“Here.” I dropped the file on the conference table with an audible slap. It was early, and I hadn’t slept. Bowie hadn’t answered any of my texts since last night. So much had happened between us that the idea of going back to pretending he didn’t exist was killing me.

Connelly looked up, annoyed. “What’s this?”

“This came from the scanning you assigned to me. Connie Bodine’s accident file, which I’m suggesting you consider reopening.”

“That so?” he snorted, looking bored.

“There were no brake marks at the scene. No evidence that she tried to stop before she went through the guardrail. My father wondered if she might have done it on purpose. But this damage is consistent with being hit from behind.” I tapped the picture with my finger.

“And how do we know that didn’t happen in the ten years since that car was sitting in the junkyard?”

“Because of the original accident photos,” I said, pulling out the next photo and laying them side-by-side. “Fresh damage. It would explain why she didn’t try to stop. She was pushed. Which is a valid theory based on the reconstruction scenarios I ran since I have so much time on my hands these days.”

“Deputy, why are you wasting my time with this?”

“Because when Jonah Bodine, Sr. left town after Callie Kendall disappeared it was in his wife’s Pontiac 6000. This car.” I pulled out a copy of the speeding ticket with the make and model circled. “The car was wrecked and junked less than a year later. It’s still mostly intact in the yard about ten miles outside of town.”

Connelly paged through the file I’d compiled and then sat back in his chair.

“I thought we had an understanding regarding the Kendall investigation,” he said, coldly.

“We did. This was in the course of the administrative duties you assigned me.” You jackass.

He steepled his fingers and looked like a movie villain. “Deputy Tucker, it’s come to my attention that you disobeyed a direct order.”

“Which one would that be, sir?” I’d had a long, shitty twenty-four hours and I was just doing my damn job. “I’ve disobeyed plenty recently so you’ll have to be more specific.” God, that felt good.

“The one where I told you to stay out of the Kendall investigation.”

“I can’t help if the scanning you assigned me uncovered a connection to your case.”

“Don’t be cute with me, deputy. You’ve done nothing but flaunt my authority since I arrived.”

“I’ve done nothing but do my job to the best of my ability,” I countered.

“You are dangerously disrespectful.”

“I could say the same about you, sir.”

“Turn in your badge, deputy. I don’t have a need for you anymore,” he snapped.

I leaned into my greatest fear. This man who had despised me from the beginning wanted to take the last thing I had left.

“I know why you feel this way. I know why you don’t trust me and the rest of our department,” I said, seething with rage. His eyes went icy.

“Your badge, deputy,” he repeated.

“You’re accusing me of letting my personal feelings get in the way of an investigation when it’s your feelings that are a problem.”

He slapped a hand down on the table between us. But I cut him off before he could begin a tirade.

“My research skills aren’t limited to old case files. I know about your cousin,” I told him and watched the anger bubble up inside of him. “I know she went missing when she was twenty. And while you and your family were leading search teams, the police chief was covering it up because his nephew was responsible. I’m sorry for your loss, sir. But you’re making a mistake channeling that rage into this investigation. We aren’t negligent. We aren’t complicit. We take our job of protecting this community seriously.”

“Your job is to catch criminals and prevent crime, not date suspects’ sons.”

All the secrecy. All the subterfuge. All for nothing. “I do my job damn well. And I’ll see who I please. In the meantime, maybe you should focus less on my personal life and more on your investigation. Have you even discussed those photos with the Kendalls?” I snapped.

“That’s none of your concern, since after today you’ll be on the unemployment line!”

“You want my badge, Connelly? I’ll turn it into my supervisor.” I was dead calm.

“Get out of this office. I don’t want to see your face in here again, Tucker!” He was shouting now.

I didn’t take my eyes off him as he raged and I didn’t turn around when the conference room door flew open.

“Detective Connelly,” my father said, an edge to his voice. “If you have an issue with how I run my department, I suggest you take it up with me.”

My father, the unflappable Sheriff Tucker, was about two seconds away from screaming bloody murder at Connelly. I could tell by the vein in his forehead that looked in danger of bursting.

“Your daughter is too busy fraternizing with the Bodines to do her damn job! And you either don’t care or you’re too ignorant to know a conflict of interest when it sits down at your dinner table.”

“I trust my deputies to make their own personal decisions and do their jobs.”

I put my hand on my dad’s shoulder. When he looked at me, I shook my head. “Leave it be.”

I didn’t want or need him to fight this battle for me.

Walking through the conference room door, I took a hard right into my father’s office. I was done. I was beyond done. I dropped my gun and my badge on his desk, dumped the cruiser keys into the top drawer and grabbed my coat from the rack near the back door.

“What in the ever-living fuck just happened in there?” Bex asked, pale-faced and big-eyed standing in the doorway of the property room.

“I resigned,” I said flatly.

She tugged on her earlobe, nerves radiating off of her. “You did what now?”

“Apparently I can’t serve the people of Bootleg Springs if I’m in love with one of them.” And apparently I couldn’t be in love with Bowie if I was still digging into his parents. So I had no job and no boyfriend.

It was all bullshit. My boyfriend was mad at me for doing my job and my job was mad at me for having a boyfriend.

Well, I’d gone and shown them. Yep. No job. No boyfriend. Fucking great. Oh, Lord. I couldn’t breathe.

“I’m goin’ in there,” Fanny Sue said, putting her patrol hat on and straightening her clip-on tie.

I pushed out into the winter day feeling as numb as a block of ice. My uniform rubbed at my skin like I was suddenly allergic to it

Everywhere I looked, it was business as usual in Bootleg. We had a few tourists in town for cross-country skiing and holiday shopping. The storefronts were busy. Yee Haw Yarn and Coffee was full to bustin’ with coffee seekers and the monthly knit-in.

Mona Lisa McNugget was struttin’ right on down Main Street holding up both lanes of traffic.

This was my home. These were my people, my family.

I wasn’t sure what the emotions were brewing in my chest. I felt lost and lonely.