Abilene emerged, followed by Ware. She looked calm; he looked stony. As they came down the steps, her eyes locked with Casey’s and she smiled, giving his heart permission to slow.

Ware also looked his way, unreadable. The guy could have been pissed or relieved or frustrated or plain old tired, for all the emotion that glance gave away.

Look at Mercy with that expression and I’ll break your face, Casey thought.

The two paused at the bottom of the steps, and Abilene said, “We’re going to go and see Mercy.”

Casey nodded. “Okay.” The baby was in the office—Christine was keeping an eye on her while she did paperwork. Nobody had thought it would be a great idea for Ware to show up and find Casey holding his daughter.

They disappeared down the back hall, and Casey released the chair arms, fingers prickling as the blood rushed back to their tips. He took a deep breath, shoulders shaking as it drained back out. He wanted a beer. Wanted a shot, but his pride was interfering with the impulse—he didn’t care to exchange any words with Ware and have the guy smell booze on him. Which was fucked, really, to care so much about the opinion of a criminal, only he wanted so badly to appear worthy of all the trust Abilene had put in him.

He listened to the office door open and close, caught soft voices. Christine appeared shortly wearing a cautious smile. She held up two sets of crossed fingers.

“She seem okay?” he asked.

“I’d say so. I think she looked relieved. Nervous, but relieved.”

He nodded.

“Coffee?”

“No, thanks. I’m counting down the hours until it’s socially acceptable to hit the bourbon.”

“Don’t blame you. It hasn’t been this tense around here since the last property scout came knocking.” Christine headed for the kitchen.

Casey focused on the clinking of dishes and the rush of running water, trying to distract himself. He wanted like hell to sneak down the hall and listen at the office door. He wanted to know what they were saying. He wanted to know if Ware was holding the baby, and whether or not she seemed to like him. The sharpest, fiercest bit of him bared teeth at the thought, a jealousy he’d never even conceived of before. He didn’t consider himself Mercy’s father by any stretch, but a part of him did identify—and with secret pride—as the primary man in her tiny life. His fingers curled up tight again, forming fists atop his thighs.

A clatter drifted from the front of the house, then a hiss—the screen door shutting, followed by the inner one. He heard Miah call a greeting to his mother; then the man himself entered the den. He looked funny. A touch pale and upended.

“Hey,” Casey said, standing. “They’re in the office now.”

Miah kept his voice low. “That’s not the truck.”

“What’s that?”

“The black truck parked in the lot—that’s not the one I saw the other night. It’s got a faded old bumper sticker on the tailgate, and I didn’t notice that on Tuesday. And I took a look at the plate, to see if it looked like there’d been duct tape on there, any dust stuck to it—nothing. That’s not the truck.”

Casey frowned. “So what the fuck does that mean? That he was telling the truth? That he didn’t come around here?”

Miah shrugged. “That, or he borrowed someone else’s pickup. I dunno, man, but it seems strange. Something’s not right.”

Casey’s mind raced, trying to turn this news into a threat he could wrap his head around. “You think Abilene’s in trouble?”

“Not necessarily. Not unless she has some other shady character from her past who might’ve come sniffing around. I don’t know what the fuck this means, aside from that maybe Ware isn’t the only person we have to be worried about.”

“Who else could it have been?”

Miah shrugged. “No clue. We get poachers, and whoever’s involved in the drug dealing or whatever it is, but not here. Not at the house. Scratch what we said at the meeting, about you asking around town about somebody dealing out here. That’s not what this is about.”

“Burglar, maybe?”

“They’d have some fucking balls on them, with all those lights on, all those vehicles parked out front.”

Casey nodded. “Doesn’t add up.”

Miah leveled him with a look. “You gotta tell me if you’ve got any enemies out there, Case. You don’t have to tell me what you’ve been up to in Texas, but this is my business now. You owe anybody anything? You cross anyone who might come looking for you?”

He shook his head, stumped. And uneasy. None of Casey’s former clients knew his name or even what he looked like. The only unexpected visitors who might worry him were feds. He and Em had been careful, real careful, but you could never know if your name was on some watch list someplace, some database. Plus if Emily fucked up and got busted, he couldn’t honestly say he trusted her not to sell him out for a reduced sentence. Hell, he’d probably do the same to her.

But since when does the ATF skulk around in ski masks and shitty old trucks?

“I got no clue, man. Maybe we ought to give the whole town a good cruise, see if we can’t spot that pickup in somebody’s driveway . . . ?”

Miah sighed, crossing his arms. “Maybe. If the alternative’s waiting for them to come back.”

“Maybe it was just some dumb-ass burglar, casing the place. Maybe you scared him out of thinking he’d ever try that shit here again.”

“We can hope. But I won’t sleep easy until I know for sure.”

Miah took a seat on the arm of the couch, posture weary. He was dressed in dirty jeans and there was dust in his black hair.

“Go shower,” Casey said, waving him in the right direction. “Once Ware is gone we’ll have a beer, talk this over.”

Miah nodded and hauled himself to standing. “Best idea I’ve heard all week.”

Casey clapped Miah on the back as he passed, thinking his friend was becoming more like Don every season. More serious, and burdened by more pressure. The casino chaos couldn’t be helping, nor the looming inevitability of Miah becoming the sole captain of this ship.

Regarding any other person on earth, Casey would’ve thought the notion was stupid, but he wondered if maybe Miah needed setting up, romantically. If he was stuck working himself into the ground the way he was, he ought to at least get to tumble into bed with a warm female body every night. Shame that probably half the eligible women in town were his ranch hands. No doubt he’d have some ethical boundary about—

The click and squeak of the office door snapped Casey’s head to the left. Ware appeared first from the hall, followed closely by Abilene, the baby in her arms. They were talking softly but trailed off as they reached the den.

Ware cast Casey a cool glance, then told Abilene, “I can see myself out.”

“Okay.”

“Tomorrow afternoon?” he asked.

She nodded. “Two o’clock.”

He touched the baby—or her clothes, anyway, the collar of her tiny shirt—then turned and headed for the front. Abilene watched him go, and Casey watched Abilene.

“Tomorrow?” he prompted, once the front door had hissed shut.

“Yeah.” She seemed to snap out of a trance, bouncing the baby. “It went well. I said he could see her again.”

“Did you let him hold her?”

She’d been studying the baby’s face but looked up at that, expression curious. “Just for a minute—he gave her back pretty quick. I’m not sure he’s ever held a baby before. He looked a little freaked-out.”

Casey bet that was a first in itself—James Ware showing fear. That novel and fierce jealousy burned the back of his neck, and in a petty way he was glad to hear that the guy wasn’t a natural with the kid. That maybe fatherhood was earned by how many hours you put in, not just whose DNA went into the mix. That made him think of his own dad, and his mood darkened.

“Miah saw your ex’s truck in the lot,” Casey said. “And he said it’s not the same one he saw on Wednesday night.”