Chapter 12 · Ask Her Yourself

Lieutenant Rusk was sitting on the tailgate of his truck with a thermos when I came out of the alders, and he didn't go for his gun. That's how I knew he'd been out there a while.

"Morning, Briar."

One boot on, one hand in my pocket around a paring knife. That was the whole inventory. The other boot went into the rapids somewhere above Dead Man's Gorge, and my foot had gone white and dumb at the toes and stayed that way.

"How long you been sitting here?"

"Since three." He poured and set the cup on the tailgate, on my side, then took his hand back. Didn't nudge it closer. Smart man. "Coffee's hot. You're shaking."

"I'm fine."

"You're barefoot in forty degrees and you're dripping on my gravel." He tipped his chin at the stones behind me — little red dots, spaced out neat like somebody marking a trail. "Torin's got thirty men on the ridge and twenty on the water. He's dragging the shallows for a body. He doesn't know what he's actually lost."

The mark under my jaw went warm. Not pain, exactly.