Page 36 of Savage Ranger Daddy

Our eyes meet.

The recognition is instant on both sides. Her expression cycles through three emotions in less than a second: surprise, calculation, and then something that settles into desperate relief so convincing it would fool anyone who hadn't heard her rehearse it through a bar wall two days ago.

"Oh God," she says, her voice cracking. "Oh God, you're the woman from the bar. Please. Please, I need help."

She takes a step toward me and I instinctively take a step back, keeping the distance. My heart is hammering but my voice comes out steady. Journalist voice. Interview voice. The one I use when I need to keep someone talking without revealing what I already know.

"What's wrong? What are you doing here?"

"It's Dale." The tears are flowing again, and they look real. Wet cheeks, red-rimmed eyes, the blotchy flush of genuine crying. She's either telling the truth or she's the best actress in three counties. "He found out I talked to someone at the bar. He thinks I told you about the operation. He came to the Lucky Moon lastnight after the raid and he was out of his mind. He said if I didn't help him find you he'd kill me. He said he'd make me disappear like the others." Her breath catches in a ragged sob. "I came here to turn myself in. To tell the marshals everything. But I got to the desk and I panicked. I couldn't do it. I've been standing in this hallway for twenty minutes trying to make myself walk into one of those offices."

The story is good. It's very good. If I hadn't overheard her in the Lucky Moon's back room two days ago, I would believe every word. A woman terrorized by a dangerous man, desperate enough to come to the federal building but too frightened to follow through. It hits every instinct I have as a journalist who's spent years interviewing survivors. The trembling hands. The broken eye contact. The way she keeps checking the hallway behind her like she expects Dale to appear at any second.

But I did hear her. Make sure she trusts you. That's all you need.

The question is: what does she want? If her mission is to get me outside the building, I need to understand what's waiting out there. And the best way to find out what someone is planning is to let them think their plan is working.

"Alice." I say her name deliberately, watching her react. If she's startled that I know it, she doesn't show it. "You came to the right place. There are federal marshals in this building who are actively working this case. They raided the logging camp this morning. Dale's operation is being dismantled right now. If you have information, they need to hear it."

"I know about the raid." She wipes her nose with her sleeve. "That's why Dale is panicking. He wasn't at the camp. He got out before they moved in. He's regrouping. He's got a backup plan and I know what it is." She grabs my arm and the contact sendsa cold shock through me. "Please. I can't go in there alone. Those men in those offices, they'll think I'm part of it. They'll arrest me before I can explain. But if you come with me, if you vouch for me, they'll listen. You're the journalist. You broke the story. They trust you."

There it is. The pivot. She doesn't want to go to the marshals. She wants me to leave with her.

I need to keep her talking. Every second she spends here is a second Brock might check his phone.

"Tell me what Dale's backup plan is," I say. "Right now. If it's time-sensitive, I need to know before we go anywhere."

She hesitates. The calculation behind her eyes is visible for just a fraction of a second before the mask slides back into place. "He's moving the rest of the cargo tonight. Not from the camp. From a second location the marshals don't know about. He's got a truck staged at the old mill road turnoff, the one past the south fork bridge. If the marshals don't get there in the next few hours, everything moves and he disappears."

I file the detail. Old mill road turnoff. Past the south fork bridge. It might be real intelligence she was fed to make the trap convincing. It might be completely fabricated. Either way, it needs to be reported.

"That's important information," I tell her. "We need to get it to the marshals immediately. Come with me. Mason's office is right down the hall. I'll walk you in and stay with you the entire time."

Her face changes. The tearful desperation flickers and underneath it I see something harder. Frustration. The plan isn't working the way she expected. I was supposed to follow her outside. I was supposed to trust her the way the man in theLucky Moon's back room told her to make me trust her. Instead I'm steering her toward the one room in this building where she'd be identified and detained.

"I can't," she whispers, shaking her head. "Not yet. I left something in my car. Evidence. A phone with recordings of Dale making threats. Without it they won't believe me. It's in my glove box. It'll take thirty seconds. Please just come with me. I can't be alone out there."

The glove box. The parking lot. Just come with me.

"Alice." I keep my voice calm and kind, the same tone I'd use with a real victim, because there are scenarios where she is one. People inside criminal operations can be both perpetrators and victims. I can't know which she is from this hallway. But I can know that going to the parking lot is the trap, and I'm not walking into it.

"I'm not going outside," I say. "But I'll do something better. I'll get a marshal to escort us both to your car. That way you're protected, I'm protected, and we can bring the evidence straight back inside. Let me get Brock."

I turn toward Mason's office.

She moves fast.

Her hand closes around my wrist and yanks me sideways, hard, toward the emergency exit at the end of the hall. The door has no alarm, just a push bar, and she hits it with her hip while pulling me through. The cold air hits my face and then we're outside, in the narrow alley between the building and the adjacent lot. The door swings shut behind us.

I dig my heels in and twist against her grip the way Brock taught me. Step in. Rotate against the thumb. Pull free. Her grip breaks and I stumble backward, my shoulder hitting the brick wall of the building.

Alice isn't alone.

A dark sedan is idling against the wall. Dale Weathers is leaning against the driver's side door.

"There she is," he says. His voice is flat. Unhurried. The voice of a man who’s done this before.

Behind him, a second man I don't recognize steps out of the driver's side. Tall. Young. The kind of muscle that gets hired for exactly this purpose.