Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Cody
By the time I dismount, my shirt is sticking to my spine, my gloves are full of dust, and Duke’s laughing as if he didn’t nearly lose a stirrup in front of half the county.
“I saw that,” I say.
He swings down beside me, grin bright and shameless. “Saw what?”
“You know what.”
“Nope.” He pats his horse’s neck. “I was magnificent.”
“You were reckless.”
“Come on, you saw how good I was.”
I give him a look.
He ignores it, obviously, because Duke has been ignoring good sense since birth and calling it charm ever since.
The crowd is still loud behind us, all whistles, clapping, and boots on metal bleachers. The ranch competition has left the grounds buzzing, and Ironwood’s showing was strong enough that people will be talking about it for days.
That matters. Reputation matters. Performance matters. Numbers matter.
Usually, I’d be satisfied by that. Today, I’m distracted.
Because Annie isn’t where she was.
I scan the fence line once, then again more carefully. Vendor row. Chutes. Holding pens. Bleachers. Sponsor banners. Food trucks. Sammy Brooks threatening a volunteer with his clipboard near the announcer’s platform.
No blue hair.
My jaw tightens.
Duke notices immediately because, unfortunately, he’s not as stupid as he pretends to be.
“She was over there a minute ago,” he says, pointing toward the far side of the arena. “Taking photos of Red.”
“I know where she was.”
“Sure you do.”
I ignore the tone and hand my reins to one of the hands. “Find Silas.”
Duke’s grin fades. “Why?”
“Because I don’t see Annie.”
He nods.“I’ll check near the vendors.”
“No. Find Silas first.”
“Cody—”
“Duke.”
He holds my stare for one beat, then nods and moves.
I head toward the back path behind the chutes, keeping my pace controlled because running through a crowd creates attention, and attention creates noise.
Noise creates confusion. Confusion benefits whoever’s already using movement and crowds as cover.
My pulse is too calm.
That means I’m angry.
I pass two riders, a feed cart, three children with paper cups of lemonade, and Margaret O’Hara pretending not to gossip loudly enough for the next county to hear. None of them matter.
Then I see her.
Annie’s standing near the equipment trailers, camera clutched in both hands, body too still for the drama around her. Her face is pale under the dusting of freckles across her nose. Blue hair is coming loose from its bun in bright, furious strands.
Relief hits first.
Then I see her hands shaking. That wipes everything else clean.
“Annie.”
Her head snaps up.
The moment she sees me, her expression shifts. Not relief, exactly, or even fear. More complicated, which is increasingly the only category she seems to occupy in my life.
“Cody.”
I reach her and check the space around us. Trailers. Back path. Cottonwood. Generator station. Temporary fencing.
Too many blind spots. Too many people with legitimate reasons to be here.
“What happened?” I ask.
She swallows, then turns the camera screen toward me. “I saw him again.”
Everything in me stills.
I take the camera from her carefully. “Show me.”
She steps closer, close enough that her shoulder almost touches my arm. “Frame eighteen forty-seven first.”
I scroll to the frame. At first, the image is rodeo movement, dust, bodies, and fencing, Willy in the foreground playing to the crowd with that theatrical idiot grin of his.
But Annie’s finger comes up and taps the far edge of the screen.
“There.”
I zoom in. The image breaks down, pixels softening around the edges.
A man stands beyond the holding pens. Baseball cap, dark jacket, body angled partly behind a support post, face turned away.
“Next two,” she says.
I move forward.
Blur. Shoulder. Trailer edge. A line of motion that might be someone turning away, or might be nothing if you’re the sort of person invested in pretending threats don’t exist until they’re standing close enough to breathe on you.
I’m not that sort of person.
“You followed him?” I ask.
Her chin lifts. “I tried to.”
That answers my question and irritates me at the same time. “You shouldn’t have done that alone.”
“I didn’t exactly schedule it, Cody.”
“No, you reacted.”
“Yeah, because I saw the man who might’ve been stalking me.”
“And if he wanted you to follow?”
Her mouth closes.
She hadn’t considered that. Or she had and didn’t want to.
I hand the camera back before my grip becomes too tight. “Send those to me.”
“I already planned to.”
“And don’t delete anything before or after these frames. I want the full sequence.”
“I know how evidence works.”
“I know you do.”
Her expression softens for half a second, and it’s almost worse than arguing. Arguing I can manage. Softness creates variables I don’t know what to do with.
“I’m working on it,” I say, lower now. “The photos. The access logs. Jake. All of it.”
“I know.”
“No, Annie.” I step closer. “You know we’re looking.
I need you to understand I’m not letting this sit in a folder until it becomes useful.
I’m already pulling vendor overlaps with rodeo suppliers, temporary passes, gate assignments, and anyone with reason to be near both Ironwood and these grounds. ”
Her eyes search mine. “You think he’s connected to the event vendors?”
“I think rodeo day provides excellent cover for someone who wants to be seen and not identified.”
“That’s comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
A faint laugh escapes her. Brittle, but real.
I hate that I’m relieved by it.
Behind us, the announcer’s voice booms through the speakers, followed by music and a fresh roar from the crowd.
The main events are shifting into the afternoon celebration portion, which means half the town will start behaving as if beer, fried food, and proximity to horses are a personality trait.
Annie glances back toward the noise, her hand tight around the camera.
I know that look.
She’s about to let fear ruin what she loves.
I understand the impulse. It’s efficient, in a miserable way. If you prepare for the worst constantly, then being disappointed starts becoming discipline.
But I’ve watched Annie move confidently through these grounds all day.
I don’t want them taking that too.
So I do something that makes very little sense and feels entirely necessary. I take the camera gently from her hands and loop the strap back around her neck.
Her brows draw together. “What are you doing?”
“Returning your weapon.”
“My camera isn’t a weapon.”
“Today it is.”
That earns me a real look. Suspicious. Too perceptive.
I continue before she can dissect me. “You’ve got the photos. I’ve got the next steps. Duke is finding Silas, which means in approximately ninety seconds there will be enough overprotective male energy in this area to cause a weather event.”
Her mouth twitches.
“But right now,” I say, “you’re at the rodeo. You’re working. You’re good at it. And half the town has been shouting your name like you’re the only person capable of documenting them making poor decisions on livestock.”
“I mean, I am.”
“Yes. Unfortunately.”
She laughs then, and some of the tightness leaves her shoulders.
“So what?” she asks. “We just pretend I didn’t see him?”
“No.” I adjust my glasses, then remember I’m not wearing them, and hate that my hand gives me away.
“We don’t pretend anything. We document.
We preserve evidence. We increase awareness.
And then, for the rest of the day, we do not give him the satisfaction of making you disappear from your own life. ”
She goes still.
I regret nothing. Which is new.
“Cody,” she says softly.
“No.”
Her brows lift. “No?”
“I don’t want to hear whatever self-protective argument you’re about to make.”
“You don’t even know what it was.”
I smile. “Yes, I do. It was probably logical, emotionally avoidant, and irritating.”
Her eyes narrow. “That’s rich coming from you.”
“I’m familiar with the genre.”
Another laugh. Warmer this time.
Then Duke appears at the end of the path with Silas beside him.
Silas takes one look at Annie’s face and goes dark. “What happened?”
Annie shows him the photos. Duke leans over her shoulder, his jaw flexing as the images move across the camera screen.
Silas studies each frame without speaking.
When he finally looks up, his eyes cut across the grounds. He means to physically separate every threat from every innocent person by force of will alone.
“I’ll get Hank,” he says.
“Not yet,” Annie says.
All three of us look at her.
She holds her ground. “Not because I don’t want him involved. But because these shots aren’t enough. If we drag the sheriff over here with three blurry photos and a bad feeling, whoever this is gets warned without getting caught.”
Silas doesn’t enjoy that. Neither do I.
Unfortunately, she’s right.
Duke exhales hard and drags a hand through his hair. “I hate when you’re smart in ways that make me not allowed to commit crimes.”
“Growth opportunity,” Annie says.
His mouth almost curves. “Don’t push it, honey.”
For one breath, the four of us stand there in the dust behind the trailers, surrounded by noise, danger, and the strange shape of whatever we are becoming.
Then the crowd erupts again behind us, music kicks louder, somebody whoops.
Somewhere near the vendor row, a child starts crying with the exhausted commitment of someone who’s eaten too much sugar and met the limits of capitalism.
Annie looks toward the grounds, and I see the decision flicker across her face.
Stay afraid. Or stay anyway.
She lifts her camera. “Let’s do this.”
Duke beams. “That sounded like fun surrender.”
“That sounded like I need more photos before Sammy has a stroke.”
Silas steps closer to her. “You stay where we can see you.”
Her eyes flash. “Silas.”
He holds up one hand. “Not control. Request.”
That makes her pause. Then she nods once. “Fine. But if any of you start hovering like weird cowboy gargoyles, I’m taking unflattering pictures.”
Duke gasps. “You wouldn’t.”
“I absolutely would.”
“She would,” I confirm.
Silas looks at me. “You sound certain.”
“I’ve seen her folders.”
Annie points the camera at me and takes a picture.