A bear was supposed to have killed Deacon Samuels.
“I know this is all very real to you,” Hardy says, standing, taking a step over to the window, to what she guesses is his usual place, like he’s standing sentry over all of Fremont County.
“It’s bigger than me,” Jade says. “There’s… those two kids in March—”
“Of which kids we have to take your word about the second.”
“There’s Deacon Samuels.”
“Animal attack.”
“Clate Rodgers.”
“Boating accident.”
“ ‘Boating accident,’ ” Jade repeats before she can stop herself.
Does Hardy’s back straighten a little, though? Has he drawn some breath in that he’s not releasing?
“But he had it coming,” Jade fumbles in, standing now as well. “He’s probably not even part of the cycle, actually. Just an add-on.”
“That a thing?” Hardy says without looking around. “Addons?”
“The slasher gets blamed for all of them, yeah,” Jade says.
“Winners write the history books, and the slasher’s never the winner.”
“Doesn’t do much writing,” Hardy adds.
“Signs all his kills in blood,” Jade says right back.
Far out over the lake, Mr. Holmes’s ultralight is nearly skimming the water now.
“That’s how he gets out of the wind,” Hardy says, chucking his chin to Mr. Holmes. “Wonder if the fish think his shadow is the mother of all eagles, that him swooping down like that is the end of the world?”
He turns to her then, his face easy, says, “Somebody threw a trashcan through the front door of the high school, hear about that?”
“School’s out for summer,” Jade singsongs.
“Thing is,” Hardy adds, “all the glass is out on the sidewalk.
Not in by the trophy case.”
“Not my concern,” Jade says. “I’m not the custodian anymore.”
“Just saying,” Hardy says.
“Just listening,” Jade says. “Not that I know why.”
Hardy shakes his head, impressed it seems.
“Your dad started out just like this, once upon a bad afternoon,” he says. “Sitting right in that chair when he was eighteen. I told him he could either—”
“I’m not my father,” Jade cuts in.
“You don’t have to be, no,” Hardy tells her. “You should have seen him when he was a yardegg, though. Always underfoot. Everybody wanted him to play cowboys and Indians with, you know that?”
Jade’s just staring out through the window, trying not to move even one single muscle on her face. On her whole body.
“Because he already was the skin,” she finally says, obviously.
“Because he was always carrying a shiner, a busted lip,”
Hardy says back—where he was leading her. “Thing is, it would look like the cowboys had beaten him up.”
“I supposed to care about this trip down memory lane?”
“Just saying,” Hardy says. “I told him before you were born, I told him he lays one hand on you, just passing down what he’d got, that I’d be all over his ass.”
Jade swallows, blinks, says, “I see Letha got to you too.
Good to know.”
“I—”
“He’s never hit me,” Jade says, “you saved me, Sheriff, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Hardy just stands there, lets Jade stew in her own juices.
“So when’s dinner around here?” she finally has to say just to move them ahead, out of this hole she’s dug. “And what is it? More of that hot bologna?”
Hardy doesn’t answer, is tracking Mr. Holmes now, it feels like. He’s buzzing Terra Nova. Just a small angry fly, banking high against a gust only he can feel.
“They hate it when he does that,” Hardy says, tossing his chin across the water. “Just wait, my phone’s about to ring.”
“And he hates them right back,” Jade says. “All balances out, doesn’t it?”
Hardy plunks down heavy in his seat, creaks it back again, regards Jade over his steepled fingers.
“So you hoping you’re right about all this, and a lot of people die, or is it better if you’re wrong?” he asks.
“People are already dying,” Jade tells him. “Doesn’t matter what I do and don’t hope. I’m not part of it, am just, like, calling it.”