Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Knox
The sheriff’s county cruiser sat in the Wylde driveway when we arrived, the blue light bars rotating in silent sweeps across the house and trees and the gravel road. Another unmarked truck was there, and a couple of cars, too. Sage, Ivy, and Colt all sat on the porch talking to the Patrick men.
Daisy jumped out of my truck and ran to them.
The three sisters met in the yard, arms locking around each other, the best anchors when the ground pulled out from beneath them.
Nobody said anything for a moment. They didn’t need to.
Ivy had a hand pressed to the back of Daisy’s head.
Sage had her face buried in Daisy’s shoulder, her frame shaking with tears.
I hung back. This was theirs, not mine. I nodded at Colt on the porch. The sheriff’s brothers stood off to the side.
When the sisters pulled apart, Daisy gripped both of them by their arms and looked them over like she needed to confirm with her own eyes that they were okay. Satisfied, she exhaled and turned toward the porch.
Sheriff Patrick came out through the front door right as she stepped up. His expression steadied with the particular brand of calm that serious men wore in difficult moments like these.
“We’ve cleared the property,” he said. “Inside and out. Whoever it was, they’re gone. It’s safe to go in, but I’d ask you not to touch anything in the rooms until we’ve dusted for prints.”
“How bad is it?” Daisy rubbed her arms.
“It’s a mess.” He paused. “Have a look. Tell me if you see anything missing.”
She absorbed that, jaw working once. “Thank you, Sheriff Patrick.”
He stepped aside to let them by. Colt and I followed them in. I wasn’t exactly sure what we could do for them by following, other than providing support when needed.
I had been in the Wylde farmhouse a few times. I had a general picture of the place: inviting, lived-in, the house that collected family history. Everything in it meant something.
It sat far from that right now.
The entryway had been gone through first. A side table was upended, the contents of a drawer scattered across the floor—envelopes, a few pens, a pocket knife, a folder of paper that had been opened and left.
Several framed photos on the wall hung crooked.
A hat rack near the door had been knocked from its mounting, the coats piled on the floor beneath it.
Daisy stopped in the middle of the living room. Her expression didn’t break, but I could tell she forced herself to assess instead of react.
“These are just things,” she commented, as if she had repeated it a hundred times to herself on the drive here. Maybe as a reminder to her sisters that things can be replaced. The important thing was that they were okay.
Ivy stood beside her, arms crossed, bottom lip between her teeth.
Sage pushed her glasses up and said nothing.
Daisy continued. “You heard the sheriff. We need to walk through and figure out if anything is actually gone.”
They peeled off in different directions.
I followed Daisy to the kitchen. Drawers had been pulled and emptied on the counter.
Cabinet doors left hanging open, their contents spilled on the floor.
A ceramic bowl that had probably sat on the same shelf for thirty years was in pieces on one counter, the money hidden inside left untouched among the remnants.
“Nothing missing in here that I can see,” Daisy said, moving past it.
We went from room to room. The living room, upended. Their father’s old armchair turned to face the wrong direction, upside down. Books pulled from the shelf and not put back. A storage chest stood open and empty. The sitting room off the hallway, the bathroom, the utility room, each one checked.
“Nothing missing,” came their constant cry, baffled by it. Each confirmation landed a little lighter, yet heavier, at the same time.
Heavier meant whoever came in knew what they were looking for.
I kept that thought to myself. I tracked the pattern of the disturbance as we moved through.
This was a search rather than the wild scattering of someone grabbing valuables in a hurry.
No television taken. No electronics gone. Somebody was looking. Not stealing.
Daisy moved into her bedroom upstairs last.
I stood in the doorframe while she inspected it; her gaze going methodically from the closet to the bed. Clothes lay everywhere. The top of her dresser was swept clear, its contents on the floor. A quilt pulled off the bed.
She gasped and pointed. I followed to where her eyes had fixated on the nightstand.
The surface had nothing on it.
She checked the drawers on her bed, under the bed, all over the room. She stood, her hand pressing flat against the top of the stand.
“Dad’s notebooks are gone,” she cried and sniffled, her back to me. I fought every urge to go to her, but I’d be stepping on piles of her stuff. “Why those? None of this makes any sense—”
She swiveled on her heels, face paled, and she rushed out of the room. I narrowly got out of her way.
She yelled as she went, flying out the front door to the sheriff. “The notebooks. They took Dad’s notebooks.”
We all followed her out.
“Are you sure?” Ivy checked. “Why would anyone want those?”
“Yes. All of them. Gone.” Her voice held. Barely.
“Who knew about the notebooks?” I asked. “Because from the looks of things in there, this wasn’t some random people taking things to pawn for drug money. They were targeting the notebooks—and whatever your father wrote inside them.”
“That’s my deduction, too,” the sheriff agreed with me. “All right, Finn, Liam, go on in and get to work. They’ll be dusting for prints, although my guess is they won’t find any.”
“Why not?” Daisy demanded.
“Because a smart thief here intentionally to steal the notebooks probably wore gloves,” I said.
“Let’s hope we’re not dealing with smart thieves. Otherwise, there’s not much more we can do.” The sheriff rubbed his jaw. “Back to Knox’s astute question, though… who knew about what your father wrote in those notebooks?”
Daisy pressed a hand to her forehead. “I told you about them at the Copper Cup.”
“Where there were plenty of people around in earshot. Small town. Word travels fast to the wrong people. The ones who don’t want whatever your father wrote to get out,” Patrick finished his thought process.
Sage piped up. “Between Harper and me, we might piece together a list of who was at the Copper Cup that morning. Most of them were regulars, but there might be a few strangers in the mix.”
“That’d be helpful. I can follow up and question each person who was there that morning.” He handed Poppy his card with his number on it. “Now, Daisy, do you think you can remember what your father wrote exactly?”
“I’ll try.” The worry line in her forehead deepened.
“Yeah, what did Dad say in those that would cause all of this?” Ivy asked.
We all formed a circle in the yard, listening to Daisy telling the sheriff what she could remember, trying to come to terms with it all.
The sheriff took the information without visible reaction, which was a skill in itself.
He wrote it all down, asked a few quiet questions, and answered dispatch calls on his radio.
He urged Daisy to think through it more thoroughly in the morning, after a good night’s sleep, and to call if she thought of anything more.
While his brothers wrapped up inside, I pulled the sheriff over for a chat. “Any thoughts? Anything I can do to help?”
“Someone knows something. Whether we can find out who—that’s another thing entirely.
” He shook his head. “Good sleuthing you did in there, Knox. I wish I had more deputies like you. That’s why Finn and Liam are here tonight.
This case is sensitive and involves information Daisy’s dad had that might have answered some long-standing questions in the cold case of my father’s murder.
I needed men here I could trust tonight, and sometimes I trust my brothers more than my deputies. ”
“Yeah? What does it take to become one? Would my military background help?” I wasn’t looking for a career change.
Whatever possessed me to ask, I couldn’t say.
As he talked about the training academy down in Billings I’d have to attend for a couple of months, my eyes crossed the yard to Daisy, and a future together we didn’t have yet. I filed the information away for later.
When Finn and Liam finished, they left with Sheriff Patrick, gravel crunching under tires until it went quiet. It was well past midnight now, and we all stood on the porch, trying to stay warm as the temperature dropped.
“You two should head back to town,” Daisy directed at her sisters. “Go back to Ivy’s apartment, get some rest. Come back tomorrow; we’ll get this cleaned up together.”
“Well, you’ll come with us, of course,” Sage said.
“You’re not staying here,” I gritted through my teeth. “These idiots could come back and inflict more harm.”
“I have rifles and I know how to use them.” Daisy insisted as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ll be fine. Go on.”
There was a brief negotiation, or sisterly argument, depending on how you looked at it. Daisy, being stubborn, refused to leave their family home. Ivy and Sage worried about her safety. Colt stayed out of it. Smart man.
I opened my big mouth. “If Daisy is staying, then I am, too. I’ll keep watch.”
“Nobody is asking you to,” Daisy replied, hands on hips.
“Nobody has to. I’m staying.”
“I’m not a woman who needs a babysitter.”
“I know that.”
“Then—”
“I’m staying. That’s not up for negotiation.”
Colt eyed us.
Ivy said what everyone was probably thinking. “You two are finally fucking, aren’t you?”
“Ivy!” Daisy stared at her, horrified.
“A non-answer is a yes.”
“Definitely yes,” Sage agreed.
Daisy huffed inside and slammed the door.
They said their goodnights to me, with Ivy adding an extra “Good luck with her.” They promised to return by mid-morning and left.