“No, you won’t.” Max closed the laptop and stood beside Lyle.

“You ain’t stopping me, Max.”

“No—I’m not stopping you; I’m going with you.”

CHAPTER 24

Max hadn’t had a beer in over three years. It was one of those things he’d felt he no longer deserved. Lyle, on the other hand, didn’t suffer that deficiency, and purchased a twelve-pack on his way out to Max’s cabin. They had driven separately to pay their visit to Bolger and had decided, after that fiasco, it was time to put together a plan.

A strong November wind ushered in the kind of cold that seeped through the walls and made a man’s joints work slower, so Max began setting a fire in the cabin’s woodstove.

Lyle popped the top on his beer and sat on the couch. “Did you see the way his hackles stood on end?”

Max, who knelt in front of the fire, didn’t have to look at Lyle to know that the old sheriff was smiling. The showdown with Bolger had invigorated him.

“I think I hit a nerve,” Lyle continued. “You saw it, right? How he got all twisted when I mentioned Tioga Pit? I swear there’s something there.”

Max joined Lyle, taking a seat in a chair across the coffee table from him, where a cold beer sat opened and waiting. One more marker on Max’s slide back to a world he didn’t deserve. Still, he took a drink, thick and smooth. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.

“So what’s our next move?” Lyle said.

“We look at this from a new angle. If Reed had a hand in this, he’d have to have had an accomplice because Reed was at the casino. I doubt that Bolger looked for evidence of that when he searched Reed’s house.”

“Evidence like what?”

“They would have to communicate somehow and Reed’s probably smart enough not to use his personal cell. Maybe we can find proof of a burner phone—a receipt or bill, something like that. If I could get a look inside his house…”

Lyle sat back on the couch and appraised Max. “You understand what that means, right? You’d be committing a burglary. They’ll lock you up if they catch you.”

“I understand.”

“You got no dog in this fight.”

Max thought about his dream, the child he couldn’t save. It seemed an easy calculation. He could die alone and forsaken in the woods, waiting for a reckoning that might never come, or he could go down fighting for something good. And although it went against everything he once stood for, Max felt at peace with this particular felony.

“Dog or no dog,” Max said, “I’m going.”

“Okay, tell me your plan.”

The plan was simple: Max would break in while Lyle sat outside of the Dizzy Duck to keep an eye on Reed. But the plan had one big, obvious flaw, and Lyle called it out right away. “So how are you gonna get inside Reed’s house without breaking a window?”