“Mr. Larson? This is Sheriff Wolf. You just called me?”
Wolf lowered his window and held up a finger to an approaching Rachette, who had stepped out of his own car and was walking up. “I’m just making sure I heard your message correctly, sir. Did you say Rick Hammes is back at his house?”
“Yes, sir. He already came over and yelled at me. Bastard thinks I fed his dog steak. I know about the damn dog not being able to digest meat, and I didn’t feed him no T-bone. I told him he’s lucky I fed him at all. Well, I didn’t tell him that. The man’s scary as hell. Don’t—”
“Sir,” Wolf interrupted him. “Is he still there now?”
Rachette narrowed his eyes, waiting for Wolf’s answer.
“Yes, sir.”
Wolf nodded for Rachette’s benefit.
“Looks like’s he’s settling in,” Ned said. “He never said anything to me about leaving again. I tell you I’m not going to watch his dog again if—”
“Sir,” Wolf stopped the man’s rant again. “I have to go. Thank you very much for the call. I appreciate it.”
Wolf hung up. “He’s there. Who do we have up there at Mary Dimitri’s?”
“Chavez,” Rachette said. “He stayed the night.”
“Who’s at the mine?”
Rachette shrugged.
Wolf thought about it. “Okay. Get Chavez over there, I’ll figure out who was at the mine and have them head over there, too. But tell Chavez not to engage,” Wolf pointed at Rachette, “and make that clear to him. He’s just there to make sure Hammes doesn’t leave.”
“And if he does leave?”
“Then tell Chavez to follow him. At a distance.”
“What about Cain?” Rachette asked. “I’d trust her on the job more than Chavez. He’s a good guy and all, but he’s green as they come.”
Wolf nodded. “I’ll call Cain. She might not be available, so get Chavez, go.”
Looking through his phone contacts, Wolf realized he didn’t have Deputy Cain’s phone number. He dialed Tammy.
"Yes, sir. What do you need?" she said in a sing-song voice.
"Tammy, who do we have up at the mine right now?”
“Deputy Nelson.”
Wolf filled her in. “Can you call Nelson and tell him to make his way down to Hammes’s house?”
“Will do.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Do you have a phone number for Deputy Piper Cain, the satellite unit up in Dredge?”
“That cute girl who came in to apply this winter. Sure do.”
“Yeah. Wait, what?”
“I have the number. Just a second.”
“No, the part about applying. What did you say?”
“Yeah. She came into the department this winter with her resume.”
“Oh.” Wolf’s world rearranged, memories of Deputy Cain coming out of the recesses of his mind, shuffling, forming a full picture.
He’d looked at her resume as it came across his desk. That’s why she looked familiar.
He thought of the way she’d been acting yesterday, how when he’d asked about her past she’d looked at him with that unreadable expression. This winter he’d hired Deputy Chavez by recommendation from Wilson, who knew him through a friend of a friend, but Wolf had put the next hire on hold when the storm had hit—a seven day onslaught of snow not seen in five decades that had shut down the entire town, even the ski resort, crippling the ski lifts.
Wolf had meant the pause in hiring to last a week, but it had stretched to two, then a whole month. Once again he’d been playing catch-up and the storm’s aftermath only made getting back to normal harder.
Those are excuses, he told himself, using a voice that sounded a lot like his father’s.
“Hello? You there?”
“Sorry, yeah. Can you please patch me through to her cell?”
"Yep. I’m patching it." A few seconds later, there was a crackle and then it began to ring in his ear. She picked up quickly.
“Deputy Cain here.”
"Deputy Cain, this is Sheriff Wolf."
"Oh, hello. How are you?"
"I'm good. Um…how’s your father doing?"
"He's doing well. He got a good rest last night and seems to be doing better. Thanks for asking."
"Right. Actually, I'm not calling for that. I mean, I'm glad he's doing well, but listen, are you able to leave your house?”
“Yes. I’m already out on duty. I have regular help that comes to stay with my father when I’m at work. Yesterday was just different. It was…”
“It was what?”
“It was my day off.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that. Well… Listen, Rick Hammes is back in town. I just got a call from his neighbor. I've got Deputy Chavez en route. I'd like a little bit more experience backing him up. If you could please go there right now, that would help."
"Yes, sir. I’m close already.”
"We should be there in about twenty minutes," he said. "We'll see you there. Do not engage. I repeat: Do not engage. We have reason to believe he’s probably armed, and we already know he’s dangerous."
"Yes, sir.”
Wolf shifted into drive and pushed the accelerator.
Deputy Piper Cain lowered her phone, her adrenaline spiking her heart rate. She clicked off the gas pump, cutting short the Jeep’s fill-up, and waited for the receipt to spit out of the machine.
Why did she just tell him it had been her day off yesterday? Because she didn’t want him to think she was a monster for leaving her father unattended at home. But it had come out like she was looking for a pat on the back for working above and beyond her duties. She wasn’t.
She hung a left out onto Main street and sped up to fifty miles per hour, driving through a red light and a four-way stop on the way through downtown, past the road to Mary Dimitri’s house, the casino, and toward the county road to Hammes’s house.
The dashboard clock read 8:05. Her still-wet hair was pulled up into a ponytail, and now sweat was beading on her forehead from the adrenaline. A nice wakeup call if there ever was one.
When she reached the dirt county road, she pressed the gas harder, flying across the base of the valley. When she hit
