12. Eric #2
I’d known plenty of people like that. Sometimes they became the best deputies I ever trained. Sometimes all they needed was one person to believe they belonged before they started believing it themselves.
She turned toward the festival lights and muttered something I couldn’t make out. Then she slipped a hand into the front pocket of her binder and pulled out a business card.
She held it between her fingers for a few seconds, her attention fixed on it.
Whatever had been on her mind, the card had something to do with it.
My card.
She turned it over in her fingers. Studying it. Front. Back. Front again. Like hidden instructions might be printed in invisible ink.
That made me smile. It was ridiculous. It was a business card. I’d handed out hundreds over the years. Most ended up stuffed in glove compartments, kitchen junk drawers, or wallets until somebody cleaned them out six months later. Nobody had ever looked at one like it was worth thinking about.
Then the goat snatched the card right out of her hand. One quick bite, and it was gone.
“Hey!”
Hartwell lunged after him.
The goat trotted a few steps away with the card hanging from his mouth and stopped just out of reach. He looked pleased with himself. I’d arrested people with less confidence.
I tried not to laugh as I watched her chase the goat around the pen. She pointed at him like she expected him to listen.
He didn’t.
I looked away. My shoulders shook anyway. I had to stop laughing.
When I glanced back, the goat had spat my card out into the hay.
I watched as Hartwell snatched it up and inspected one corner, tilting it left and then right while holding it up to the light.
Then she pointed the card at the goat and said something to him that I couldn’t hear.
But her face said it all. She wasn’t thrilled he nibbled on my card.
One hand rested on her hip as she pointed the damp business card at the goat, giving him what looked like a stern warning.
He didn’t seem concerned. His tail wagged back and forth while he watched her.
I’d dealt with suspects who took a lecture more seriously.
Then Hartwell laughed again. A real laugh this time.
It started quietly before she finally gave in, shaking her head as the goat chewed on the corner of the business card.
For a few seconds, the worry I’d heard in her voice was gone.
I watched her for another moment, longer than I probably should have. Long enough to notice things I hadn’t paid attention to before.
She looked exhausted. Strands of hair had worked loose around her face. Hay clung to one sleeve. There was dirt on one knee. She probably hadn’t noticed any of it.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d found someone so easy to look at.
She wasn’t trying to impress anyone anymore. She was just... Hartwell.
And I couldn’t seem to look away.
The alpaca still leaned against her like he belonged there.
He looked so content you’d think he’d spent years waiting for Hartwell to show up.
She absentmindedly scratched behind his ears while still pretending to scold the goat, managing to carry on two entirely different relationships at once—one disciplinary, one therapeutic.
Tomorrow she’d probably make another mistake.
Something else would go wrong. The festival wouldn’t be perfect.
No festival ever was. Somebody would complain about parking.
Somebody else would complain about the music being too loud or not loud enough.
A kid would lose a balloon. An ice cream cone would end up face down on the sidewalk.
There’d be a line at the portable toilets and at least one volunteer who’d disappear exactly when they were needed most. That was how festivals worked.
But she’d still show up. She’d still keep trying. She wouldn’t pretend everything was easy. She’d panic a little, overthink a lot, make a questionable joke at exactly the wrong moment, and then roll up her sleeves and deal with whatever landed in front of her.
There was something admirable about that. She didn’t have confidence. She had persistence. Sometimes that mattered more.
I’d spent the last two days trying to figure out what Hartwell was hiding. Turned out it wasn’t incompetence. It was fear—of failing and proving everybody right.
She was scared she’d mess this up. Scared she’d let people down.
But she kept showing up anyway.
I pushed away from the fence as quietly and quickly as I could. The last thing I wanted was for her to see me standing there like a goddamn stalker.
I wasn’t a stalker. I was just checking up on things.
That’s what I did. Temporary animal enclosure.
Festival grounds. Public safety. Entirely reasonable.
Entirely professional. The fact that I’d somehow remained rooted to one spot listening to a conversation between a woman, two alpacas, a goat, and a donkey was…
an unfortunate detail I’d be keeping to myself.
But she might not take it that way if she saw me.
I moved without making a sound. Years on the job had taught me that sometimes the best thing a sheriff could do was leave people exactly where they were, believing they had a quiet moment all to themselves.
Some moments weren’t meant to be interrupted.
This was one of them.