Page 71 of South of Nowhere

“A cautious man.”

“At times. Coffee if there’s some made.”

“There’s a pot. Been there for a couple hours.”

“It’s still coffee.”

“How do you like it?”

“With a little milk if you’ve got any.”

“I have a cow. She’s in the barn. Because of the flood I got her to the top floor, which was a feat, I will tell you. So, yeah, I have milk.”

She disappeared into the kitchen and he stepped to the hewn-wood mantel above a fieldstone fireplace. There sat scores of photographs in ornate silver frames. He scanned them. A happy family working in the fields and at afternoon Sunday suppers. Parents, Ezra and his wife, their daughters, Annie being the eldest. As the photos grew clearer—higher definition—the population in the pictures aged and then thinned.

And then they stopped altogether. No photos in the past few years.

But several—from ten years ago—were of her in uniform with other soldiers. Army.

There was nothing about being in the service that necessarily made you more familiar with explosives than anyone else. But it did give you better access to knowledge about things that went bang.

And access to ex-military personnel who wanted to keep playing with the tools of the trade for fun and profit after they commissioned out.

Mercenaries.

Coyne returned with a bottle of Anchor Steam and a mug of coffee. Shaw nodded thanks. It wasn’t too burnt.

She chugged half the bottle.

Shaw said, “Impressive what you’ve done.” Glancing toward the front of the property. “And in next to no time.”

Trying to pin her down.

“I started the minute we heard.”

Sidestepped that one, he thought.

“You were lucky to have a trencher.”

Wondering if she’d rented it recently.

“Farming is all about heavy equipment.” She gave a sour laugh. “You know what it’s like—digging the trenches? It’s like a reverse moat around a castle—and the water’s the marauding barbarian.”

“And planks at the gate? Your drawbridge.”

Another long swallow from the bottle. “I always thought that levee ought to be replaced. California’s the land of special referendums on the ballot. People can vote for what they want. Get a concrete one put in. I talked to my congresspeople. They enthusiastically said, ‘My goodness, you’re right. That levee’s a disaster just waiting to happen. We’ll get back to you.’ ” A bitter laugh escaped her throat. “I’ve been checking messages for four years. But zip.” She grew somber. “I heard a family died. Their SUV got washed away.”

“No, we saved them.”

“Thank God for that.”

The relief of someone who just learned she had not committed murder? Or was the reference just a way to brush up her patina of innocence?

In the reward business you learned to read people, and Colter Shaw was talented at it. But Annie Coyne remained a mystery.

And how had she known they were in an SUV.

She asked, “You know disaster response. So how do the trenches look?”

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