“I don’t understand,” Phil says after I explain what’s happened.

“Someone tried to shoot Oliver Brady,” I say.

“Yes, I understand that’s what you’re telling me, Detective, but I’m not sure I follow your reasoning. You presume Mr. Brady was the target.”

“If Eric hadn’t pushed him down, he’d have been—”

“And what proof do you have of that?” Phil cuts in, his voice edged with impatience. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Detective, but I am concerned that you are leaping to conclusions here. There is no way of telling that the bullet would have hit Mr. Brady. Even if there was, that doesn’t prove he was a target. It may have been simply a random shot fired by a settler.”

“The shooter was in a tree. That’s a targeted attack.”

“Perhaps because you were trespassing on territory the shooter considers his.”

“So it was a complete coincidence that we were walking the prisoner in the forest when someone fired a shot from a tree—which has never happened before—and that bullet just happened to seem aimed at our prisoner. Presuming it was a random attack—”

“—is like seeing a grizzly barreling in your direction,” Dalton says, “and standing your ground because there’s a chance he’s not actually charging at you.”

“A colorful analogy, Sheriff,” Phil says. “But I take your point. Obviously extra steps will be required to secure the prisoner.”

“Like what?” Dalton says. “Keeping him locked up six months with no exercise?”

“I do not have an issue with that. Nor does his stepfather.”

“Our residents will. They already think he’s being mistreated.”

“I’m sure you can handle that, Sheriff.”

“I can. What I can’t handle is the loss of respect they’ll have for me—and Casey and Will—for a situation that is not our fault. We don’t want Brady here.”

“And did you take steps to rectify that?”

“Excuse me?” I say.

“Yeah,” Dalton says. “We put one of our guys in that tree to shoot him. Stupid me forgot we planted the sniper and nearly got my ass killed trying to save the target. Whoops.”

“What I mean, Sheriff, is that you might have let your dissatisfaction with the situation be known, and one of your citizens decided to relieve you of the responsibility. Are all your guns accounted for?”

“They’re all in the locker,” I say. Which is technically true.

“Then I don’t know what to tell you, besides my suspicion that this was one of your forest people, and regardless of whether Mr. Brady was the target, you should reconsider walking him outside of town boundaries.”

“On another subject,” I say, “do you know anything about a shooting in San Jose?”

Silence. “A shooting . . .”

“In San Jose.”

“There are many shootings in America these days, Detective. To the point, sadly, where they begin to blur.”

“This was in a school playground, and the shooter is still at large.”

“That does sound familiar. But I fail to see what . . . Are you suggesting that has something to do with this shooting?”

“Brady mentioned it.”

“All right . . .” A long pause. “I’m still not seeing the connection. I seem to recall a sniper was involved in the playground incident, but I’m at a loss to even guess what the connection might be.”

“I thought it was odd that he brought it up.”

“Ah. What you’re saying is that it’s odd that he mentioned a sniper shooting . . . and then seems to be the target of one. You’re wondering if Mr. Brady himself had something to do with the attempt this afternoon.”

“Sure.” That wasn’t where I was going at all—I just wanted to verify that there had been a shooting in San Jose and see how Phil reacted to Brady mentioning it.

Phil continues, “You’re asking whether Mr. Brady knew where he was going. Or if he might have been followed there by a confederate.”

“Yes.”

“There was no indication of a partner in his crimes. However, Mr. Brady has the money to hire someone to do what you are suggesting—appear to shoot at him, in hopes of bolstering his claims of innocence. He is proclaiming that innocence, I presume.”

“To anyone who’ll listen, which is why we’re keeping the gag on.”

“A wise idea.”

“Yeah,” Dalton says. “It really helps those who think we’re mistreating him.”

There’s a pause, and Phil manages to sound borderline sympathetic when he says, “I can see that would be a problem. It will need to be dealt with very carefully.”

Dalton snorts.

Phil continues, “Back to the issue, while I will agree that Mr. Brady could hire someone to do this, I don’t see how he would carry it out. We were exceedingly careful with transport, funneling him through multiple handlers, none of whom knew the situation or the destination or had any experience with Rockton.”

“None knew the situation?” I say.

“That is correct. They were told only that they were transporting a dangerous prisoner. We advised leaving the gag on, and we said they could not trust any story he told if it came off. The warning wasn’t really necessary. For those we hired, this would go without saying.”

“The woman who brought him here was ex-military,” I say.

“Most were.”

“Any with sniper training?”

He pauses. “I have no idea, but I will look into that, particularly with the woman who delivered him. That would be the only scenario I see working here—that he communicated with her and she agreed to help. She knew where he was being held. And she is a mercenary. Excellent deductive reasoning.”

Or, maybe, just an excuse he can utilize. Why, yes, Detective, it turns out she was trained in distance shooting, and we cannot track her current whereabouts. Good job, Casey. Gold star. Case solved. Move on.

“What about the stepfather?” I say. “Does Gregory Wallace know where Oliver is being held?”

“Not specifically. And I can’t imagine why he’d pay us to keep the young man safe . . . and then hire an assassin to kill him. That’s hardly cost effective.”

Actually, it would be very cost effective. If Oliver Brady is innocent, that will be proven when someone else is accused of the same crimes. Even if that never happens, his mother might begin questioning. It’s far more convenient for Brady to be dead. I’m so sorry, darling—I tried to keep him safe for you, and I couldn’t.

If Brady is guilty, there’s still a reason to assassinate him. How long will Wallace want to pay to keep his murderous stepson safe? Whatever the scenario here, killing Oliver Brady is both efficient and cost effective. The only reason Wallace wouldn’t have done that right away is his wife. Better for her to think Wallace tried to save her boy, no matter what crimes he’s committed.

I talk to Phil for a while longer, but there’s nothing more to get. Before we sign off, he says, “Sheriff?”

“Yeah.”

“I know we’ve put you in a bad position.”

“The word you want,” Dalton drawls, “is ‘untenable.’ ”

There’s a long pause, and then an almost reluctant “I’m not sure that’s the proper term,” as if he’s loath to correct his uneducated sheriff, when the poor guy is trying to expand his vocabulary.

“Yeah,” Dalton says. “It is. Untenable. A position or argument we cannot defend. We have a killer who has done seriously fucked-up things, yet I cannot explain that to people or they’ll revolt. But if I don’t tell them, they’ll think we’re mistreating a common criminal. Or that he didn’t commit a crime at all. Maybe we’re afraid they’ll discover the truth if we take off that gag. An untenable situation.”

Another long pause. Then, “You’ll work it out, Sheriff. I just need you to understand, particularly in light of this shooting, how important Mr. Brady is to Rockton. The cost of hiding the town against modern technology is skyrocketing. We need to take advantage of opportunities like Oliver Brady.”

“Bullshit.” Dalton’s voice is low, nearly too low to hear, and there’s a note in it that has the hairs on my neck rising.

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. You want to cover skyrocketing costs? Look at reducing your profit margin.”

Phil’s voice cools. “I don’t like your implication, Sheriff. Anytime you would like to see our fiscal reports, I will have a copy sent to Dawson City for you.”

Which wouldn’t do any good. It’s not the official income that counts. It’s the hidden profits, from those who buy their way in under a false story.

“Oliver Brady is your responsibility, Sheriff,” Phil says. “You only have to keep him safe for six months. I’m certain you can do that. If you can’t, we’ll need to find someone who can.”