His phone went off. The ringtone was Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Everything He Needs.” He looked up to see Wy making a kissy face at him. She must have changed it when he was in the shower.

He looked down at the screen and sighed. And of course it was Barton. Not a day went by that wasn’t made better by a phone call from his boss.

Wy saw the name on Liam’s phone and prudently moved herself out of the blast zone.

“Hello, John,” he said, holding the phone at arm’s length.

“WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU, CAMPBELL!”

Even at arm’s length Colonel John Dillinger Barton’s bellow did tend to fill up a room. Liam worked his jaw back and forth to loosen up his eardrums. “I’m right here in Blewestown where you sent me, John.”

“ABOUT FUCKING TIME!”

“Really didn’t have to be here until next week,” Liam said, with no hope of being heard.

There was no hope of a soft answer turning away wrath, either, as the director of the Alaska State Troopers carried on at full volume. “WE’VE GOT DEATHS BY METH INCREASING BY A THIRD EVERY FUCKING YEAR AND MOST OF THE HOMEGROWN IS COMING OUT OF THAT CESSPOOL THEY CALL THE LOWER KP! THE GOVERNOR IS ALL UP IN MY GRILL TELLING ME THE TROOPERS ARE FALLING DOWN ON THE GODDAMN JOB! GET WITH THE FUCKING PROGRAM, CAMPBELL! I WANT TO SEE NUMBERS CRASHING THE WAY THEY DID WHEN YOU AND CHOPIN WERE IN THE VALLEY!”

“Certainly, sir,” he said.

Click. At least Barton wasn’t slamming his cell phones down on his desk anymore. Probably because the department’s bean counters got tired of paying for new ones.

Liam looked up to see Wy watching him with sympathy. “Yeah,” he said. “Evidently I’m supposed to fix the meth problem in the entire state of Alaska all by myself.”

“Well,” she said, and grinned. “If anyone can do it…”

He flipped her off and she tossed her hair and gave him a smoldering look from beneath her eyelashes. “Anytime, anywhere, Campbell.”

The local post was next to the local cop shop. He approved, as his post in Newenham had been isolated on a side road with nothing else around. Better for law enforcement to be smack in the middle of things. You had to be a neighbor before you could be a good neighbor. The Blewestown cop shop had brick walls and narrow windows and, unexpectedly, a colorful mural of sea otters frolicking in kelp on one side. His research had told him that it housed eight field officers, two administrative staff, and a chief with a no-bullshit reputation. Liam was looking forward to meeting him.

The trooper post was brand new and looked it, built on a template the Department of Public Safety had repeated all over the state. A square building sided with T-111 and roofed with asphalt shingles, it had a porch that faced the Bay, which surely the state had not paid for, as Alaska State Troopers were not encouraged to sit around outside admiring their own views. He was interested to see that there were solar panels on the roof, as well as on the roof of the cop shop. Jeff’s comment about woke communities notwithstanding, if Blewestown was woke enough to support alternative energy he was all for it. Jeff and his wife had installed solar panels on their house and Jeff had shown Liam the electric bills. It was only one of the reasons they’d bought it, but it was definitely one of the reasons they could afford it.