Chapter Twenty #2
He considered, then shook his head. “She knows exactly what she’s doing.
She just thinks no one’s watching close enough to see.
She wants the image of the perfect little family and she’ll do anything to get it, even keep me around when she’s not really my mother.
That’s why I’m here, you know. I’m supposed to be lost cause to bring you back so you can save me from myself, you being a law officer and all. ”
“Is this about the drugs she said she found on you?”
“There were no drugs. Never have been. Viv made that up and then told the school so they suspended me. Made me look like a rebellious teen and her look like the concerned mother figure.”
I chewed on that. “You want out of there?”
He blinked, and I could see the calculation running behind his eyes. “Wouldn’t say no. But I don’t got anywhere to go.”
I leaned back. “You ever think about emancipation?”
He grinned, showing teeth. “Don’t need a piece of paper to be on my own. Been that way since sixth grade.”
“Is that why you’re here now?” I asked. “What made you finally talk?”
He looked out the window, where the reflection of the station sign flickered in the glass. “Saw you and Ransom. The way you didn’t back down when Viv went nuclear. I never seen anybody do that before. Not to her.”
I felt my cheeks flush. “You’re braver than you think.”
He laughed, but it was a raw, animal sound. “That’s not what the teachers say.”
“Teachers don’t know shit,” I said, and meant it.
He was quiet for a minute. I let him sit in it.
Then, almost too soft to hear, he said, “I knew I was gay when I was ten. Maybe earlier. I tried to tell my dad once, but he didn’t hear me.
He was already dying, I think. And after that, it wasn’t safe.
Not with her.” He looked at me then, and it was like staring into a mirror: all the years I’d spent hiding, all the times I’d bitten my tongue and let the world roll over me.
“I get it,” I said. “But you’re safe here.”
He grinned again, this time sadder. “Not if she finds out what I wrote.”
I nodded. “We’ll keep it tight. No one will know.”
He looked at the ceiling. “You know she used to watch you? Like, drive her car down the street after dark and sit there with the engine running? She’d just stare at your house. Sometimes she’d sit for hours.”
That made the hair on my arms stand up. “You’re joking.”
He shook his head. “She thought you were up to something. She wanted to see if you had a lover that would come or go. She went ballistic when she saw Ransom staying at your place. I tried to tell her to knock it off, but she said it was her duty to protect the community from ‘perversion.’” He rolled the word in his mouth like it tasted bad.
I closed my eyes, felt the cold wash of dread. I’d thought Vivian Hardesty was an asshole, a pain in my side, but this was another level. This was obsession.
Levi kept going, like he needed to get it all out before he lost his nerve. “She used to say the worst shit about you. About Ransom, too. When I saw the spray paint on the shop wall, I knew who said those words first. I could hear her voice in it.”
I swallowed. My jaw was so tight it ached.
He saw the reaction, and for a second he looked guilty. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to fuck up your day.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “You did the right thing.”
He nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “You think the McKenzies would take me in?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Is that what you want?”
He shrugged. “Better than juvie. Those people… they eat their own.”
I thought about the McKenzie farm, the chaos of brothers and noise and the way Rosie never let a kid leave hungry. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than what Levi had.
I said, “I’ll talk to them, but I can’t promise anything.”
He nodded, shoulders falling. “Didn’t think you could.”
Ransom came back, carrying a can of Dr. Pepper and two root beers. He handed one to Levi, who stared at it like he didn’t know what to do.
“Never had root beer before?” Ransom asked.
Levi grinned, this time with a flash of mischief. “Not from a can.” He popped it open, drank, and nearly choked. “Holy shit, that’s sweet.”
Ransom laughed. “Better than the alternative.”
We sat there, three men in a room, nobody talking for a while.
Finally, Levi said, “So what happens now?”
I leaned forward. “Now, you’re going to hang tight. Ransom’s going to keep an eye on you for the next couple hours while I make some calls. You don’t talk to anyone, you don’t leave the station. Can you handle that?”
He nodded, eyes wide. “Yeah. Sure.”
I looked at Ransom. He gave me the smallest of nods—message received.
I stood up, grabbed the notepad, and headed for the door. As I left, I heard Levi say, “He’s a good guy, isn’t he?”
Ransom answered, “The best.”
I closed the door, and for a second I just stood in the hallway, the notepad heavy in my hand. I had a dozen things to do—warrants to write, backup to call, parents to warn. But first, I needed a minute to let the fury cool, so I didn’t do something I couldn’t take back.
Levi had been brave. Now it was my turn.
I dialed the number for the McKenzie Homestead. When Hetty answered, I took a breath and told her everything.
* * * *
I told Levi to wait outside the office, on the bench in the hall where the vending machine only ever dispensed warm Mountain Dew and stale peanut butter crackers.
He nodded, grabbing the root beer in both hands like a lifeline, and drifted out with the posture of a kid who’d learned early that walls made better company than people.
I closed the door, picked up the phone, and dialed Latham’s cell direct. He picked up on the second ring, voice already edged with caffeine and boredom. “Sheriff?”
“I need you to bring in Billy Rawlins,” I said. “Breaking and entering, hate crimes, and assault on a police officer.” My voice was ice. “He’s not going to come easy. Get Miller as backup and take both cruisers. And read him his rights, Latham—I don’t want this thrown out on a technicality.”
There was a beat of silence. Then: “Copy that. Anything else?”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing through the blinds to where Levi was hunched and staring at the floor. “If his old man gives you trouble, tell him it’s me that wants to talk. You don’t negotiate. You don’t leave until Billy’s in cuffs.”
Latham whistled, a low, sharp note. “Understood, boss. I’ll call when it’s done.”
He hung up before I could say anything else.
The office felt too small. The air, too thick. I looked at the statement on my desk—Levi’s writing, sharp and slanted, running off the edge of the page in places like he couldn’t keep up with his own thoughts.
The words were damning. Every detail matched the scene, from the color of the spray paint to the slurs on the wall to the way Billy and his crew had broken the glass and waited for someone—me, or Ransom—to show up.
It was premeditated, and it was personal.
I tried to tell myself it was just another case, just another set of bad decisions in a town that had always been too small to keep its secrets.
But the truth was, I’d never hated anyone in my life the way I hated Billy Rawlins right then.
Not just for what he’d done to Ransom, but for what he’d tried to do to Levi—for making a scared, lonely kid think the only way to survive was to keep his mouth shut.
I could feel the old anger boiling up, the kind that had gotten me into trouble more than once. My hand shook as I reached for the mug on my desk. The coffee was cold, but I drank it anyway.
Ransom came back into the room. He didn’t say anything—just stood there, looking at me with those dark, careful eyes. I wondered if he knew how close I was to burning the whole town down.
“Latham’s bringing him in,” I said.
“Good,” Ransom replied. He sat down in the chair across from me, arms folded, as if he planned to wait all night.
We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to. Sometimes the only thing that matters is knowing the other person isn’t going anywhere.
After a while, I stood up and walked to the window, looked out at Levi.
He was sitting on the bench, feet not even touching the floor, head bowed like someone had taken the air out of him.
There was something so familiar about the way he hunched his shoulders—like he was bracing for the next blow, already convinced it was coming.
I thought about my own childhood, about the years of pretending, of hiding what I was because the world had told me it wasn’t safe. I thought about Ransom, and the shop, and the way the two of us had survived everything thrown at us, only to find ourselves back here, still fighting.
This was my job. My town. My responsibility. But it was more than that, now. It was personal.
I watched Levi for a long time, until the sun started to go down and the lights from the parking lot flickered on. I thought about all the things I’d do to keep him safe. To keep Ransom safe. To keep myself from losing what I’d finally managed to claw back from the world.
When I turned around, Ransom was watching me. He gave me the smallest of smiles, just a tilt of the mouth, but it was enough.
“You ready?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. I am.”
And for the first time in a long, long while, I actually meant it.