Not condolences, he prayed as he closed his hand around the knob. He couldn’t take any more kind words, any more sad faces, any more goddamn casseroles. The funeral was set for Sunday, and he’d need all the stamina he could muster just to survive it.

He opened the door, finding his wish had been granted. But the visitor was still a touch troubling.

It was an official, dressed in the Sheriff’s Department’s khaki pants and jacket, a silver six-cornered star pinned above her left breast and a black leather messenger-type bag strapped across her modest chest. In light of Bean saying Miah had been the intended target of those bullets, he’d been offered a bodyguard, but declined. He felt suffocated as it was, and the authorities posted around the property felt like protection enough.

This officer was tallish, slim, with strikingly good posture. Her skin was dark brown, hair pulled into a ponytail and exploding at the back of her head in a thousand tight little curls. She looked about thirty, and Miah had seen her before—he was sure of it. But he hadn’t known the BCSD to have anyone like her in their ranks. Hell, there was probably only a handful of African Americans in all of Brush County. Kind of tough to miss.

“Mr. Church, good morning. I’m Deputy Ritchey,” she said, and he placed her by her firm, calm voice in an instant. The uniform had thrown him.

“You were here with the fire crew.”

She nodded. “I’m a volunteer, when I’m off duty.” She offered a cool hand, and Miah shook it.

“You probably know my name already,” he said.

She nodded. “Jeremiah.”

“Miah’s fine.”

“So is Nicki,” she said with a little smile.

“Is this to do with the investigation?”

“No, that’s in the detectives’ hands. I’m just a patrol deputy.”

“Oh.” His shoulders sank. He’d kill for any hint that someone was making progress in figuring out who’d hired Chris Bean. Wild, racing theories haunted him at night when he tried to sleep, but none felt right. Something was always missing—a motive big enough to warrant murder. Miah had given the names and contact details of the property vultures to the BCSD, on the off chance they might be linked. Still, it was all so muddy and desperate just now, and waiting was torture. If he didn’t have a reeling business to keep afloat, he’d be out there himself, looking for answers. The inactivity left him feeling helpless, neutered.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked the deputy.

She slid her bag around to her front and opened its flap, pulling out a thick, quart-sized black plastic bag. “The forensics team has released some items from the arson investigation. Your dad’s things, we guessed. I wanted to give them to you. If you’d like them, that is.”

He stared at the bag, heart twisting, and he felt tears rising, contorting his face. “What sorts of things?”

“A pocketknife, and a belt buckle, and a watch.”

His breath was gone, sucked from his chest. His legs felt funny and apt to give, and he sank awkwardly onto the bench. The deputy did the same, looking concerned.

He reached for the bag with a shaking hand, and the weight of it struck like a battering ram, knocking him hard in the heart, doubling him over. He felt a kind hand on his back, between his shoulder blades. It scrunched his shirt softly a few times, then rubbed.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” the deputy said. She sounded like she meant it, too, not like she was simply reading from the script.

Miah looked up enough to meet her eyes and give her permission to take her hand back. She scooted an inch or two farther down the bench, linking her fingers between her knees.

“I asked to come, to bring you his things,” she said. “I lost my dad, too. He was a cop, back in Chicago.”

“When?” Miah asked. “When did you lose him, I mean?” He was breathing quick, feeling like so much hinged on her answer.

“I was twenty-five, so almost six years ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. You’re a long way from Chicago,” he added.

“Sometimes people need a change of scenery,” she said with a smile.

“Your dad . . . Was he . . .” He trailed off, but she read his mind.

She nodded. “He was shot.”

“How do . . . Does it ever stop feeling like this?” he asked, voice breaking. “How did you ever even manage to keep going, after?”

“I had to,” she said. “For my son.”

“Oh.”

Her gaze was soft, her eyes dark brown and looking infinitely patient. A small comfort. “You must have people who still need you, Miah. Your mother?”

He nodded, a little bit of the steel returning to his spine. “My mother.”

“Nobody’s saying you need to be strong right now,” she told him, and for some reason those words cut straight down to the bone. He started crying—loud and ugly and out of control—hugging his own arms, hurting like his heart was about to rip in two.

The deputy put her hand on his knee, squeezing. “You don’t have to be strong,” she repeated. “You just have to be. Just have to get up every morning, be with your mom, and take turns with her day to day, being the one with their shit together, you know?”

He didn’t know, not yet. But it seemed he’d find out soon.

“It will stop feeling like this,” she told him. “It won’t ever stop hurting, but it won’t always feel like this. You’ll always have the memory. A scar. But the wound will heal.”

He looked to the bag, which had fallen to the floor between his feet. He picked it up, held it out. “I’m not ready for this.”

She accepted it. “Tell me where I can leave it, for when you decide you are ready.”

He thought about it. “In the kitchen, just around the corner. On top of the hutch.”

She disappeared for a few moments, then returned and took her seat once more. “Now, is there anything I can do? For you or your mother?”

He shook his head. “No, we’ll be okay.”

Another gentle smile. “It’s okay if you’re not, for a little while.”

Tears stung anew, but he wiped them away with the back of his hand.

“I’ll give you my card,” she said, reaching into her breast pocket. “In case you think of anything.”

He took it. “Thanks.”

“I can see myself out,” she said, poised to stand.

“Wait.”

She met his eyes, settled back down with her hands clasped patiently on her thighs.

“Did you know Alex?” he asked her. “Alex Dunn?”

She shook her head. “That was before my time. I was transferred shortly after he passed.”

Something cold dropped into Miah’s stomach. “Oh. Were you his replacement?”

“It’s not that simple. A lot of people got shifted around after your sheriff was arrested. But I suppose I was, in a way. You knew him?” she asked. “Alex?”

“Since we were kids.”

“His colleagues have only good things to say about him,” she offered.

Miah nodded. For all Alex’s flaws, he’d been an excellent deputy. He looked down, feeling exhausted and strange and a little high. “What the fuck’s happening to this town?” he asked the hallway at large.

“Change,” the deputy—Nicki—said.

“Not for the better,” he muttered.

She didn’t reply. Miah glanced up, finding a sad smile on her face.

“Thanks,” he said, and tried to let the bitterness go.

“My job,” she said, standing. Miah did the same. “You take care of yourself. And your mother. She’ll try to do all the healing for the both of you. But you step in and take over when you’re up to it, okay? Us mamas, sometimes we need our sons to fill their father’s shoes. But only when you’re up for it.”

He nodded, though filling his father’s shoes . . . He doubted he could ever fit in them. His dad’s steps had felt as long and wide as canyons since he’d been a tiny kid. Looking like the man didn’t make Miah his equal. “How old is your son?” he asked the deputy.

“Nine.”

“He ever have to be the man of the house?”