Page 27 of Savage Ranger Daddy

"Maybe. Or the mayor's office is being used as a meeting space by someone with access. Either way, Jeffrey Pruitt just walked into a government building and had a private conversation about moving illegal cargo through the mountains by tomorrow night. That's enough for Mason to move on."

"And the 'someone close to' me." She stops writing. "Brock. That's twice now. The radio intercept said 'he's got someone on it.' Now Jeffrey says 'we've got someone close to the...' whatever he was going to say. That's not surveillance from a distance. That's someone positioned near me. Or near the investigation."

The thought has been turning in my head since I heard the words. Someone close. Not a team searching the mountains. Not a hired gun working from a distance. Someone with proximity. To Hazel. To our investigation. To the Marshals Service.

"We need to talk to Mason," I say. "Now. Before we go back to the outpost. If there's someone inside our circle feeding them information, going back to base could be exactly what they want us to do."

I pull over on a stretch of empty road outside town, kill the engine, and reach for the sat phone. The mountains rise around us, white and silent. Somewhere in those peaks, cargo is being staged. Somewhere in this town, a corrupt deputy just reported to someone who sits in the mayor's office. And somewhere, someone close to us is feeding information to the people who want Hazel dead.

The phone connects. Mason picks up. I start talking.

We're running out of time.

14

Hazel

Brock is on the sat phone with Mason in the truck outside City Hall when I see the man.

He comes out of the side entrance of City Hall, the same door Jeffrey Pruitt used a few minutes ago. He's not Jeffrey. He's older, heavier, wearing a good coat and a knit cap pulled low over his forehead. He doesn't look like a government employee. He looks like someone who just finished a meeting and wants to leave without being noticed. He checks both directions on the sidewalk, then turns south and walks fast.

I know that walk. I've watched hours of security footage and studied dozens of blurry photographs building this story. The set of the shoulders. The way he keeps his head angled down, chin tucked, like a man practiced at avoiding cameras. I can't place the face from this distance and angle, but the body language matches a figure who showed up in three separate pieces of evidence during my investigation: a dock surveillance photo in Billings, a blurred trail-camera frame from the Crescent Forkarea, and a cell tower ping Cal Hutchins flagged in his notes. My source called him Voss. I never got a real name or a clear photo.

Brock is deep in the call with Mason, relaying the City Hall intel. He's not watching the sidewalk.

I have about four seconds to decide.

I grab my phone, slip out of the truck, and ease the door shut behind me.

The cold hits immediately. I pull my hood up and fall into step on the opposite side of the street, matching his pace without closing the distance. He's moving south on Main, past the hardware store, past the post office. My boots crunch on the packed snow but the street noise covers it. A pickup rumbles by between us, giving me cover for a few seconds. I use the gap to raise my phone and take three photographs of his back and profile. The light isn't great. The angle is steep. But if any of them are clear enough to cross-reference against the surveillance images in my files, it could be the first real photograph of the man running this operation.

He turns onto a side street. I count to five and follow.

The side street is quieter. Older buildings, most of them closed for the season or permanently. A laundromat with steamed windows. A boarded-up hardware store. And at the end of the block, a bar with a faded sign I can barely read in the dying light. The Lucky Moon.

The name hits me like a slap. Alice Dermott. The Lucky Moon. Colt told Brock about this bar on the sat phone the first night at the outpost. The registered agent for Ridgeline Outfitters holds the liquor license for this bar. This is the front company'sphysical address, and the man I'm following just walked straight into it.

I stop on the sidewalk across the street and photograph the exterior. The sign. The address. The man's back as he pushes through the door. Then I cross and step inside.

The bar is dim, lit by a few hanging bulbs and a jukebox in the corner playing something low and twangy. The floor sticks to my boots. The air smells like old beer and cigarette smoke that's soaked into the walls over decades. A handful of patrons sit at the bar or scattered tables, the kind of people who look like they've been here since morning and have no plans to leave. The man I followed is heading toward a door in the back marked Employees Only. He pushes through without looking back.

I move toward the back of the bar, keeping my pace casual. There's a short hallway past the restrooms that leads to the Employees Only door. I stop at the hallway entrance and listen.

Through the thin wall I can hear voices. Two, maybe three. The words are muffled but I catch fragments.

"...south fork is clear. Tate confirmed the..."

"...tomorrow night. No later. He wants it consolidated before..."

A third voice, a woman's, quieter than the others: "...she's still with the marshal. I can get close but I need a reason to..."

My blood goes cold. A woman's voice. Talking about me. About getting close to me. About needing a reason.

I press harder against the wall, straining, but the jukebox swells and I lose the rest. When the music dips again I catch only the tail end of the man's response.

"...handled. Just make sure she trusts you. That's all you need."

Footsteps on the other side of the door. Someone's coming out.