"Frank," I said quietly, slipping my arms into the sleeves of my coat. The wool felt heavy, solid, and real against my bruised shoulder. "Look out the window."
Beyond the porch, past the two charcoal sedans idling on the gravel, a third vehicle had pulled up against the curb. It was a white Brookfield police cruiser, its overhead light bar dark, its driver-side door open. Chief Kowalski stood near the front bumper, his coat unbuttoned, his head down as he spoke into a handheld unit with two plainclothes officers wearing federal badges on their lanyards.
Kowalski did not look toward the house. He did not come up the walkway. He was signing a receipt on a clipboard held out by a federal agent.
"Evelyn," Frank whispered, not looking at her. "Evelyn, call George at the courthouse. Right now."
My mother reached for the landline on the buffet wall. Before her fingers touched the receiver, the kitchen side door swung open, and two female military police officers in combat dress stepped into the room, their boots dry, their movements silent. One of them carried an evidence container with a yellow barcode tag already affixed to the lid.
"Ma'am," the first officer said to my mother, her voice polite, empty of malice, and completely immovable. "Step away from the counter, please. This area is designated an active site."
Evelyn's hand froze four inches from the plastic receiver. For the first time that night, the thin smile on her lips slipped, showing the tight, dry line of her teeth beneath.
"Maya," she said, her voice dropping into a hiss that belonged entirely to the house I had grown up in. "You are destroying this family over forty acres of scrub oak. Look at what you're doing to Frank's career. He has twenty-two years with this department."
I looked at Frank. He was staring at the floorboards, at the broken pieces of my phone, his breathing short and shallow through his mouth. His fingers kept twitching toward the leather belt where his handcuffs had hung five minutes ago.
"His career was over the moment he touched that phone," I said. "And the land trust stays where Dad put it."
I turned toward the hallway, Vance falling into step half a pace behind my right shoulder, exactly where he belonged. As my boot crossed the threshold onto the cold porch planks, the cold mountain air hit my face, clean and sharp, clearing the smell of cheap whiskey and scorched grease from the back of my throat.
Behind me, in the dining room, I heard the single, distinct click of an evidence latch closing over the property folder.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
"The local route is closed, General," Vance said behind me. He wasn't breathing hard. His overcoat was buttoned to the chin against the damp mountain wind, his voice level enough that it didn't travel past the railing. "County dispatch flagged Sergeant Danner’s distress call, but the state commander held the sector cars at the borough line. Kowalski surrendered jurisdiction the second he saw the active authentication on the mobile relay."
"He didn't surrender it," I said, my voice rough from the floor wax and the weight Frank had put on my neck. "He's waiting to see if Frank’s paperwork has a valid judge's stamp. If Frank managed to file an emergency detainer before seven o'clock, the county prosecutor will claim primary custody on a local assault charge before we reach the airfield."
Vance adjusted the tablet under his left forearm. "Danner didn't file an emergency detainer. He had something else in that sideboard."
The front door opened two inches behind us. Officer Miller, one of the two female military police details who had entered through the kitchen, stepped onto the porch. She held the yellow-tagged evidence envelope flat against her chest with both gloved hands. Through the heavy, clear vinyl sleeve, the manila folder from the dining room table was visible under the porch bulb.