Page 10 of Savage Ranger Daddy

"I'm asking you to share it with the one person who has the other half of the puzzle. And who's already stuck in your cabin with a target on her back, so it's not like I'm going to run off and publish it on the way to Starbucks."

The corner of his mouth twitches. Just barely. "You always this pushy?"

"Pushier, usually. I'm being polite because you made me coffee and held me while I cried. Don't let it go to your head."

He stands there for another beat. Then he pushes off the doorframe, crosses to the corkboard, and unpins the hand-drawn map. He carries it to the table and lays it flat next to my notebook.

"Show me the manifests," he says.

I pull out the thumb drive from my duffel and hold it up between two fingers. "Everything I couldn't publish is on here. Cal's coordinates. The full Ridgeline paper trail. Every name, every date, every route I traced." I set it on the table between us. "Your turn."

He looks at the drive, then at me. Then he sits down across from me, pulls the map closer, and starts talking.

We work for two hours straight.

He walks me through every patrol he's run in the last seven months. Every anomaly. Every cleared site and every one hehasn't been able to reach. I walk him through the Ridgeline paper trail, the shipping manifests, Cal's intel, the GPS coordinates. We lay it all out side by side and the picture that forms is bigger and uglier than either of us had alone.

The ring isn't just smuggling weapons and wildlife. The infrastructure suggests something more permanent. Established routes. Multiple sites. Local cooperation, maybe even law enforcement contacts, given how cleanly evidence keeps disappearing. And whoever's at the top, whoever Voss is, has been running this for years without a single indictment.

By the time we stop, the coffee is cold and my hand is cramping from writing. The table between us is covered in maps, notes, and scribbled connections. Brock is leaning forward on his elbows, studying a page of Cal's coordinates I've plotted against his patrol routes.

"This changes things," he says quietly. "I thought I was tracking a supply chain. You're showing me a network."

"And you're showing me the ground truth I never had." I sit back and stretch my aching neck. "We need to get to that RC North site. And we need to figure out what happened to Cal Hutchins."

He nods once, looking at me with something that might be respect, or maybe surprise that the woman who cried in his arms last night just spent two hours outworking half his department.

"When the storm clears," he says. "We go."

I nod back. Then I glance toward the window where the snow is still falling thick and steady, sealing us in together, and I can't help the small smile that pulls at my mouth.

"In the meantime," I say, "any chance you'll tell me what the weapons-cleaning and firewood rampage was about this morning? Because I've got a couple theories and most of them involve that list I saw you writing last night when you thought I was asleep."

His whole body goes still. The tips of his ears turn red above his beard. It's the first time I've seen anything close to embarrassment on this man's face and it might be the most satisfying moment of my entire journalism career.

"Eat your breakfast, Hazel," he says, standing up abruptly and heading for the kitchen.

I grin at his retreating back. "I knew it. There's a list. I'm going to find that list."

"No you're not."

"I absolutely am. It's what I do, Marshal. I find things people don't want found. It's kind of my whole deal."

He doesn't answer, but I catch the twitch at the corner of his mouth before he turns away.

I sit at the table surrounded by our combined case files and feel something I haven't felt since I hit publish: not just safe, but useful. Not a target waiting for rescue. A journalist working a story that matters, with a partner who actually listens.

The fear isn't gone. It's still there, humming underneath everything like a low current. But it's quieter now, crowded out by something stronger.

Purpose. And maybe, if I'm being honest with myself, something else entirely that I'm not ready to name yet.

6

Hazel

The storm hits like it has a personal grudge against this cabin.

Wind slams against the thick log walls in heavy, relentless waves. Snow lashes the small windows so hard the glass rattles in its frames. Every gust makes the whole structure creak and groan like it's considering giving up and just letting the mountain win. I stand at the table where Brock and I spent the morning piecing together our case notes and watch the world outside turn into a wall of white.