13. Brock
Brock
I follow Jeffrey Pruitt's truck down the mountain at a quarter-mile distance, keeping two curves between us at all times.
The landscape drops from alpine to foothill to town in twenty minutes of careful driving. Hazel tracks the truck through the binoculars, calling out turns and speed changes without being asked. "He's slowing. Right turn ahead. Looks like he's heading for Main Street."
Timber Creek appears below us, tucked into the valley like a model town under glass. Snow-covered rooftops. String lights still up from some holiday nobody took down. A few locals shoveling sidewalks. The kind of place that looks harmless from a distance.
Jeffrey's truck pulls up in front of City Hall, a squat stone building with wide steps and double doors. He gets out alone. The shorter man from the clearing isn't with him. Jeffrey adjusts his jacket, the same one with the folded map in the pocket, and climbs the steps without looking back.
I park half a block down, angled so I can see the entrance. "I'm going in."
Hazel nods. No argument this time. "I'll monitor the frequency and watch the entrance. If anyone else shows up or Jeffrey comes out, I'll hit the horn twice."
"Good. If I'm not back in fifteen, call Mason and drive."
I step out, cross the street, and push through the front doors like I have business here.
The inside is what you'd expect from a small-town government building: fluorescent lights, polished linoleum, a directory on the wall listing offices I don't care about.
A receptionist sits behind a desk near the entrance, a woman in her fifties with reading glasses on a chain. She looks up.
"Help you?"
"Looking for the road commission office. Need an update on the higher access roads after the storm." I keep my voice easy, casual. The kind of question a ranger would ask.
"Second floor, end of the hall. But I think they're closed for the day. Storm backed everything up."
"Appreciate it." I head for the stairs, passing the receptionist's line of sight and turning left at the landing instead of right. Jeffrey went down the ground-floor corridor toward the back of the building. I spotted the tail of his jacket before the stairwell door closed.
The corridor is quiet. Closed doors on both sides, nameplates I scan as I pass. Planning Department. Records. Assessor. At the far end, the hallway bends left toward what the directory listed as the mayor's office. I slow my pace, keeping my boots quiet on the floor, and stop at the bend.
Voices. Jeffrey's flat tone and someone else, older, with the careful cadence of a man used to being in charge.
I press my back to the wall and listen.
"...adjusted the route. Bridge at Miller Creek is out, so we're rerouting through the south fork access. Adds forty minutes but it's passable." That's Jeffrey.
"Forty minutes is acceptable. What about the staging?" The older voice. Measured. Controlled.
"Staged and ready. Tate confirmed this morning. Everything's at the..." Jeffrey drops his voice and I lose the next few words. Then: "...by tomorrow night at the latest."
Tomorrow night. Not three days. Tomorrow.
The older voice again: "And the situation with the reporter?"
"Being handled. We've got someone close to the..."
A door opens behind me.
I'm already moving before I fully register the sound. A woman in a county ID lanyard steps into the hallway carrying a stack of folders, nearly colliding with me. She startles, folders shifting in her arms.
"Oh! Sorry, I didn't see you there." She peers at me over the stack. "Can I help you find something?"
The voices down the hall have gone quiet. I've got maybe three seconds before Jeffrey steps out to check the noise.
"Road commission," I say, pivoting on my heel and walking back the way I came with her, matching her pace, putting distance between me and the mayor's office. "Receptionist said second floor but it looks closed. Any idea who I can talk to about access road updates?"
She shifts the folders to one arm. "Oh, that's Jim Wheeler's office. He's probably still digging out from the storm. You could try calling tomorrow." She turns toward the stairwell. "Are you with the forest service?"
"US Marshals. Routine patrol coordination.
" I keep walking with her, letting her body and the stack of folders block the sight line from the corridor behind us.
At the stairwell door I hold it open for her, step through, and take the stairs down at a measured pace that says nothing about the adrenaline flooding my system.
Behind me, I hear a door open and close at the far end of the hall. Footsteps. Then Jeffrey's voice, muffled: "Who was that?"
The woman's answer is lost as the stairwell door swings shut between us.
I cross the lobby without rushing, nod at the receptionist, and push through the front doors into the cold. My pulse is running higher than I'd like. That was close. Another ten seconds and Jeffrey would have seen me standing outside the mayor's office with no plausible reason to be there.
I'm halfway across the street when the horn sounds. Two short blasts.
I break into a jog. Hazel is leaning across the center console, eyes wide, pointing toward the side of the building. "Jeffrey just came out the side door. He's on his phone. He looked agitated."
I slide into the driver's seat and start the engine. "He might have made me. The county employee who walked out probably told him a marshal was in the hallway."
"Did you get anything?"
I pull out of the spot smooth and easy, turning away from City Hall, taking a side street that loops toward the south end of town.
In the mirror, Jeffrey is standing on the sidewalk with the phone pressed to his ear, scanning the street.
He's looking for a vehicle. I take the next left and put a building between us.
"Some. Not enough." I relay the fragments while I drive: the rerouted bridge at Miller Creek, south fork access, forty minutes added, staging confirmed by Tate, everything ready at a location I couldn't hear, by tomorrow night.
And the last piece, about Hazel: "Being handled. We've got someone close to the..."
"Close to the what?" Her voice is tight.
"That's where the county employee interrupted. I didn't get the rest." I check the mirrors again. No one following. I take the long way around and head for the road out of town. "But the timeline just collapsed. We thought we had days. Now it's tomorrow night."
Hazel is writing in her notebook, pen moving fast. "The bridge at Miller Creek is out, so they're rerouting through south fork access.
That narrows the possible routes significantly.
If I cross-reference south fork with the shipping manifests and Cal's trail network data, we might be able to plot the new route and figure out where the staging point is. "
"Do it. And the older voice in that office. I don't know who it was. The directory said mayor's office, but I didn't get a visual. Could be the mayor. Could be someone using the space."
"The mayor of Timber Creek is involved in a weapons smuggling ring." She says it flatly, testing the weight of it.
"Maybe. Or the mayor's office is being used as a meeting space by someone with access. Either way, Jeffrey Pruitt just walked into a government building and had a private conversation about moving illegal cargo through the mountains by tomorrow night. That's enough for Mason to move on."
"And the 'someone close to' me." She stops writing.
"Brock. That's twice now. The radio intercept said 'he's got someone on it.
' Now Jeffrey says 'we've got someone close to the...
' whatever he was going to say. That's not surveillance from a distance.
That's someone positioned near me. Or near the investigation. "
The thought has been turning in my head since I heard the words. Someone close. Not a team searching the mountains. Not a hired gun working from a distance. Someone with proximity. To Hazel. To our investigation. To the Marshals Service.
"We need to talk to Mason," I say. "Now. Before we go back to the outpost. If there's someone inside our circle feeding them information, going back to base could be exactly what they want us to do."
I pull over on a stretch of empty road outside town, kill the engine, and reach for the sat phone.
The mountains rise around us, white and silent.
Somewhere in those peaks, cargo is being staged.
Somewhere in this town, a corrupt deputy just reported to someone who sits in the mayor's office.
And somewhere, someone close to us is feeding information to the people who want Hazel dead.
The phone connects. Mason picks up. I start talking.
We're running out of time.