The front of the house hadn’t fared any better. Danny had hammered up boards over the shattered windows, but there were still plenty of visible bullet wounds all across the front face and on the porch rails. Mel walked along the porch and ran a hand over the holes, feeling them as if checking to see if they were real. There were even more inside the house, from those bullets that had passed through the broken windows.

There were holes in the roof, and the wind whistled through them.

It was all silent testimony to the furious violence that had occurred here, to just how lucky Chris had been to walk away a second time.

That was the doubt he saw in Mel’s eyes. This had been their home, a place she had come to love, but Chris had almost died here, again.

Maybe no home was worth so much.

—

SHE’D BEEN STAYING OUT AT JAVY CRUZ’S, away from the media circus in town, while he’d been living out of the Budget Inn in Murfee. But now that the circus was finally packing up and leaving, it was time to make some decisions.

Bringing her out here was the first one.

He took Jack from her, felt his son’s familiar heartbeat and warmth, and let her wander around inside and outside the house. He’d told her what had happened and she’d read some of the news accounts, but none of that had prepared her for this sight.

He gave her all the time she needed, as Rocky—nose down, ears up—traced unseen paths through the scrub, following the steps of the investigators who’d set up shop at his home for days. They’d tried to re-create the shoot-out, to figure out exactly who had been where, at what moment, and although Chris had lived it . . . survived it . . . he couldn’t remember many of those exact details.

But I remember I shot at men I thought were cops, agents. I was willing to do that, to save America, to save Danny.

To save myself.

To survive.

Another choice he’d have to live with.

He hadn’t bothered to read all the reports and findings. They meant nothing to him. He knew all he needed to know.

Mel walked out slow onto the porch, holding two things: one of his election signs, shot through with two holes, and a broken picture frame. It had been blasted off the wall, shattered, the picture inside ruined. She dropped the sign and turned the frame over and over and then gently put it down on the porch rail. She kissed Chris, and tried a smile that never quite made it to her eyes.

She might have been crying when she was alone inside the house.

“Okay, Sheriff, what are we going to do?”