Page 156 of Knot my First Rodeo

Found you, biker baby.

Chapter

Forty-Five

Briggs

The photographs stay spread across the kitchen table long after Autumn disappears upstairs. Clint makes a couple calls, while Tripp starts searching the box for anything useful. I pick up the photograph from the drive-in again.

The one that bothers me the most.

I remember her falling asleep halfway through the movie with her feet in my lap. I remember looking down and thinking I'd never seen somebody look more at peace, and somebody was standing there watching it happen.

My jaw tightens, and I set the photograph back down before I tear the damn thing in half.

"Post office can’t tell me shit." Clint tosses his phone onto the table.

Who the hell took these pictures? How long have they been watching? Why now?

I glance toward the stairs.

Suddenly, the house feels too open; too many windows, doors, places somebody could stand without being noticed.

It’s what jump starts the three of us to lock this place down like Fort Knox, or as close as we can. First, we pack up the box and throw it in the living room closet so Autumn doesn’t have to see it again. Next, we each take a level of the house; Clint upstairs, Tripp the basement, and me the main floor. We make sure the windows are locked, the doors are all secure, and there isn’t anything out of place or suspicious.

When we’re done, we meet back in the kitchen. Tripp opens the fridge and gets each of us a beer. Clint starts making a list, talking about cameras, better locks, and who we need to call. Tripp digs out our trail cameras, and orders enough motion sensors and security equipment to protect a small military base.

I head outside with my beer and walk the property twice; it doesn’t make me feel any better. Every fence line looks the same as it did yesterday. Every gate is exactly where it's supposed to be. The barn is secure, the house is secure. The horses are where they belong.

I finish my beer somewhere between the equipment shed and the north pasture fence. The bottle ends up forgotten on a post while I keep walking.

The chicken yard stops me on the second lap. My eyes drift toward the fence line automatically, and I see the photograph again. Autumn standing there with that red feed bucket tucked against her hip, talking to one of the hens.

Twenty yards, maybe less. That's all the distance there was between her and whoever took that picture.

Twenty yards, and none of us noticed. We should have seen them, should have protected her better.

By dinner, Autumn still hasn't come downstairs.

Clint goes upstairs to check on her, and I hear her tell him she’s not hungry.

I don’t buy it.

He comes down, grabs a plate, and takes it up to her. He doesn't say much after that, just grabs himself another beer and sits at the kitchen table, staring at it.

Every creak of the floorboards gets noticed. Every vehicle that passes on the road makes somebody glance toward a window.

I tell myself I'm not worried.

Lie.

By midnight, I’m standing on the porch with a flashlight in one hand. The beam sweeps across the yard, catching fence posts, the horse trailer, and a barn cat or two. Everything looks exactly the way it should.

I stand there anyway, searching. The problem isn't what I can see, it's what I didn't.

For weeks, I've worried about Autumn for a hundred different reasons. When she first arrived, when she went into heat, and when her being our scent match smacked me in the fucking face. Every one of those worries had an answer… had a fix I was capable of.

This doesn't.