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“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. We’re here for these people, so we have to match her damn timeline. Phil has a plan.”
“I heard it,” she says. “Reprioritize. Reschedule. Repopulate… with your unskilled labor replacing my skilled labor. I have a feeling I’m not going to like this Phil guy much.”
“Oh, he’s fine,” I say. “It’s Isabel you need to worry about. The alpha-female energy in this town is about to spike, and it was high enough already.”
A quirked smile. “Fine by me. I’ve spent my career on jobs with too many big dogs, all of them with something to prove. Dealing with big bitches will be a refreshing change of pace.”
“Everyone’s going to need to get their egos in check and work together on this.”
Dalton’s brows rise. “Why are you looking at me?”
“Because you didn’t remind us that we still have at least one big dog to deal with.”
“That goes without saying.”
Yolanda snorts a laugh. “You’ve been more subdued than I was led to expect, Sheriff Dalton.”
“Conserving my energy. Now that you need someone cracking the whip, though?” He shrugs. “Time for me to get back in shape. Does Phil’s plan work?”
“With tweaks.”
“Then you tweak it. I’ll reassign Will to construction duty and talk to April. Casey and I will head out this morning, but when we return, there will be another town meeting, and I’ll tell them what’s what and handle any fallout while Casey continues investigating, which she will continue to do only—”
“As long as there are leads,” I say.
“Yep. And I’m sorry as hell about that, but this is where I’m going to need to step in and, if needed, be the asshole who says we need to stop looking.” He turns to Yolanda. “At that point, if you think I’m wrong, then you will be free to carry out your threat and leave. Your priority is your crew. Casey’s is the investigation. Mine is the new residents.”
“Yours trumps ours,” I say. “I get that.”
He’s right. Émilie’s right. Isabel’s right. Either I find something or I have to drop this. Leave Penny lost in the woods.Leave Bruno’s killer free. And never identify our dead woman, let alone discover what happened to her.
Time to get moving. Get moving and find something. Fast.
We’re still hitting the trail by seven, thankfully. As we walk, we talk about what just happened. Part of that is mutual reassurance—Dalton being sure I’m not pissed off at him for setting parameters and me being sure he isn’t pissed off at me for wanting to pursue the investigation.
Yolanda and I may have joked about alphas, but there’s no room for that in a personal relationship. Dalton is accustomed to being in charge. I am accustomed to having someone in charge… while ignoring them when it comes to what I think is best for an investigation. Although we try to separate the personal from professional, we’ve come to realize that those are largely artificial boundaries. We both need to compromise more than either of us is accustomed to, and there is plenty of headbutting, but we work it out. For now, we have worked this out. The problem will only come if we reach a point where Dalton decides the leads have dried up and I disagree.
We talk it out, and then we rehash the investigation, bouncing ideas off each other. We’re talking about Yolanda when Dalton stops walking. His gaze swings left, hand going to his gun.
We’re on the game trail we’ve been using, which is widening into more of an actual trail, with all our tromping up and down it. This part is open land with low brush and rocks that rise to the foothills of the mountain closest to town.
“Someone’s on the ridge,” Dalton says.
I peer at where he’s looking, one of many ridges along the foothills.
“Thought it might be a bear, up on two legs watching us, but then it moved.”
It walked on two legs, that’s what he means.
“Disappeared as soon as I looked over,” he says.
“Lilith?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Don’t doubt she’s keeping an eye on us, but that wasn’t her. Not unless she’s changed into a modern jacket.”
“What kind of jacket?”
