Page 59 of Bone’s Choice

Hose stared at him.

Taco frowned.

“You know what I meant.”

“No one did,” Taco grinned.

“I mean before he died,” Hose corrected.

Taco pointed at Hose. “Thank you for clarifying.”

I rubbed a hand over my beard. “Who was his last call at the yard for?”

Dave shook his head. “That’s where I’m stuck. I’ve got the service date, but not the internal details.”

“Get them.”

“Already trying.”

Shadow leaned closer to his camera. “What about whoever loaded the coffin onto Jackson’s truck?”

“Myth and I went through that,” I said. “No dock employee admits knowing anything. No return entered in the system. No paperwork.”

Shadow frowned. “So somebody walks a coffin with a corpse into a busy transfer facility, and nobody sees shit?”

“That about sums it up.”

“Bullshit,” Shadow scoffed.

“Yeah.”

Dave glanced toward Shadow. “I’m trying to pull archived yard information from the days around Mercer’s service call. Might give us something.”

Shadow looked back at me. “You want us down there?”

“Not yet.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yeah. Keep Minnesota running. If this touches your side, I want you there.”

His face hardened. “If it touches Minnesota, you’ll know.”

“I know.” That was the thing about Shadow. We didn’t always agree. Didn’t always handle shit the same way. But if I called and told him I needed Minnesota in Wisconsin tonight, they’d be on the road before I hung up.

Same went the other direction.

Separate chapters. Same patch.

“Send me everything you have on Mercer,” I told Dave.

“Already did.”

“And keep digging into Northline.”

“Yep.”

“I want to know who he worked with, who assigned him that job, and whether anybody else from that company was at the transfer yard around the time our coffin showed up.”