“So what’s the difference if I sell to someone else? Either way, you’re out.”

Prescott had a point, but it didn’t sit well with Jase. They both knew it. Because of the ghosts.

“Or,” Prescott said, as if the thought had just crossed his mind. “You could buy me out. I’d give you a deal, and we wouldn’t have the Realtor’s cut. Clean and simple.”

There it was. The reason Prescott had asked him to stop by so early in the morning. It was so like his brother to beat around the bush, hint, and sneak up on a topic rather than say what he wanted outright. In this case, Jase suspected it was because of Lena.

“This is just the opposite from what we agreed.” And Jase had ambitions associated with his job; he didn’t need a ranch to distract him from his goal. Already he had his application in at the police department.

Prescott lifted a shoulder. “Got to keep the peace, y’know? Besides, things change.”

“Do they?” Jase wasn’t so sure as he walked outside to the back porch and stared across the rolling acres to a rise. Past the drying grass and a few sunbaked outbuildings, a tall oak rose in the distance. Less than a hundred yards beyond the tree’s spreading branches was the property line and the slow-moving river.

Images seared through his brain: scenes from his youth, like photographs in an album shuffled quickly past, and he shut his mind to that part of his life, a past long buried that he’d tried like hell to forget.

He heard the porch boards creak as his brother came out to join him.

“In a way, Lena’s right, you know,” Prescott said, following Jase’s gaze down toward the river. “There are just too many damned ghosts here, y’know?”

Jase did know. Though he’d never admit it to anyone.

“I’ll beef up the patrols on your street,” Bentz said as he cradled his cell phone to his ear and rolled his chair closer to the desk. Immune to the noise of the other detectives and staff, he focused on the voice on the phone and the image of the killer on his computer screen. Obsessed with the footage, he watched the video of Father John for at least the twentieth time, but this morning, instead of beer, he was downing his third cup of coffee and hoping the caffeine would stave off the headache that throbbed near his temples.

All the while, the station had come to life around him. Phones jangled, voices buzzed, and footsteps shuffled amid the rows of desks. Somewhere a printer chugged out pages over the constant rumble of the air-conditioning unit forcing cool air through the vents. Still, the rooms were warm. Barely ten in the morning and already the heat of the day was permeating the windows and walls of the old building.