Page 32 of Rope Burn

"Kenna called," he says without preamble. "She's been pulling the Hendricks financial trail since the Merrick conviction, and the paper just turned up a name."

I wait. Wade isn't a man who rushes information.

"One of Burl's shell companies paid a consulting LLC whose authorized signer is listed as S. Hendricks. No full first name, and the address is a registered-agent office." He lets it sit. "She can't prove whether it's Steve or somebody else with the same initial, and the task force already looked at Steve and walked away clean. But the name is on a bank document."

The letters I've been carrying since the first envelope Neil handed me find a surface to land on. S.H. on sealed packets. S. Hendricks signing off on a shell company's consulting payments. And the initials on every transport approval could belong to the same official walking across these grounds while Clint parks behind unscheduled Thornton rigs.

"What does Kenna think?" I ask.

"Kenna thinks the name is ambiguous and the evidence is circumstantial, and she won't publish a connection she can't prove." Wade settles his hat lower. "Colt thinks Kenna's being too careful. Kenna thinks Colt wants to punch somebody and is looking for permission. They're both probably right."

The exchange carries the weight of a couple who've been through their own version of this investigation and emerged with the scars to prove it. I file the intel and leave the analysis to people with access to records I can't touch.

"Tell Kenna to send whatever she has to Torres through her own channels. I'll get the S.H. connection to Torres when I go in."

Wade nods. He doesn't ask what I know about S.H. or where I learned it. Certain questions carry consequences for the person who answers them, and Wade's been on this circuit long enough to respect the boundary.

"One more thing," he says. "Neil Vogt is back on the grounds."

My hands go still on the tape. I gave Wade Neil's description before he left the grounds yesterday. The man who held the leash, what he looks like, where he prefers to stand. Wade's been watching for him since.

"Where?"

"Saw him near the vendor exit. Pressed shirt, clean boots, making himself forgettable." Wade's gaze is flat and direct. "Laney and I are at the next motel up the highway if you need a door to knock on."

Neil. The man who spent the better part of a year tightening my parole into a leash, one coerced delivery at a time. He gave orders from the shadows between stock trailers and kept records whenever I obeyed. My warrant is active. The violations are waiting to bury me. And he’s standing on the same fairgrounds where I just ran my best time of the season.

He's not here for the rodeo. The timing says he's here because Clint's phone call after Rachel traveled up the chain, and the chain sent its enforcer to see what I've been doing since I stopped being compliant.

The net that started closing when Morgan drove to the ranch has doubled its weight. I'm inside it now, and the woman I've been sleeping with is inside it with me.

I find Morgan near the stock office with her clipboard and her lanyard, wearing the cover that stopped fooling me at the ranch gate.

She’s talking to one of the stock handlers about carrier documentation, and her professional composure is flawless. Nobody looking at her would see anything other than an insurance adjuster asking boring questions.

The woman who told me about White Sands and meant every word is standing behind that cover.

She finishes the conversation and walks toward me. The shift in her expression when she reads my face is minute, the kind of adjustment only training produces.

"Neil's here," I say.

Her stride doesn't break. "Where?"

"Vendor exit. Wade spotted him."

"How long?"

"Long enough to have seen me compete."

She processes this without visible response, and the discipline of that non-reaction tells me everything about how seriously she takes the threat.

"You don't go back to your room alone tonight," she says.

"We had this conversation yesterday."

"Yesterday it was operational guidance. Tonight it's a direct order from a woman who's seen your file and knows what Neil is capable of."

She didn't say "from an agent." She said "from a woman." Her jaw tightens after the words leave, the way it does when someone has said more than they planned.