Or inaction, rather.

The sheriff stood there, surveying his deputy with an odd air of detached calm. As for the deputy, the only thing that moved was his hand. It shook, which caused the barrel of his gun to tremble slightly. Molly had no idea what was going on, but something began to perturb the hyperspace out of her Wadi. The small creature crawled around to her collarbone and tried to slither out through the bars. Molly held it back, clutching both hands around the small animal lest it run out into trouble.

After what felt like several minutes of a tense staredown, Molly finally saw a flash of movement from the sheriff: a smile. It slid across his lips and seemed to creep up under his gray mustache.

“Don’t do it,” the deputy said. He extended his gun out toward the sheriff, and the trembling in his hand increased. “Don’t analyze it. Don’t even think about it. And most important, don’t say a thing. I can let you live if I think you don’t know.” The deputy waved his gun toward the door. “If you stay mum, you can just ride out to that farm you’ve been dreaming of and never look back.”

The sheriff moved fast. So fast, Molly flinched and nearly lost her grip on the Wadi. His hand shot up. It seemed to travel through hyperspace to get there, as if it didn’t need to move through the intervening space. Molly peered at his hand and saw it had been formed into the shape of a gun—a double-finger barrel leveled at the deputy. It jabbed forward several times, indicating the man.

“You don’t just know . . . you’re involved,” said Sheriff Browne.

“You dumb fool,” the deputy said. “Just shut your trap and retire in peace.” The metal gun came up and was aimed right down the barrel of the sheriff’s fleshy one.

Sheriff Browne looked to the shut door. “That’s why you brought Paulie in, right? That’s why you wrote this up and took it so seriously. And yesterday, you didn’t act surprised when Mrs. Thrimble came in to report her maid went missing. You already knew about the Callites.”

“Sheriff, I’m gonna need you to cuff yourself to yonder cell.” The deputy glanced down at the sheriff’s hand. “And stop pointing that at me.”

The sheriff raised his arm and sighted past his cocked thumb. “This something you’ve been setting up for a long while? Been waiting for the old dog to crawl down from the porch and go off and die in solitude?”

“Down from the porch? Sheriff, you’ve been cowering under it for damn near a decade. You’ve got no idea what goes on in this town. Hell, while you’re sitting there behind your armored desk reading what’s on page two, I’m out there creating them headlines on the other side.”

“Look at the ruckus you’ve caused,” the prisoner whispered to Molly.