Page 23 of Deviant

However, if he’s onto something with this loophole business, then Joe should be the last person frightened of anything.

Or maybe… he would rather not risk it, either way.

Perhaps he’s just hedging his bets.

Maybe that’s Joe’s true superpower—how he’s perfected his mask. One that has deemed him too incompetent to be part of the Harvest Dozen and too inconsequential for people to even notice him, concealing how clever he really is.

He might think me bright, but to me, he’s the real genius walking amongst us.

“Rowen,” my father calls yet again, his tone now coated with impatience.

I turn to face my father, who is now standing in the center of the lobby, only to find his blank expression staring back at me, a single flicker of disappointment dwelling in his eyes.

Head bowed, I make a beeline to him, doing my utmost best not to glance at the evidence room just a few feet away to my right.

If I so much as look in that direction, who knows how my father would react.

He doesn’t say hello when I reach his side, preferring to hand Bobby a folder with some last-minute tasks instead.

“Leave it to me, Hank,. I’ll get this all done for you,” Bobby says after glancing at a few pages. “Now you and Rowen skedaddle and be on your way. We can take it from here.” Bobby winks at me.

I feel my father’s body stiffen instantly at the endearment.

Everyone under his deploy has this idea of me… of the sheriff’s daughter that… doesn’t hold any water to it whatsoever.

They think I’m perfect.

That I’m good.

That I’m everything a daughter from Blackwater Falls should aspire to be.

But not everyone in this town has been so falsely misled.

My father knows that I’m anything but perfect.

And that realization has compromised his own idealistic views about himself.

Because while he might be the sheriff—who has a duty of locking up criminals—he refused to imprison a murderess like me.

He hasn’t forgiven me for my treachery.

He hasn’t forgiven me for the lies and deceit.

And when he looks at me, he no longer sees the daughter he loved above all—he sees Nora’s killer.

And rightfully so.

And though my father refuses to punish me for it, I’ve promised myself not to be as lenient.

I don’t want to cause him any more shame, but I will avenge Nora’s untimely death by punishing her murderer in the only way I know how.

My days are more than accounted for.

I just need to figure out a way to do it.

Even good people do bad things.

Joe’s words come to me like an omen.

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