning the wallet. Keys. A rental fob. Nothing useful.

But inside an inner jacket pocket, he found a second phone. Cheap. Prepaid. One you bought with cash at a gas station and threw in a lake when you were done with it. Hudson powered it on. The screen opened without a passcode. Sloppy.

One conversation.

Confirm location by 1800.

No contact name or photo. Just a string of numbers that would be dead by morning. The message was unread, which meant whoever had sent it still thought Hudson Kane was somewhere out on the highway, blissfully unaware he was being followed.

An arrest would buy him a low-level contractor, hours of paperwork and an official record of his arrival. Whoever had hired them would disappear long before Hudson reached Aurora Cove.

The phone disappeared into Hudson’s pocket along with the magazine. He tossed the empty pistol on the SUV’s front seat. “Go find your partner.” He stepped aside. “And next time, send professionals.”

The man didn’t argue. He took off.

The sign for Aurora Cove appeared at the side of the road, dented and worn. The road narrowed, hemmed in by spruce and bare birch beneath a pewter sky. Snow was banked along both sides.

He could have driven this road blindfolded. He and Wyatt had driven it a hundred times before either of them knew enough to be afraid. Dirt bikes. Frozen lakes. Wind in his face. Wyatt laughing somewhere behind him, damn near falling off his bike. Bad decisions that had somehow never caught up with them. It felt like someone else’s life.

The town emerged in familiar pieces—the gas station, the hardware store, Benji’s diner with a fresh coat of paint. Everything else looked exactly the same. Hudson wasn’t sure whether that was comforting or cruel.

The folder lay untouched on the passenger seat. He knew every page by heart. Every photograph. Every reported sighting. Every dead end. A year of chasing a ghost.

He’d pulled strings to take the latest Cord lead himself. Nobody else would recognize what they were looking at—or understand what it had cost. He wasn’t leaving Alaska without Cord. Whatever it took.

Wyatt would be pissed to find out later that he’d rolled into town without a text. He’d call him. Just not yet. Not until the case was further along and he had a reason for being here that didn’t require him to explain anything he wasn’t ready to explain.

He shut the second name down before it had a chance to surface.

Enough history.

Hudson parked outside the Rusty Anchor and let the engine tick down. He smelled Aurora Cove before he was fully out of the car. Snow. Cold air so clean it almost hurt. Resin beneath it. November in Alaska smelled like the church he’d attended every Sunday as a boy. Still. Ancient. Indifferent to whatever you brought into it. He stood beside the rental and drew in a slow breath. His lungs tightened so he waited it out.

Thirty seconds was long enough for the familiar resistance to ease. There had been a time he wouldn’t have noticed the air at all. Now he measured it, adjusted to it, and kept going.

Hudson picked up the folder, locked the car, and went inside.

2