Page 10 of Branded

Two years ago, a manager I audited gave his favorite employee my draft schedule, moved the worst files before each of my visits, then blamed me when records from another office exposed him anyway. His board paid him to leave quietly and spent six months asking whether my methods had caused the fraud I found. I spent most of a year’s income proving when every file arrived and who touched it. Two phones, sealed cases, independent backups. People call it paranoia. I call it the invoice for having been right once in front of the wrong men.

Mott calls while I’m still in the parking lot. “We found the vehicle record. A Barbed Crown truck and trailer brought in Lot 118. Thought you should know before you imply an outsider dumped stolen cattle in our pens.”

“I haven’t implied that.”

“You went to the clerk.”

He knows where I went. I don’t argue. I just add it to the list.

Ten minutes later, counsel forwards the file. The ranch’s gate record says a Barbed Crown truck and trailer. The public transport report says a commercial hauler with a different trailer and a different owner. Two records describe one arrival. At least one of them is lying.

The motel lot is half full when I get back near dusk. I park under the light and walk to my door.

The paper strip I left between the door and the frame this morning is gone.

I don’t touch the handle. I photograph the lock, the threshold, the clean edge where the strip should be. The front desk tells me housekeeping didn’t go in. I call counsel, keep the line open, and use my key with a gloved hand.

The bed is made. My suitcase is zipped. The cash in my travel pouch is still there. My spare field case sits beside the desk with its latches closed and the wrong seal number on it.

Someone opened it and resealed it with a strip from my own spare roll. Nothing is missing. The scale and the ruler have traded sides. Whoever searched it either rushed or assumed I wouldn’t remember where I put things.

I remember. Arrangement is part of the check.

My hands aren’t quite steady, so I press them flat against the desk until they are.

Headlights sweep across the curtains.

A man in a county deputy’s uniform steps out of a marked unit and walks straight to my door without glancing at the office. No dispatch call announced him. Nobody outside counsel, the motel, and Mercer should know I’m standing inside a searched room.

He knocks twice. “Ms. Rowe? Sheriff’s office.”

I keep the chain on and open the door three inches.

“Report of a break-in,” he says.

“Who made it?”

“Motel called.”

Through the office window, the desk clerk is watching us, phone in hand. She gives one slow shake of her head.

The deputy’s gaze slides past me into the room. “We understand you have photographs of an altered brand on a black heifer. I’ll need your phone and any copies so we can preserve evidence.”

I haven’t described the photographs to anyone at this motel. I haven’t said black heifer or altered brand to any local officer.

I close the door. I lock it. I text Mercer the name off the deputy’s uniform plate, and then I stand very still beside the window and look through the narrow gap in the curtain.

Garrett’s truck turns across the only driveway out and stops broadside beneath the motel sign.

I should be annoyed that he’s here. I’m going to be, in a minute.

Right now, the only thing I feel is relief, and that frightens me more than the deputy does.

Chapter 4

Garrett

Ihear the deputy before I reach the walkway. He’s explaining evidence preservation in the slow, patient voice men use when they expect a badge to finish the argument. Tessa has the door open exactly as far as the security chain allows.