“I don’t know.”
“Then why did he pour water on Rex?”
“Because insulting you wasn’t working.”
Of course.
They had tried my uniform.
My pride.
My service.
Nothing moved me.
Then Butch targeted Rex.
He hadn’t chosen the dog because he was cruel.
Or at least not only because he was cruel.
He had been looking for the one thing that could make me lose control.
I remembered Sheriff Harlan arriving almost immediately.
Too quickly.
“What happens if I throw the first punch?”
Emily’s face went pale.
“In this county?”
I already knew the answer.
“Anything they want.”
A door slammed somewhere down the hallway.
Emily flinched.
“Your truck,” she whispered. “Check your truck.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. But they knew where you were going before you did.”
The office door opened.
Sheriff Harlan appeared.
Emily immediately stepped backward.
“Visiting hours are over.”
“I was just—”
“Go home, Emily.”
She looked at me once.
Then left.
Harlan watched her disappear.
Afterward, he turned toward me.
“You bring trouble everywhere you go?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
He smiled without humor.
“Your bail will be set tomorrow.”
“You planning to charge the six men who attacked me?”
“No witnesses saw them attack you.”
“Interesting.”
“Small town.”
“Apparently.”
He stepped closer to the bars.
“You should’ve kept driving, Mercer.”
There it was.
Not subtle anymore.
I stared at him.
“Maybe.”
Then I smiled.
“But now I’m curious.”
For the first time, Sheriff Harlan stopped looking comfortable.
At 1:12 in the morning, the cell door opened.
I had expected Harlan.
Instead, Emily stood there with a deputy I hadn’t seen before.
The deputy was young and sweating.
“This is a bad idea,” he muttered.
Emily answered, “So was joining this department.”
He glared at her.
Then unlocked my cuffs.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
Emily handed me my wallet.
“Charges were dropped.”
“By Harlan?”
“No.”
“Then by who?”
She looked toward the front entrance.
A tall man in a dark suit stepped through the door.
He was sixty, maybe older, with close-cropped white hair and posture that no civilian tailor could hide.
I knew him.
Colonel Daniel Cross.
Retired.
My battalion commander for three years.
The same man who had pinned Rex’s retirement medal onto his harness that afternoon.
“Sir?”
Cross smiled.
“Haven’t been called that in a while.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I got a strange call.”
“From?”
He looked at Emily.
She looked away.
That bothered me.
Cross motioned toward the door.
“We should leave.”
Outside, Rex nearly pulled Emily off balance reaching me.
I dropped to one knee.
He pressed his head against my chest so hard it hurt.
“Yeah, yeah,” I whispered into his wet-smelling fur. “I missed you too.”
He licked my chin once.
Then sneezed.
I laughed.
It was the first normal sound I had made all day.
Cross stood beside my truck.
The parking lot was empty.
I approached him.
“How did you know where I was?”
“Your former commanding officer gets a call that one of his men has been arrested after six bikers attack him? Word travels.”
“Who called?”
He hesitated.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
Cross stared at me.
Then nodded toward the truck.
“Emily said you think someone tracked you.”
I looked at her.
She crossed her arms.
“I told him.”
“Why?”
“Because he got you out.”
That was true.
I crouched beside the rear wheel.
Nothing obvious.
Then I checked the frame.
Rex watched me.
His head tilted.
I reached farther under the chassis.
My fingers touched plastic.
I pulled out a black box smaller than a deck of cards.
A magnetic tracker.
Professional equipment.
No commercial markings.
Cross’s expression hardened.
“Where did you get that?”
“Under my truck.”
“I can see that.”
He took it.
Turned it over.
Then went completely still.
I knew that look.
“What?”
Cross rubbed his thumb over a faint stamped number.
“This equipment isn’t civilian.”
Emily leaned closer.
“What is it?”
Cross answered slowly.
“Military.”
I looked at him.
“From the base?”
He didn’t answer.
“Daniel.”
His eyes met mine.
“Yes.”
The word sat between us.
The ceremony.
The installation.
The tracker.
Someone had attached it before Rex and I left.