I didn’t recognize him. Kayla supplied the name before she left. “Wade Cain.” She hugged herself against the cool night air. “He owns Cain Realty Group.

Half the commercial property in this county belongs to him. People say he owns most of the people who are supposed to enforce the law too.”

“Including the sheriff?”

She glanced toward the road before answering. “Especially the sheriff.”

Chapter 6 — The Pattern

I didn’t sleep. I stayed at the kitchen table with a legal pad and two more cups of coffee that both went cold, and did what the Army had trained me to do better than almost anything else.

I built an intelligence picture. One piece at a time.