Page 19 of Savage Ranger Daddy

I nod. She's right. Defensive positions only hold for so long. At some point you have to go on offense, and the best defense we have right now is knowing more than they think we know.

"I need to dig out the truck and check the generator housing. Couple of hours of outdoor work." I stand and reach for my jacket. "You good in here?"

"I'm going to finish the case files. There are about thirty pages left I haven't gotten through." She's already opening the folder. Then she pauses and looks up at me. "Brock. Last night. On the couch. Before the transmission."

My hand stops on the jacket zipper.

"I meant what I said. Postponed. Not cancelled." She holds my gaze steadily. "I want this. I want you. I've never wanted anything like this before and I'm not going to pretend otherwise just because the timing is terrible."

Everything in my chest tightens. Not with guilt this time. With something that feels a lot more like certainty. I cross back to the table, cup her face in both hands, and kiss her. Slow. Thorough. A kiss that says everything I'm not good enough with words to say.

When I pull back her eyes are closed and she's smiling.

"Go dig out your truck, Marshal."

"Yes ma'am."

I step outside into a world made new. The storm has buried everything under two feet of fresh powder. The trees are weighted down with white. The sky is clear for the first time in days, pale blue and enormous above the peaks. The silence is total. I stand on the porch for a minute and breathe it in, feeling the cold burn in my lungs and the quiet settle into my bones.

Then I get to work.

I dig the truck out first, clearing snow from the wheel wells and the exhaust and scraping the windshield. The access road is buried but passable with chains. I'll need to do a test drive tomorrow morning to check for drifts and downed trees. The generator housing took a hit from a falling branch during the storm but the damage is cosmetic. I clear the debris, check the fuel lines, and run a test cycle. Everything holds.

I'm stacking the last of the cleared wood when I hear the cabin door open behind me.

Hazel is standing on the porch in my flannel and her boots, notebook in hand, cheeks already pink from the cold air. Her expression is the one I've learned to recognize: the look she gets when she's found something.

"I need to show you something." She holds up the notebook. "I finished the case files. There's an interagency memo from eighteen months ago, buried near the back of the folder. It's a request from the Timber Creek sheriff's office to reclassify a series of suspicious activity reports as 'resolved, no further action.' Five reports. All from different wildlife officers and forest service rangers. All documenting unusual activity on trails connected to the Spine."

I set down the wood and climb the porch steps. "Someone in the sheriff's office shut down five separate reports."

"Not someone. The memo has a signature." She turns the notebook to show me a name she's circled three times. "Deputy Jeffrey Pruitt. He signed off on every single reclassification."

Deputy. The same word from the radio transmission last night. "The deputy." No name given, but now we have one.

"Jeffrey Pruitt,” I say slowly. The name means something. I've seen it on jurisdictional paperwork, on interagency coordination forms. He's not a nobody. He's the senior deputy for the Timber Creek district, second in command of the county sheriff's office.

"Second in command," Hazel says, reading the same conclusion off my face. "Which means he has access to incident reports, case files, evidence logs, and interagency communications. If he's the one suppressing reports, he could have been protecting this network for years."

We stand on the porch in the cold clear air and look at each other. The case just cracked open. Not all the way. But enough to see what's underneath.

"We need to get this to Mason," I say. "Today. Before Pruitt has any idea we're looking at him."

"Already drafted the summary." She flips to a clean page covered in tight, organized notes. "Ready when you are."

I look at her standing there in the morning sun, notebook in hand, cheeks flushed, eyes fierce, wearing my shirt like she belongs in it. She's the best partner I've ever had on a case and she doesn't even carry a badge.

"Let's go make a call," I say.

We go inside. I lock the door. And for the first time since this assignment started, I feel like we're not just surviving.

We're winning.

10

Hazel

Brock dials Mason on the sat phone and puts it on the table between us. I've got my notebook open to the summary I drafted, four pages of organized intel ready to deliver. My hands are steady. My brain is sharp. Whatever happens next, we're not going into it blind.