47. Harper
HARPER
Dad won’t be here for another two hours. He never arrives before eight unless there’s an emergency, and even then he takes his time. Twenty years as sheriff has made him comfortable and predictable. Right now, I’m counting on that.
I kill the engine and sit for a moment, staring at the building.
It’s a squat brick structure with narrow windows and a flagpole out front.
I’ve been walking through those doors since I was a kid—bringing Dad lunch, doing ride-alongs, eventually wearing the uniform myself. It’s always felt like home.
This morning it feels like enemy territory.
I grab my coffee from the cupholder and force myself out of the car. The air is cold enough to sting, and my breath comes out in white clouds. I didn’t sleep. My eyes feel gritty and my head is pounding, but my cop brain is running hot, firing connections I can’t ignore.
I don’t want you caught up in whatever they’re doing.
Don’t get involved.
“Too late,” I mutter as I swipe my keycard at the front entrance.
The lock clicks open with a sound that feels too loud in the predawn quiet.
Inside, the office is dark except for the emergency exit signs casting red light down the hallways. It’s abnormally still. Our office manager doesn’t arrive until around seven a.m. and the deputy on duty is on patrol, so it’s just me and the ghosts of sheriffs past.
“Don’t freak yourself out,” I mumble with a shiver, making sure the door is closed firmly behind me.
Leaving the overhead lights off, I move through the familiar space with my phone’s flashlight, heading straight for the evidence room in the back. I almost expect my keycard not to work here, but of course it does.
The evidence room is exactly what you’d expect in a small-town sheriff’s office—metal shelving units lined with boxes, filing cabinets against the walls, a single desk with a computer for logging items in and out. Everything is labeled, organized, and cataloged.
Accessible.
I set my coffee down on the desk. I don’t bother with the computer. I had all night to think about it, so I know exactly where to start.
Five years ago, when I first started working here, there was some vandalism on Three Pines Ranch. At the time there’d been nothing conclusive. Dad had run the case back then.
I find the box of files from five years ago on the third shelf, back corner, and pull it down. It’s so dusty I can feel it coat my hands. There better not be spiders.
Making a face, I set it on the table in the center of the room and take the lid off.
It doesn’t take me very long to find the file: Robert MacKenzie, Three Pines Ranch.
Holding my breath, I take it out and open it.
MacKenzie filed a complaint about harassment—someone cutting his fences, poisoning his water supply, running off his livestock. The investigation went nowhere. No suspects identified. No arrests made.
“MacKenzie.” I frown at the report. I remember MacKenzie selling his ranch and moving away. I open a browser on my phone and do a quick search. Sure enough, five years ago there’s a sale recorded for Three Pines, at lower than market value. The buyer listed is Clearwater Holdings LLC.
Another web search tells me Clearwater Holdings is registered in Delaware with no public ownership records.
I set the file aside and shift through the rest of this box before pulling down the next year. By the time I reach this year, I have a pattern.
Margaret Hale, Sunrise Ridge Property—died in a single-car accident on a county road two years ago. Her estate sold the land to settle debts. Buyer: Clearwater Holdings LLC.
David Ortega, High Timber Ranch. Arrested for drug possession—meth found in his truck during a routine traffic stop. Charges were dropped six months later, but by then he’d already lost the ranch to foreclosure. Buyer: Clearwater Holdings LLC.
James Pritchard, Blackfoot Meadows. Missing person report filed eighteen months ago.
Pritchard, 67, supposedly left in the middle of the night.
No evidence of foul play. Search called off after two weeks.
His daughter inherited the property and sold it immediately—too traumatized to stay, the notes say. Buyer: Clearwater Holdings LLC.
Sarah and Michael Valencia, High Valley Ranch.
House fire, origin undetermined, killed Sarah in her sleep.
Michael was hospitalized with severe burns.
The ranch was seized for unpaid property taxes that somehow went into arrears while Michael recovered in the hospital. Buyer: Clearwater Holdings LLC.
There’s a dozen in total. The last and final one is different, because the property hasn’t been bought. Yet.
Robert Hayes, Circle H Ranch. Single-vehicle accident on Route 47. No witnesses. Hayes went off the road on a curve, rolling multiple times. Alcohol was not a factor. Brake failure, no evidence of foul play. Investigation closed as accidental.
Robert Hayes was Emma’s dad.
I grip the report. I knew his accident was sketchy three months ago. I’d even taken this report to Jake Callahan and hinted that I believed the Turners were responsible for Mr. Hayes’s death, because two days before he died, I heard him tell my dad he had evidence against the Turners.
My dad brushed him off.
I know the Turners had a hand in his accident. Does that mean the Turners are involved in all these cases?
You’d have to be na?ve to think they aren’t.
My hands shake as I arrange all the files, spreading them across the desk. The pattern is undeniable. Property owner has legal or financial trouble and then personal tragedy. Then Clearwater Holdings swoops in and buys the land.
Every. Single. Time.
Except with Emma. Emma didn’t sell her property, though I know the Turners were pressuring her. She came in to file a complaint about Eli Turner harassing her, but my dad turned her away.
Of course, Eli disappeared shortly after that—Jake Callahan’s doing, I believe. But then her ranch house burned down—arson, no clues who set the fire. Which is why I told Jake that I wouldn’t look his way if something happened to Cole too. At the time, I was thinking to protect Emma.
Now I wonder if I need to protect my dad too.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and I nearly drop it, it startles me so badly. It’s loud in the still room, and I rush to silence it.
Bennett
You good, sunshine?
I stare at the screen, my heart pounding.
Stop calling me that.
Bennett
Never.
You didn’t answer me.
And I'm not going to—not right now—because I'm not good and I can't tell him that, because if I do, I'll have to tell him my dad signed off on all these cases. I just set the phone down and go back to the files.
I need to make copies of them. I need to figure out what to do.
I pull out my phone and start photographing each file—every page, every signature, every detail. The camera shutter sound is muted but still feels deafening in the silence. My hands are shaking so badly I have to retake several shots.
MacKenzie. Click.
Hale. Click.
Ortega. Click.
Pritchard. Click.
Valencia. Click.
Hayes. Click.
When I'm done, I have dozens of photos documenting a pattern of corruption that spans five years. A systematic operation to acquire land through intimidation, violence, and murder—all with my father's signature blessing it at every step.
I carefully return the files to their boxes and slide them back onto the shelves exactly where I found them. I let myself out of the evidence room and go to the front desk to find one of those maps we keep around for lost tourists who haven’t discovered the internet yet.
Sitting at my desk, I unfold the map and start circling the properties one by one—Three Pines, Sunrise Ridge, High Timber… When I’m finished with the list, I sit back and examine all the land Clearwater Holdings acquired over the past five years. In the center, untouched, is the Circle H.
Emma's ranch.
The only two other ranches owned independently are Blackthorn and the Turner spread. Blackthorn borders the other two on one short side, but it’s set off and somewhat isolated. That’s likely why Jake, Mason, and Luke bought it.
My hands start to shake. My chest feels tight.
This isn't an opportunistic land grab. This isn't someone taking advantage of bad luck. This is systematic, calculated, and engineered. Clearwater Holdings isn’t just acquiring available property. It’s creating situations that force people to sell.
And my father would have access to all of this—every complaint, every investigation, every case file. He would know. He’s not a stupid man.
I’d bet every penny I’ve ever made that Cole Turner is behind Clearwater Holdings.
I slump back against my chair, closing my eyes. I came here looking for proof that my father was compromised, but what I found is proof that he's probably complicit.
And I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do with that.