Chapter Six
She didn’t get out right away.
Couldn’t, actually.
Fingers locked around the steering wheel, Cassie merely stared at her reflection in the smudged glass. Margie’s food, a hot shower, clean clothes—those had helped, but not nearly enough. Everything still felt unreal, like she’d woken up in someone else’s life still wearing her own skin.
With a sigh and a shove, she stepped out of the car and made for the brick building, the sheriff’s office seal above the door cracked and faded. An American flag sagged from a reinforced pole, its metal dented like it had been clipped one too many times by a bumper.
Wierswood was the county seat—bigger than Clifton, but not by much.
Like the ridge, it carried the hollowed-out look of a town that had bet everything on coal and lost. The main drag still had storefronts—mostly pawn shops and dollar outlets.
A McDonald’s squatted at one end, a Subway at the other, with a row of ’70s-era government buildings slouching between them.
The entrance stuck before giving way, a small bell announcing her arrival. It looked more or less the same as she remembered—the walls still pale green, the floor the same scuffed beige, everything in need of repair.
At the reception desk, a blonde woman in uniform glanced up, giving Cassie an unimpressed once-over. A handful of deputies in the bullpen did the same. Cassie met every set of eyes, the silence tightening.
“Help ya?” the blonde asked, voice flat.
“I’m here for Connor Berry’s belongings,” Cassie said, matching her tone. “I’m his sister.”
“ID?”
Tugging her license from her wallet, she slid it across the counter. The blonde studied it a moment before lifting the desk phone. “A Cassandra Berry from New York is here for Connor Berry’s personal effects,” she said, clipped, and hung up.
She handed the license back with a flick. “Have a seat. Someone’ll be out shortly.”
The small waiting area offered nothing worth sitting for: cracked plastic chairs every bit as dirty as the floor and a bulletin board crowded with flyers for lost pets and vehicles for sale.
Cassie stayed on her feet, pretending to study them without taking in a word.
Behind her, the room held a deliberate silence, the deputies’ stares burning into her back.
A door squeaked open; a tall, lanky man stepped through, his dark hair streaked with gray, his face lined and weathered. His badge caught the sunlight, glinting above a cracked leather belt.
“Ms. Berry,” he said. “Deputy McCoy. Why don’t you come on back.”
She hesitated. She didn’t want to go any farther inside, but McCoy had already turned away, leaving the doorway open behind him. After a beat, she followed.
Down a narrow hallway lined with faded photographs of past sheriffs, he led her into a room barely bigger than a cell, where a battered wooden table with two chairs waited. He took one, setting a notepad and pen on the table, and gestured to the seat across.
Cassie stopped in the doorway, frowning. “I thought I was picking up Connor’s things?”
“We’ll get to that,” McCoy said, pen poised. “First, I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Questions about what?”
“Feel free to take the chair—I assure you, you ain’t in trouble.”
She stayed where she was. “That’s a funny thing to say, seeing as I haven’t done anything wrong.”
McCoy nodded once. “Fair ’nough. Just figured you’d want some privacy.” He clicked his pen over the notepad. “When’s the last time you spoke to Connor?”
She had to think about it; that alone made her flush. “Maybe six months ago,” she eventually muttered. “Why?”
“And before that?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
McCoy scratched at his pad. “You know who he was runnin’ with lately?”
“No.”
“What about money? He ever hit you up for cash? Send you any?”
“No. Are you going to tell me why you’re asking me this?”
“When exactly was the last time you saw Connor?”
Cassie’s nostrils flared, anger flashing. “I’m not answering another goddamn question until you tell me why you’re asking them.”
McCoy’s pen paused; his eyes lifted slowly to hers.
“Ms. Berry, your brother was found with a hefty amount of fentanyl and meth—bagged up neat. Had to log it as intent to distribute. Had a wad of cash too, the kind you don’t carry unless you’re movin’ product.
Now, Connor’s been picked up before, sure, but between you and me?
When you’re usin’ like he was, you ain’t got the head for runnin’ a business.
Which means somebody else was callin’ the shots. We aim to find out who.”
Cassie took a step back, her hands curling tight around her bag strap. “All I know is what I was told at the hospital. I don’t know anything about drugs, or money, or whatever it is you’re insinuating. Now, are you going to get me Connor’s things—or do I need to call a lawyer?”
McCoy raised his brows. “That’s your choice. You ain’t under arrest. But if you’d rather have counsel present—”
“I’d rather have Connor’s things and get the fuck gone from this pig-stinkin’ pen,” she spat, her mountain accent slipping out.
His eyes narrowed briefly before he shut the notepad. “All right then. Wait here.”
McCoy brushed past her and disappeared down the hall, returning a minute later with a clipboard and a cardboard box marked in Sharpie: Berry, Connor—Personal Effects.
“Sign here. This is everything we collected when we found him. What we could release, anyhow.”
“Got it,” she snapped, signing her name and snatching the box. “So not the meth or the money.”
Box tucked tight against her, she pushed past him and made it halfway to the lobby before a large man stepped out of an office, nearly colliding with her.
“Easy there, honey. Where’s the fire?”
He was tall, broad-shouldered, big-bellied. Mid-fifties maybe, with a full head of gray hair and deep creases around his mouth. A gold badge sagged from the pocket of his button-down, the word SHERIFF stamped across it.
Cassie, mouth clamped shut, only lifted her eyes to his and waited for him to move.
“You need a hand with that?” he asked, gesturing to the box.
She gave the smallest shake of her head, lips still pressed tight.
“You Connor’s kin?” he continued.
When she didn’t readily reply, McCoy answered from behind her. “His sister, sir. Cassandra Berry.”
“Sheriff Vernon Tate. Sorry for your loss, hon.” He paused, then—as men like him never could seem to help themselves—pushed further. “Connor was…well, he was known to us. Part of them Kings of Anarchy boys. Had his own troubles, too.”
Tate studied her a moment longer, his expression hardening. “You wouldn’t happen to know somethin’ about them Kings of Anarchy boys, would you? Somethin’ that might help us out?”
Ah, so there it was. The real reason for this impromptu interrogation. The cops wanted the Kings.
She smiled then, sugar-sweet. “Like what?” she drawled. “You mean somethin’ besides drinkin’ too much and skippin’ out on bar tabs?”
His brows lifted, a thin-lipped smile tugging at his mouth.
“Mm. They never do tell their women much, do they, McCoy?”
“No, sir, they don’t. Call ’em property, even.”
“Like livestock,” Tate added.
Cassie didn’t look away; she didn’t even blink.
She stared at the Sheriff, all that old fury rushing back—how the law had always treated folks on the ridge.
Like they were trash. Like being broke was a crime in itself.
Even before the mines pulled out and the mills shuttered, families were left on their own in the hills—the law never lifting a goddamn finger. Not unless it was to slap on cuffs.
And that vacuum was exactly why the Kings were here in the first place. While the rest of the country made hillbilly jokes, the Kings kept roofs patched, heat running, debts collected, food on tables, and the lights from getting shut off. Their way wasn’t clean, but it was necessary.
“First, I’m not one of their women,” she fired back. “Second, you don’t know a goddamn thing about nothin'. A property patch isn’t ownership—it’s protection. It’s to keep her safe.”
Tate leaned in, a wolfish grin spreading. “Safe, eh? And what would a woman need protecting from ’round them big ol’ Kings?”
Cassie immediately shot back, “From the likes of you, I’m guessin’.”
The smile slid right off his face. He straightened, thumbs hooking into his belt; Cassie merely continued staring, silence thickening the hall.
McCoy cleared his throat nervously. “Sheriff, she’s signed for the box. Everything’s in order.”
Tate didn’t look at him right away, still caught in Cassie’s stare. Then, with a click of his tongue, he shifted his gaze past her. “Well. Appreciate you comin’ in…Miranda, was it? Drive safe now, ya hear?”
He stepped aside—barely.
Cassie shifted the box and shoved past, her shoes striking the floor hard. The sheriff muttered something low behind her, and she cursed under her breath, sonofabitch knows damn well my name ain’t Miranda, pushing through the lobby with every eye on her.
She made it almost to the exit before she stopped cold and turned.
“Y’all get a good listen for your gossip later, or should I pose for a picture too?”
Silence. One deputy shifted in his chair, another dropped his gaze, but no one answered. Cassie held their stares a moment longer before shouldering through the glass door—
—and running straight into Ollie, nearly dropping the box.
“Whoa—gotcha.” He caught both her and the box. “Hey, Cas, you all right?”
“Jesus, Ollie,” she snapped, wrenching away. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?” He took a step back, smiling sheepishly. “You look like you just went a few rounds with somethin’ a lot meaner than McCoy. Tate givin’ you trouble in there?”
“I said, I’m fine. They don’t scare me.”
“Not much ever did,” he replied. “Still recall senior skip day—me, Con, and the guys headin’ out to Summersville. You beggin’ to come. Hell, you were the first one jumpin’ off those damn rocks. Nearly gave us all heart attacks.”