CHAPTER ONE
Connor Chase slowed the sheriff’s SUV as Robert Raven’s house came into view.
Morning sunlight lay across the quiet street, warming the brick fronts and clipped lawns. A delivery van idled two houses down while a driver carried a parcel toward a porch. Somewhere nearby, a mower started, coughed, then settled into a steady growl.
Robert’s white-sided house had changed little since Connor first walked up its path as a teenager.
The porch still sagged slightly at the left corner.
The brass numbers beside the door had darkened with age.
Two wooden planters sat beneath the front windows, though whatever Robert’s daughter Diane had planted in them had begun to surrender to the first cool nights of fall.
Connor pulled in behind Robert’s pickup and checked the driveway.
No sign of Selena’s dark sedan.
He checked the curb as well, then the narrow space beside the garage.
Her car was not there.
Relief came so quickly it irritated him.
He shut off the engine and remained behind the wheel for a moment, one hand resting on the brim of his hat.
Since Selena moved back to Harlan County, Connor had seen her twice outside the station and once across Main Street, where both of them had pretended not to notice the other until pretending became more obvious than a greeting would have been.
He had told himself he was giving her room.
The excuse had worked better before he started avoiding her father’s house.
Connor stepped from the SUV and closed the door. The morning carried a mild chill, not cold yet, but cool enough to sharpen the scent of cut grass and dry leaves. A maple near the sidewalk had begun dropping red along its upper branches. One leaf had settled on the hood of Robert’s truck.
The front door opened before Connor reached the porch.
Diane Raven stood behind the screen, wearing jeans and a loose gray sweater.
Her dark hair was tied back, and a dish towel hung over one shoulder.
She studied him through the mesh with an expression that suggested his arrival had interrupted something important, though Diane could convey that while doing nothing at all.
“Morning, Chase.”
Connor tipped his hat. “Morning, Diane.”
She opened the screen door and stepped aside.
Connor placed one boot across the threshold.
“Mind your manners,” Diane said. “Take your hat off.”
He stopped and glanced up at the brim as if he had forgotten it was there. Then he removed it.
“Are all the women in the Raven family going to tell me what to do?”
A small laugh escaped him, but Diane rolled her eyes.
“Don’t bring my sister into it.”
Connor's smile faded before he could prevent it.
Diane and Selena had not spoken for a long time.
Not since Robert's serious illness, when the two sisters had fallen out over how best to care for him.
Thankfully, he was doing better now, but even though he had healed, the rift between his daughters had not.
Diane turned toward the hallway. “Dad’s in the back room. He’s just had breakfast.”
“Thanks.”
The house held the familiar warmth of a place that had been lived in for decades.
Framed family photographs covered the wall beside the stairs.
Selena and Diane as children, standing on either side of Robert at a county fair.
Selena in her graduation gown. Diane in a graduation gown.
A younger Robert beside the girls’ mother, both of them laughing at something beyond the frame.
Connor kept moving.
He had appeared in some of those pictures once. Not on this wall, but in albums Robert stored in the cabinet beneath the television. Wedding photographs. Christmas mornings. Cookouts in the rear yard. Years reduced to glossy squares that no one knew whether to display or throw away.
The hallway opened into a back room with windows overlooking the yard. Robert sat in a padded chair near the glass, a folded newspaper on his lap. A breakfast tray rested on the side table beside him, holding an empty plate and a glass of orange juice.
Robert’s hair was thinning, and he wasn’t quite the imposing figure he once was, but age had not ground him down just yet, despite a few previous years of ill health.
Ill health that had left his face more jagged than it had been in the past. Ill health that had taken some of his energy and weight.
Ill health that had split his daughters from each other; a rift that was rarely spoken of, but felt like trench warfare; Robert perpetually existing in the no-man’s land between.
His shoulders remained square beneath a blue flannel shirt. One foot rested on the stool while the other planted firmly on the rug, as if he expected to struggle to his feet at any moment and challenge the day to do its worst.
His expression brightened.
“Well, there he is. This is a bit early for one of our chess matches.”
Connor set his hat on the table near the door. “I thought I’d check in on you. I haven’t been around for a couple of weeks.”
Robert pointed toward the chair opposite him. “Take a load off.”
Connor sat. The chair’s cushion released a tired breath beneath him.
For a few seconds, Robert said nothing. He had always possessed the kind of patience that made silence feel less like an absence and more like a tool. The years had added lines around his mouth and deepened the creases across his forehead, but the same cantankerous gleam remained in his gaze.
“You always came around once or twice a week before Selena moved back to town,” Robert said.
Connor adjusted his position. “I’ve been busy.”
Robert gave a short laugh. “Doing what? Keeping Roy Tanner and Selma Brown apart?”
The memory returned with unwelcome clarity: Roy beside his truck, Selma raising her handbag like a weapon, both of them prepared to spend a night in jail over damage that did not exist.
“There’s more to petty squabbles than you might think,” Connor said. “One misspoken word and things can get ugly.”
“You picked the wrong line of work if you wanted peaceful mornings.”
Connor rested his forearms on his knees. “Roy and Selma are ready to tear strips off each other over the smallest things. And they say be a good neighbor.”
Robert lifted the newspaper and placed it on the side table. “I’ve known both of them a long time. Neither one likes walking away first.”
“That’s the problem, half the county is like that.”
Connor smiled despite himself. Being around Robert had not always been easy.
During Connor and Selena’s marriage, Connor had been a thorn in Robert’s side, and Robert had been a shadow cast over Connor, too.
A suffocating shadow that could never see anything but through the eyes of his daughter.
Years after the divorce, Connor had attended the scene when Robert had had a bad fall during his illness.
After that, Connor would check on him regularly.
Those checks became long talks about nothing and games of chess.
And slowly but surely, the ice between them had thawed.
As always, the chessboard awaited. Robert had set up the board, no doubt quite ready to complain about Connor taking too long between moves.
Robert folded his hands over his stomach and looked at Connor like a man reading the same book for the sixteenth time.
“Come on, Connor. Tell the truth.”
Connor’s attention shifted toward the rear window. The yard sloped gently to a line of trees along the property boundary. A rusted bird feeder hung from a metal pole near the fence. Two cardinals hopped beneath it, searching through seed husks.
“What truth would that be, Bobby?”
“The one you’re trying hard not to give me. Your excuse for not coming around like you usually do.”
“I’ve been busy. We’ve had calls, paperwork, the usual.”
“You’ve always had those, Connor.”
Connor rubbed his thumb along the edge of his knee. Robert waited.
The older man had never needed to raise his voice to make an evasion uncomfortable.
Connor breathed out.
“It feels strange having her back in the county.”
Robert’s manner changed by a degree. Not softer exactly, but less amused.
“I was excited when she took the position to set up the new FBI field office in Harlan,” Connor continued. “It made sense. She knows the area. She’s good at the work. The sheriff’s department can use someone with federal resources close by.”
“That sounds like something you’d say at a county meeting.”
Connor glanced toward him. “I mean it.”
He nodded.
The room’s old clock marked the seconds from the wall.
“Once she actually moved back, I don’t know.” Connor pressed his palms together. “I guess it made everything real.”
Robert nodded slowly.
Selena’s return had changed the shape of ordinary places. Connor found himself on edge, worried he would run into her. Each call from an unfamiliar federal number tightened something in his chest before he answered. Even the station carried her presence now, though she did not work from there.
For years, distance had helped him keep their marriage contained in the past. Washington was far enough away to become an idea. Selena living ten minutes from his house was different.
Robert leaned forward and tapped the back of Connor’s hand. “You and Selena are the past. You should get on with living.”
Connor sat back. “I am living.”
“You’re working. There’s a difference. Family, friends, that’s what’s really important.”
“I have friends.”
Robert let out a small laugh. “Deputies don’t count if you sign their paychecks.”
“I don’t sign their checks.”
“You know what I mean, Connor.”
Connor reached for his hat, then remembered he was indoors and left it where it was.
Robert settled into his chair again. “What about that lovely Cheryl at the sheriff’s station?”
“Don’t you start.”
“I’m not prying. She seems pleasant. Easy on the eye, too.”
Connor caught sight of a photograph on a small table in the corner. Selena at eighteen, a sight he had never forgotten. “You sound just like my mother, Bobby.”
“Your mother’s a sensible woman.”
“My mother tried to arrange a date for me at a funeral, once.”