Peter Frost himself stepped into the office and gave us both a long look. This was my first time meeting him, and something about the quiet authority around him made me stop chewing. “The second you two are finished eating, I’d like you both in my office.”

Across from me, Frank just nodded and took another bite of his burger.

Maybe it was because he could kill a man with his bare hands or just the way he set his jaw, but I had to remind myself to swallow the food already in my mouth. I’d met millionaires, billionaires even, that weren’t as confident of themselves as he was. They were all brash and bluster, nice suits, displays of wealth. I looked up at Peter, looking like a poor lumberjack in his flannel shirt and jeans, my eyes wide, burger in front of my face. All I could do was silently nod.

Peter left, and Frank and I exchanged glances.

My stomach fluttered around the half of a greasy burger. Suddenly, I was having misgivings about all this. How much should I tell them? I didn’t want to incriminate my father anymore than he had already done to himself. Despite my feelings about engaging in conspiracy to try and protect my father, I didn’t want to be the one responsible for bringing him down. I’d already been such an awful daughter over the last year. Could I handle the shame of tearing down the family business on top of that?

And something told me that Frost wouldn’t be fine with helping out a criminal. There was too much righteous fury in those eyes of his.

Peter didn’t faze Frank, though. He finished devouring his burger, wiped his fingers free of grease and crumpled up the paper wrap and napkin. I glanced down at my half-finished dinner still clutched in my hands. “Hungry much?”

“Starving.” He sat back, his elbows on his armrest, his fingers steepled in front of him. He let me finish eating in silence.

“So, I guess you and your boss get the whole story at the same time?”

He grunted. “Guess so.”

I finished as much of my burger as I could and set the rest on the greasy wrapper.

“Done?”

I nodded.

“Before we go in there,” he said quietly, “how much have you not told us?”

I made a face. Deceiving Frank and his co-workers was the last thing I wanted. But I’d tried to tell him in the car earlier, hadn’t I? “A little,” I admitted reluctantly. “But it’s all stuff I just found out, okay?”

He chewed his lip, his jaw working hard, clenching and releasing. “As long as I don’t look like an asshole in there, okay? I told you I’d stick by you and do what I think is right. But I need you to understand that making that choice is the last thing I want.”

“Choice?”

“Between you and my p–” he stopped himself and began again. “Between you and my partners.”

“Do you think he’ll pull you from my case?”

He pushed back from the desk. “Looks like we’re about to find out, ain’t we?”

“Suppose so,” I agreed. I got up and followed him out of the office as he led me back up to the front, then back around to the opposite side of the small building to Peter Frost’s small, discreet office. On the wall behind him hung a painting of a large wolf crouched on a rock, a mountain panorama expanding in the background. Other than that, the only other piece of decoration was a small succulent, a cactus—the type of plant you could forget to water for days, or weeks, at a time.

Peter sat at his keyboard, typing out an email. He didn’t glance up at us.

I swallowed hard as I went inside and took a seat, folding my hands carefully in my lap. I hadn’t felt like this since I was in prep school, the first and only time I’d gotten called down to the dean’s office for a stupid prank we’d pulled on Ms. Evett, our biology teacher. Embalmed worms in a teacher’s desk drawer is apparently almost worth a suspension.

Frank took the seat beside me, his massive frame squeezing into the comparably small chair. Frost maneuvered his mouse, clicked a couple times, then reached up and turned off his monitor and turned his attention to the two of us.

He cleared his throat and looked me straight in the eye. He didn’t look angry. He looked resigned. “Ms. Maxwell, I’m going to be blunt here because things have begun to spiral out of the original parameter of our agreed upon contract. I don’t feel that you have been honest with us.”

I squeaked involuntarily and looked down.

“This was initially an investigation of a break-in, to supplement Sheriff Peak’s own investigation.”

I turned back to face him. “That’s what–”

He held up his hand, cutting me off. “Please, Ms. Maxwell, let me continue. One of my men has been shot at by cartel soldiers with fully automatic weapons. There’s a Russian mafia hitman in town. And I have a feeling that you two are coming back from Durango with even more complications.”

Beside me, Frank shifted in his seat as much as he could.

“If you had been honest with us about what was happening with your father’s company from the very beginning, we may have been able to provide better protection, maybe moved you to a safer location. But, as it is, you tried to write us a hot check. Now, what else are you hiding from us?”

I raised a hand to stop him. “Hold on, stop right there. A hot check?”

“Your father’s bank accounts are frozen, Ms. Maxwell. M Three Investments is under investigation by the FBI and the SEC, and they’ve already arrested one of the partners in the firm on money laundering charges. It’s all over the news.”

I let out a breath. I tried to suck in another, but air wouldn’t come at all. Suddenly, my heart was beating like a college drumline. They were moving on my father already? But they’d just suspected him, hadn’t they? I thought they had no evidence!

“Boss man,” Frank piped up, “all due respect, we ain’t had phones or turned on the radio since we left Durango.”

Suddenly, everything my stepmother and Barbara Hacks had told me became real. Before, it had all just been talk. It had been something happening to someone else. Now, though? Now it was like my whole life had been pulled into a huge lie. My whole future a charade. I tried to suck in another breath, but it wouldn’t come. “Already?” I croaked, my voice barely obeying my commands.

Peter’s judging eyes fell on my face and changed almost imperceptibly. “Ms. Maxwell? Are you okay?” he asked, his voice so distant it might as well have been on the moon.

“Ashley?” Frank asked, gripping my arm. “Boss, get a bag or something for her to breathe into. I think she’s hyperventilating, having a panic attack or something.”

The world seemed to darken as my head suddenly felt lighter than a helium balloon.

“Ashley?” Frank asked, shoving a crumpled bag into my hand and guiding it to my mouth. “Breathe, Ashley, you gotta breathe.”

I breathed into the bag. I sucked in air from the bag, getting a whole mouthful of the scent of old diner food. Pepper, salt, grease, all going straight into my lungs, causing me to almost gag. But still, I kept breathing, the bag inflating and deflating with each exhale and inhale.

Frank stroked the back of my head. “You ain’t gonna die on me yet, are you?”

I closed my eyes and shook my head, and kept breathing into the bag as I felt my heart rate slow down, my chest loosen.

“Guess you didn’t know,” Peter said, wincing a little as that powerful and confident shell of his seemed to crack with a hairline fracture. “Sorry.”

“Gonna be okay?” Frank asked.

I nodded and took the old Dixie’s bag away from my mouth. Is that all they freaking ate around here? Burgers and cheap, greasy food from that place?

“You sure?”

I nodded again and patted his hand. “Just…give me a second.”

Both men stayed silent, giving me a moment to figuratively get my legs beneath me. Finally, Frank stroked the back of my head again. “You gonna be okay?”

I nodded, taking a deep breath. “This is all just, I don’t know, a shock.”

“Earlier,” Peter said as he leaned forward on his desk, “you said already. What did you mean by that?”

I closed my eyes and licked my dry lips. “I just found out about the investigation when we were in Durango. I decided when we got here that I needed to tell Frank about it, but he stopped me.”

“Just worried the car they let us borrow was bugged, that’s all.”

Frost nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Go ahead. Just go slow and tell us what you know, Ms. Maxwell.”

“Then you’ll decide whether or not you’ll keep the case?”

Peter’s eyes flitted from mine to Frank’s, then back again. “Please just tell your story and we’ll figure out what to do afterward.”

And so I began to tell them what I knew. Everything. About the Yucatecah Cartel, the Russian Mob, and the Cayman Island accounts. And how my stepmother and Barbara Hacks wanted to get to my father before the authorities so they could try and cover their tracks.

I told them all of it, from beginning to end.

At first it was just a trickle of honesty. Then it became a deluge.

Peter nodded at all the right spots, only asking a couple questions here and there.

“And that’s it,” I finally said, my arms wrapped around myself in a tight hug. “All that I can remember, at least. And, now, I don’t know what to do.” I sniffled a little, realizing I was on the verge of tears.

His eyes softened.

“What do you think, boss?” Frank’s question got a look from Peter that I couldn’t quite place. But he pressed on. “Can we stay on it?”

Frost’s nostrils flared a little, and he nodded. “Alright, this is how it’s going to work.” He leaned forward and looked me square in the eye. “You are not going to your home tonight. I don’t know if someone wants to use you as a bargaining chip or they think you know something, but I believe you might be in danger. Hell, I know you’re in danger. I just don’t know who’s going to take the first shot at you.”

I swallowed again and nodded. That didn’t sound good.

“You’ll be staying at Frank’s place tonight, since his roommate Matthew, who also works here, is out of town on business. He won’t mind, will he?”

Frank shook his head.

“You won’t be alone, either. Frank, Richard, and Jake will all be staying with you.”

“Can I at least go back to the cabin to get some, you know, stuff for sleeping over?”

“Not a chance. We have a go-bag for women that Gen and Lacy Richter both put together, should have everything you need. Get me?”

I nodded, hugging myself tighter.

“In the morning,” he continued, “you’re going to go down to speak to Sheriff Peak, right alongside Frank. If you would like to call an attorney, I’d make your arrangements tonight. Peak’s a little, uh, old school on the uptake, and my impression was that he doesn’t see anything you necessarily did wrong. But I can’t give you legal advice.”

He picked up the phone and punched a number. “Jake, come in here and help Ms. Maxwell get everything together.”

“While you’re with my men, you will listen to everything they tell you, Ms. Maxwell. If you do not, you may get yourself, or them, killed. I sent enough men home in body bags during my time in the service. These men are my family. Do you understand?”

I was struck mute by his words, by the increasing weight of seriousness that each sentence seemed to add onto my shoulders. I nodded. “Yes, I understand.”

“Good.”

There was a knock on the open door, and I glanced over to see Jake standing there. “Ms. Maxwell? Let me get you set up.”