Tess could sympathize. There were a lot of exciting, challenging duties in police work, but there was also plenty of grunt work: standing perimeters, waiting for coroners, babysitting prisoners. Most cops would rather get the challenging duty. And the trafficking case was big and challenging. If Tess were Mia, she’d prefer to be somewhere else, in the thick of the investigation, rather than sidelined with a teenager, even though all of the duty helped make the case. Takano would have to bend to authority and settle into the job.

Bass was the senior agent, and he won in the end. It was an unhappy Agent Takano who dragged her suitcase into the shelter as Tess and Bass left the area. Before Bass left, he gave Tess a thumb drive—“The sum total of my investigation into Cyrus Beck.” Tess hoped to have time to look through it all carefully.

While the decision to house the girl had been Bronwyn and Nye’s, and they were both more than capable, Tess felt a rising anxiety and a strong premonition that she should have tried harder to talk them out of it.

After all, Isaac Pink was a trained cop, and look what had happened to him and his family when he’d tried to shelter a witness. Tess prayed history would not repeat itself and vowed she would do all in her power to keep everyone safe.

10

Bass had been gone about an hour when a familiar face knocked on Tess’s door.

“Got a minute, Chief?”

Tess looked up and smiled at Sergeant Steve Logan, a man she had dated when she first came to Rogue’s Hollow, and someone she still considered a good friend at the sheriff’s department. But Tess was wary. What if he’d heard about the witness? She was not about to lie straight to his face.

“Sure, Steve, what’s up?”

He stepped into her office and she saw he wasn’t alone. Behind him came a fish and game officer Tess knew but didn’t like. Win Yarrow was taciturn and disagreeable. He was also old-school and chauvinistic. Tess hadn’t had much contact with him but got the distinct impression that he did not care for her. Besides, she could never compete with him when it came to knowledge of the outdoors and the issues he dealt with on a daily basis.

“It’s because you aren’t a native Oregonian,” RHPD Officer Bender had told her. “Don’t take it personal.”

She tried not to, but at times the man was openly hostile.

“Win and I have had a busy morning,” Steve said.

“I can smell that,” she said, making a face. Both men were smudged with soot, and they brought with them the smoky odor of fire and burning wood. They’d been in the burn area for some reason.