Dale didn’t answer. Harwood could see him on the other side of the stoop, his face drawn tight and contorted, smoke practically billowing from his ears. Harwood figured Shelby put a little too much faith in her neighbors; nobody in this part of Deception gave a damn about anything besides stretching the welfare check to the end of the month, and maybe finding a way to keep the rain from soaking through the ceiling. They sure weren’t about to stick their noses into official police business.

But Harwood was still hoping he could talk this through. “Listen, Shelby,” he called. “No hard feelings, okay? Let’s all take a step back and cool down for a minute.”

He waited. No answer.

“We just want back what we came for,” he continued. “You point us to it, and we’ll be on our way. Heck, I’ll even pay for your door.”

Another laugh. It wasn’t the kind of laugh that instilled confidence. “Well hey, that’s generous of you, Kirby. I wish I could help. But that package you want, that was Ty’s department. And he never even showed it to me.”

“You’re lying.” Dale again. Harwood looked over, motioned with his hand, Calm the fuck down.

“Am I lying, Dale?” Shelby said. “You think if I had any inkling where that package wound up I’d still be answering the goddamn phones for you all at the detachment? You think I’d still keep my mama here in this shit-hole town?” A beat. “You think, Dale, that if I had that package, I might not have tried to shake you down for money at some point? You think maybe that’s how it would have gone down?”

“You must know something,” Harwood said. “Shelby, we just want to talk. How about you let us in, and we talk this over. Patch this all up, instead of shooting each other?”

There was no answer, and Harwood took that as a positive sign. He pushed himself to his feet, brushed the mud and the brambles from his clothes, made to climb back onto the stoop and ease his way through the front door.

The second crack from Shelby’s rifle chased that thought from his mind.

“Damn it!” He was down in the muck again, thorns scratching bare skin, piercing through his shirt, his sidearm falling away and landing somewhere in the mud. “Look here, Shelby—”

Dale cut him off, came crashing in beside him. Harwood hadn’t even noticed he’d moved, but his deputy had been busy. He held a jerry can and a handful of matches, left over from their extracurricular mission to the Winslow residence.

“We gotta smoke her out, Kirby,” Dale said, and in his eyes there was already fire. “Get our hands on her, get her somewhere quiet. She’ll talk, boss, I can promise you that.”