Chapter Twenty
~ Floyd ~
In the years I’d worked in law enforcement, I’d learned to read faces—danger, deceit, desperation, all the little signals that people sent out like pheromones when they thought they were about to lose something.
But the look Levi gave me as he shuffled into my office was none of those things.
It was the raw, undiluted terror of a kid who’d already lost everything and was now waiting to see what else could be taken away.
He plopped down in the chair across from my desk, arms folded tight against his ribs.
The way he hunched over made him look even skinnier than his file photo.
His eyes were fixed on the battered nameplate on my desk, and every so often he’d twitch like a rabbit that thought it might be able to outrun the hounds if it just kept still long enough.
Ransom stood behind my desk, hands jammed in his pockets, body a solid, familiar presence against the institutional blue of the wall. He didn’t say anything, but the tilt of his head told me he was watching Levi as closely as I was.
The silence spun out. I let it. There’s a kind of power in not being the first one to talk.
Levi broke. “Do you have those… what do you call them… tip lines here?” His voice was higher than I expected. Kid couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and forty, but it sounded like he’d already smoked a pack before breakfast.
“Like Crime stoppers?” I said. “We don’t, not exactly, but we get anonymous calls sometimes. People use blocked numbers, or write letters. Why?”
He shrugged, the motion so big it nearly swallowed his neck. “Just wondering.”
I waited.
He kept going. “Say someone wanted to report something, but didn’t want to get in trouble, or have it come back on them. Could they do that?”
I looked at him over the top of my reading glasses. “Depends what they’re reporting.”
He flinched, eyes darting to the floor. “I don’t have anything to report. I was just… I dunno… asking for a friend.”
Ransom snorted, the sound low and disbelieving. I shot him a glare; he held up a hand in mock surrender.
“Your friend have a name?” I asked, but kept my tone light. I’d seen enough nervous kids to know when to ease off the gas.
Levi shook his head, hair falling into his eyes. “Doesn’t matter. Forget I asked.”
I let that hang for a beat. Then: “How about this, Levi. Why don’t you tell me what happened, and I’ll decide if it’s something you need to be worried about.”
He didn’t answer. His hands worked at the frayed knees of his jeans, twisting the fabric until the threads started to snap.
I said, “Your mom—Vivian—she said you’ve been in trouble at school. You know she’s worried about you, right?”
That got his attention. He looked up, defiance in his eyes, but there was a crack in the veneer. “She doesn’t care what I do. She just wants to have something to bitch about.”
I could’ve argued, but I didn’t. He wasn’t wrong.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “What if… just say… someone saw something. Like, a break-in or whatever. Or maybe an assault. Would you have to tell everyone who said it? Would there be a record?”
I felt Ransom’s eyes on me, sharp as a knife. I said, “If you’re a witness, I have to write it up. But it’s not like we broadcast your name on the radio. Why, you see something?”
He shook his head again, too fast this time. “Nah, nothing like that. Just… stuff happens around here, you know? People talk.”
“Sure,” I said. “People talk. But sometimes, the people who talk know more than they’re letting on.”
He bit his lip. “Is it true you can’t make someone testify if they don’t want to?”
I grinned, just a little. “Depends who’s asking.”
He looked down at his hands, then back at me. “Never mind,” he said. “It was a dumb question.”
Ransom shifted his weight, and for a second I thought he was going to intervene, but he stayed silent.
“Listen, Levi,” I said, dropping the pretense. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. If you want to talk, I’ll keep it off the record. Unless you tell me someone’s about to get hurt. That’s my only rule.”
He stared at the floor. “It’s not about me.”
“Okay,” I said, “but you can tell me anyway.”
He didn’t move. He just sat there, a statue made of shame and stubbornness.
I tried a different tack. “You know who broke into Ransom’s shop last month?”
That got him. His whole body went still, and for a heartbeat he looked like he might bolt. He said, “No. I mean, I heard about it, but...”
I waited.
He looked at the desk, then at Ransom, then back at me. “It wasn’t me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I was grounded that night. Ask Viv.”
I nodded. “I will. But that’s not what I was thinking.”
He let out a breath, shaky and loud. “Good, because she’s been on my case about every little thing since I got suspended. Like I’d even care enough to break into a stupid tattoo shop.”
Ransom bristled at that, but said nothing. I shot him a warning glance.
Levi hunched again. “Is it true the guy who did it tried to kill someone?”
I said, “There was a scuffle. Someone got hurt. That’s why we take these things seriously.”
He looked up, and for a second his mask slipped. “He’s okay, though, right?”
“I spent a few days in the hospital, but I’m okay now.”
Levi’s eyes rounded. “You’re the one that got hurt?”
I pointed to the healing scar on my forehead. “Got a bit scraped up when the perp attacked me.”
Levi blinked. “Did you see who did it?”
I shook shook his head. “Did you?”
There was a long, ugly pause. Then, in a voice barely audible, Levi said, “No.”
I leaned back in my chair. “How about this. You write it down. Whatever you heard. I’ll take a look, and if it’s nothing, it’s nothing. But if it’s something, you’ll have done the right thing.”
He shrugged, but didn’t say no.
I slid a notepad across the desk, along with a pen.
He stared at it, then at me. “What do I even say?”
“Start with what you know,” I said. “Then add what you think. Just keep it honest.”
He chewed on that for a minute, then picked up the pen.
I said, “You want me and Ransom to step out? Give you some privacy?”
He nodded, not looking up.
Ransom and I left the office, closing the door behind us. In the hallway, he let out a breath that could’ve steamed paint off the walls.
“He knows something,” Ransom said.
“Yeah,” I replied. “But it’s not what you think.”
He looked at me, eyes narrowed. “What is it, then?”
I shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
We waited. I watched Levi through the glass, saw the way his hand shook as he wrote. He’d pause, erase, start again. The kind of writing you only do when you’re about to rip out a part of yourself.
Twenty minutes passed. Ransom paced, back and forth, a caged bear.
Finally, Levi opened the door. He didn’t look at us. He just handed me the notepad, the pen dangling off the spiral like a limb.
“Done?” I asked.
He nodded.
I glanced at the first page, then flipped through the rest. The handwriting was messy, letters running together in a panic. But the meaning came through loud and clear.
Ransom read over my shoulder. His jaw tightened with each line. Every detail was more damning than the last. By the time we finished, my hands were shaking too.
Ransom looked at me, eyes gone black with anger. “What do we do now?”
I closed the notepad, careful not to crush it.
“Now,” I said, “we go hunting.”
Levi didn’t say anything when I closed the office door behind us. He just stared at the notepad in my hands, a thin sheen of sweat on his upper lip and a jitter in his left leg that could’ve powered a sewing machine.
I sat down at my desk, flipped open to the first page, and waited. Sometimes, if you just shut up long enough, the truth gets lonely and wants company.
After a minute, he broke. “Is it… I mean, will you actually keep it anonymous? The stuff I wrote?”
I looked up. The way he asked, it wasn’t bravado anymore—it was the kind of naked fear that came from a lifetime of getting the shit end of every deal. I nodded, slow, making sure the weight of the promise was visible. “No one sees this but me. Not unless you say otherwise.”
He let out a breath, his whole body going slack for a second.
Ransom stood in the corner, arms crossed. He had that look—the one that meant he was reading the kid’s every move and taking notes for later. Levi noticed, too. He flinched a little and drew into himself, smaller still.
“Why don’t you go grab us some sodas,” I said to Ransom. It wasn’t a question, and he got it. He left, the door clicking soft behind him.
When he was gone, the room changed. The walls didn’t move, but Levi did; he slouched back, arms going loose at his sides. He watched me reading, silent until I’d turned the last page and looked up.
“What do you want to know?” he said, voice barely a whisper.
I set the notepad down. “You told me about the break-in. How you overheard the plan. How Billy Rawlins and his crew were going to hit the shop and make it look like a message to me. Why didn’t you come forward sooner?”
He shrugged, eyes on his chewed-up sneaker. “Didn’t want to get beat up. Didn’t want to end up like that cat they found by the tracks last winter.”
I winced, but he wasn’t wrong. “You think Billy’d do something like that?”
Levi’s mouth twisted. “Billy’s a fucking psycho when he’s high. His dad’s just like him. When my real dad died, people thought it was an accident. But everyone knew who set the fire.” He looked up, and for a second I saw past the teenager to the old man’s eyes beneath.
“You miss your dad?” I asked, careful.
He snorted. “Yeah, I guess. He was okay until he got sick. Then he was just tired all the time.” He picked at a scab on his hand. “After that, it was just me and Viv. She’s not… it’s not like you think, Sheriff. She’s a crazy. She’s…” He trailed off, looking for the right word.
“Lost?” I offered.