“Chet’s practicing to be a chef. You should see what he does with pimento cheese. He makes it taste like dessert.” My words are too fast and my voice too bright, like a spotlight on the melting snow outside.

“Here you go, Sheriff,” Chet says, handing over the beer. “Got any news about Sienna?”

I widen my eyes at Chet—real subtle—but Micah doesn’t seem to mind the question. “Yep, but not anything I can tell the two of you. Dad’s holding a press conference tomorrow morning, though, so maybe give it a watch.” He tips the bottle at Chet, then me. “Cheers.”

I pour myself a glass of water, but I can’t drink. My stomach is in knots, my hand shaking the glass. I set it on the marble with a hard smack.

“I hear you took the boat to town.” Micah pauses to receive my nod. “Don’t do it again, okay? This entire end of the lake is an active crime scene. I put up no-entry signs at either side of the bend by Piney Creek, and if you see anybody out on the water between now and tomorrow morning, I want to know about it.”

“What happens tomorrow morning?”

“We’ll be back in the lake as soon as it’s light, looking at currents, trying to determine her trajectory from the moment she went in the water until we fished her out so we know where to point the sonar.” His eyes flash with excitement. For Micah, there’s no better day than one he gets to strap on his flippers and an oxygen tank and skim the lake bottom like a catfish, sifting through the silt for evidence. “We’ll be starting in the cove, though, so if anyone tries to sneak past us, we’ll see it.”

I nod, the tightness I’ve been carrying around all day releasing just a tiny bit in my chest. Micah and his divers will be out on the cove tomorrow, which means no more surprise visits from Jax, no more vile words carved into the snow.

Micah swivels his head to Chet, watching from the other side of the counter. “In the meantime, Dad says for you to stop harassing Piper.”

A red flush sprouts on Chet’s cheeks, and his gaze darts between me and Micah. His expression says fuuuuuuuuuck.

“I wasn’t harassing her,” Chet says slowly, thinking about every word before it comes out of his mouth. “Piper and I were just...talking. About stuff.”

Micah gives him a knowing nod. “What kind of stuff?”

Chet coughs into a fist. “Basically, she told me to leave her alone because she doesn’t want to go to jail.”