“And that’s why we’re not going to let them get away with this,” Emery said. “They think they can get rid of John and keep doing what they’ve always done. We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “I’ll reach out to my contacts again,” Tean said. “I didn’t have any luck when we were here before, but someone has to know something about the wildlife trafficking side of their organization.”

  “The drugs, too,” Theo said. Something flickered on Auggie’s face—something Emery couldn’t read, but that seemed to make sense to Theo. He closed a hand around Auggie’s, but he didn’t look at him as he said, “I should have thought about that earlier. It’s not just people and animals; organizations like this, they usually have ties to drug cartels. I might know someone. And I’ll see if I can pick up anything at school, ask about kids who’ve withdrawn or been truant.”

  “This jabroni who fingered John-Henry,” North said.

  “His name is Emery,” Shaw said. “He’s right there.”

  Red darkened North’s cheeks as he rounded on Shaw.

  Emery couldn’t have sworn to it, but he thought, just maybe, Shaw winked at him.

  “I know what his name is, you knob. And that’s not what I meant.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “I don’t need to be more specific. I need not to have a pansy-assed jamoke permanently glued to my dick-cheese—”

  “North,” John said with a kind of strangled desperation.

  Grace Elaine was watching North with something approaching interest. Glenn, of course, was on his phone. Cora’s eyes were huge.

  More red rushed into North’s face, and, sounding like he was choking on the words, “This clown tool and I will look for him, see if we can figure out who’s paying him to lie.”

  “Oh, that guy who fingered John-Henry. I thought you meant—”

  North got a hand over Shaw’s mouth, and Shaw dissolved into giggles as the two of them began to wrestle.

  Emery was surprised to see a smile—a real one—cross John’s face.

  “I’m going to come up with some uniforms for us,” Jem said. “They’re going to be fire. One thousand percent spandex, super tight around the junk, probably some sort of bubble-butt extender for you, Emery, oh, and they’ll definitely show off our abs.”

  “Nothing can be one thousand percent,” Emery said, “and you don’t have abs. I’ve seen you without a shirt.”

  Jem turned an outraged look on Tean.

  “You’re very handsome,” Tean said in what Emery thought was supposed to be a reassuring tone. “And strong.”

  “Well, yeah, but my six-pack.”

  “Of hash browns,” Auggie murmured.

  “Auggie!”

  Auggie grinned, chewing on the collar of his shirt—and, in the process, exposing his ultradefined stomach.

  “I stood up for you when North wanted to ship you back to Twink Island.”

  “What is Twink Island?” Theo asked.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Shaw said.

  “Jesus, Gramps,” North said breathily as he continued grappling with Shaw. “Excited much?”

  “Did you notice how he didn’t even miss a beat?”

  “I could hear his ancient boner creaking to full mast all the way over here.”

  “It must be really loud then because ever since the ravages of time robbed you of your hearing—” Shaw cut off with a squeal as North attempted to twist his balls off. The thick padding of the snowsuit was the only thing that saved him.

  “I’m not making anyone a uniform except Theo,” Jem said. “Because everybody’s mean to us.”

  “You’re not making any uniforms,” Emery said. “You’re coming with me because—and I honestly cannot believe I’m about to say this—I need you.”

  5

  It was past midnight, and the night had a frozen-solid quality, as though the darkness and the cold were something tangible—all razor edges that caught in Emery’s throat every time he took a breath. The Wahredua police station hunkered under the wash of sodium lights. The orangish glow seeped across the snow, an island of dirty light in the gloom. Nothing moved inside the redbrick building, as far as Emery could tell—nothing had moved in the last hour. The windows were dark except for the emergency lights. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot, but he didn’t recognize any of them. Someone would be on dispatch. A handful of other officers would be on the night shift, out patrolling or handling the calls that inevitably came in—domestic violence, noise complaints, shoplifting, vandalism. Emery guessed, though, it would be quiet. The worst nights were in the spring.

  “How many people are in there?” Jem asked.

  “I don’t know. Fewer than five, I expect. But if we’re lucky, only one—whoever is on dispatch.”

  “One?” Jem sounded faintly disappointed. He scratched under one arm, pulling at the Pizza Hut polo.

  “Would you prefer more?”

  “Well, no, but—I mean, on TV, there’s always a million people there day and night, and they’re always shouting at each other, and the fax machine is screeching, oh, and Sipowicz says, ‘Put him in the tank.’”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Jem’s grin flashed in the darkness. “I know. I actually love that about you. You don’t even care, do you?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “That’s so friggin’ dope. Tean’s the exact same way. He kept asking who the flight attendant on TV was, and I honestly didn’t have the heart to tell him it was Taylor Swift.”

  “Who?”

  Jem dropped back against the seat, shaking his head. “I can’t. I’m dead. Not two of you.” He sat up so abruptly that Emery glanced around to see what had alerted him, but all Jem said was “Wait, have you seen Buffy?”

  “I was a gay boy growing up in the ’90s,” Emery said with disgust. “Have I seen Buffy?”

  “Ok, you can’t tell Tean, but I’m pretty sure we need to kiss now.”

  “Sure, we can do that. And then I’ll murder you, and I’ll have to spend the rest of the night hiding your body.”

  “Or I could do, um, my thing. I guess.”

  “Sure,” Emery said again. “How about we do that?”

  Jem climbed out of the Odyssey and jogged around the block.

  It was partially his own fault, Emery thought, for playing along. But, in his own defense, he probably wouldn’t have known who Taylor Swift was if not for John and Colt.

  Emery counted to sixty. Then he got out of the minivan, checked the lot once more, and loped toward the station. He was halfway there when Jem came around the corner in his rental, a silver Malibu with Florida plates. Emery let Jem’s approach register only peripherally; he kept his focus on the building in front of him.

  Breaking into the station was perhaps not, Emery had to admit, his best idea. Although he wouldn’t have gone as far as John, who, when they had discussed it again in their bedroom, had called it the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. There were logistical challenges, of course, even though Emery had less confidence in the station’s security than his husband. And there was always the possibility that Emery would be arrested for trespassing. But the reality was that they had little time and few options, none of them good. Someone had framed John using his work computer, and at the very least, Emery had to see if he could turn anything up. The alternative would have been more of what he’d been doing for the last few months—chasing old leads that took him nowhere, finding himself in one blind alley after another.

  The silver Malibu rolled down the street. Then, as Jem approached the station, it began to drift toward the shoulder. The car jerked, as though Jem had caught himself drifting and overcorrected, and brake lights flashed. Predictably, the Malibu fishtailed, the rear end swinging out as the sedan slid into the thick snow at the side of the road. Jem spun the wheels for good effect, throwing up snow until the tires were sliding on ice. He turned on the hazards and got out of the car, and in the process, he even got himself tangled in the seat belt. It was, Emery had to admit, a masterful performance. He also decided he would have to keep a closer eye on any interaction Jem had with his son.

  Emery’s line of sight to Jem was cut off as he approached the side of the station. Next to a steel door, a bucket of sand was peppered with cigarette butts. Technically, the no-smoking policy included the parking lot, but in practice, too many officers and civilian employees smoked to make the policy realistic—at least, that was what people told Emery. As a result, this door saw a fair amount of use during the day shift. It also meant that the snow here was trampled and packed, and that Emery would leave no sign of his approach.

  At the front of the building, Jem hammered on the security glass and called, “Hello? Hi, hello? Is anybody in there?”

  Emery fished out a key. John, of course, had been required to surrender his keys while he was suspended from duty, and Emery had turned in his official set when he’d resigned. The reality of a small town and an equally small police department, where no-smoking policies weren’t enforced and other, similar regulations saw equal disregard, was that a lot of things never got recorded. A spare key, for example, if you left yours at home one day. And Emery hadn’t bothered to return that one, on the off chance it would be useful. Until now, it hadn’t mattered—John had keys to everything. But tonight—well, tonight, Emery was grateful for that little bureaucratic incompetence.

  “Oh my God, thank you,” Jem said. “This cat ran out of nowhere.”

  He even sounded upset. Maybe, Emery thought, he should send Colt to boarding school while Uncle Jem was in town.

  The key slid into the lock, but when Emery tried to turn it, the lock didn’t budge. He stared at the key for a moment. Then common sense asserted itself. He tried the key again, making sure it slid all the way home, and jiggled it. This time, the lock turned, and Emery slipped inside.

  Warm air, full of the scent of toner and wet winter clothing and the station’s old furnace, met him in a darkened hallway. An emergency light hung a pale cone farther down; from above Emery, the red wash of an exit sign fell over him. Distantly, he could hear someone talking—the voice sounded like it was coming from the front of the building, and it sounded like the person was annoyed, which meant Jem was doing his job.

  Emery moved quickly down the hallway. His first stop would be John’s office, which meant—most likely—picking the lock. It would also require him to cross the bullpen, where he’d be exposed. It would be the most vulnerable moment of the operation—

  The lights came on, and for the first moment, they were blinding. Emery blinked as his eyes adjusted, trying to make out the shape standing in front of him.

  “God fucking damn it. Are you kidding me?”

  “Dulac?”

  The lights went off, and once again, Emery was blind. He waited, listening as steps moved down the hall toward him.

  In the shadows, Gray Dulac was an outline: average height, slim build, the lines of his clothing suggesting a suit. He smelled like something medicinal—a liniment, maybe—and like unwashed hair and a chemical fruitiness. The latter was explained when he produced a vape, hit it, and jetted a thin stream from the side of his mouth visible only in the vape’s LED glow.

  “What the fuck,” he asked, “are you doing?”

  “What are you doing? Isn’t it a bit late for you?”

  “I was asleep at my desk until some jerkwad started pounding on the doors. Jesus, that was you too, wasn’t it?” Dulac hit the vape again, and the artificial smell filled the space between them. “This is some kind of joke, right? You’re not serious with this shit, are you?”

  After Emery had resigned from the department, Dulac had been John’s partner. He was, in spite of his natural fuckboy tendencies, a competent detective. Or had been. Half a year earlier, a killer had left a light bulb trap, and Dulac had activated it. Shards of glass had damaged his face and one eye, and his recovery had been slow and uneven. He was back on active duty, which Emery considered a mistake—Dulac might be physically fit for duty, but the emotional and psychological damage were still a long way from being healed.

  “I was just picking up some of John’s stuff.”

  Dulac pocketed the vape. He rubbed his face. “That’s what you were going to tell someone?”

  “John is entitled to his personal property, but I thought it would be easier if I came—”

  “And broke into the station from the smoke pad?”

  “In other scenarios,” Emery said, “whoever found me would not have known how I entered.”

  The red light from the exit sign seemed to vibrate.

  “Bad luck,” Dulac said.

  “Admittedly poor planning. I haven’t slept much. And I’m emotionally dysregulated.”

  Dulac laughed. “I bet that’s making you fucking crazy.”

  “More or less.”

  “What about the cameras?”

  “Why would someone have reason to review the security cameras?”

  “Ok. What about John-Henry’s computer?”

  Emery said nothing. He could taste the artificial flavoring of the vapor on every breath. He thought he could feel it, like a film that the vape had left on his face.

  “How is he?” Dulac asked.

  Somewhere in the building, a radio crackled with static.

  “How do you think?”

  In the darkness, it was impossible to make out the expression on Dulac’s face. And maybe it wasn’t even an expression. Maybe it was a shadow.

  “Poor John-Henry,” Dulac said softly. “His perfect little world in smithereens.”

  The shadow was there again. A trick of the light. Or, as it were, a trick of the dark. The warmth of the station seemed oppressive now, Emery’s coat too heavy, his shirt clumping under his arms.

  “And how are you?” Dulac asked.

  “Busy.”

  Dulac craned his head, considering Emery from a new angle. It brought a sliver of his face into the light: a triangle of brow and nose and cheek. The scars were red and raised, his injured eye shot through with blood, even all these months later. He was smiling, and it made Emery think of ridiculous comparisons, the kind of overblown descriptions in the novels John favored. A cat and a mouse. His voice lilted mockingly as he said, “Emery.”

  One moment, and then another. Dulac didn’t move. He didn’t draw a gun. He didn’t shout. He didn’t do anything but stand there, smiling, that panel of thin, pale light cutting a triangle out of his face. But Emery found his mind racing, mapping possibilities, probabilities. If he takes a swing. If he tries to draw. Hand on his wrist, foot behind his ankle. The odds were good that Emery was faster than Dulac; he was certainly bigger, and the advantage of strength in a close encounter was significant. But all it would take was a single noise to bring someone else running, and then it would be over.

  “It is...difficult.”

  “You can do better than that.”

  His heart beat louder, the sound trapped inside his head. He wanted to press a hand against his chest, to bear down on the pain there. But he kept his hands at his side, and he kept his voice on a tightrope. “You know John. This is an attack on who he is, and even though he’s trying not to let it get to him, he’s struggling. To be shoved out of your place in the universe. To be cut off, alone. To have everyone look at you like you’re worse than nothing, like you’re less than human. To learn that all the things you relied on are smoke.”

  “I’m not asking about him. I’m asking about you.”

  And I’m telling you, Emery thought, a hint of disorientation, as though somehow one of them had slipped into a foreign language. Confused because it was obvious. And a sense, too, that perhaps he was the one who was confused. I’m telling you because it’s happening to me, he thought with that same dazed uncertainty. Because they already did it to me.

  Then the moment passed, and the shadowed length of the hallway resolved in his vision. Dulac was still waiting, one blood-dark eye fixed on him.

  “How is it? I want to take my family away from here and burn this fucking town to the ground.”

  The corner of Dulac’s mouth canted into an unfamiliar smile. “How about that?”

  “Gray, I don’t have time for this. The clock’s running, and you’ve got a decision to make. Are you going to help John? Or are you going to sit back and let these people destroy him?”

  Dulac settled back on his heels. Darkness covered his face again like a caul. That hooked smile might have still been there. Or not. But finally he said, “What are you looking for?”

  “Anything. You know how it works. It’s the first rule of an investigation: every contact leaves a trace. Someone managed to plant those files on John’s computer, and I’m willing to bet they had to do it from inside the station. That means someone was here, in this building. Contact. Multiple points of contact. So, I’m going to look. And I’m going to keep looking until I find a trace that leads me back to these sons of bitches.”

  “Or until the night watch rolls in and finds you digging through their lockers. Why not file an official request? Get whatever you want the right way.”

  “Because things are moving quickly, and because whatever I want, I think there’s a good chance it will disappear if I file an official request.” Emery paused. “I understand your bitterness. And I understand your anger. But I don’t understand how you could let someone do this to John. He’s always been your friend.”

  “He’s always everyone’s friend! That’s the whole problem!”

  The words weren’t a shout—they were too low for that. But they were furious, and filled with an intensity that broke them into syllables.

  “Never mind,” Emery said, angling his body to twist past Dulac.

  Dulac’s hand snaked out and caught his arm. For a moment, Dulac seemed to be struggling with something—like he couldn’t catch his breath, like maybe he was having a panic attack, and his body was telling his brain he couldn’t get enough air. And then, for one horrible moment, Emery thought he was laughing. Dulac’s fingers tightened until they bit into Emery’s biceps. And then, slowly, Dulac seemed to take control of himself. He released Emery, shifted to let him pass, and then, when Emery took another step, said, “Peterson changed the codes.”