Page 4 of Ranger's Honor
I let the door swing open farther. “Of course he did.”
Dalton steps inside without asking, gaze sweeping the room like he’s cataloging every window, door, and lamp I could use as a weapon—or he could. It’s not subtle. It’s not meant to be.
“Did Gideon tell you I’m not a morning person?” I ask. “Because this is technically morning.”
“I’m not here for small talk.” His voice is low. Controlled. The kind of tone that makes most people shut up and listen.
Unfortunately for him, I’m not most people.
“So this is what? A surprise slumber party? Do I get to pick which corner you glower from?”
He gives me a look. Not annoyed. Not amused. Just... intense.
The moment I catch his scent, my pulse spikes. Danger. And I know its name—Dalton Calhoun. He just walked in like he owns the place. He doesn’t. The last time he was here myplace had an extra layer of chaos by the stuff I got from Sookie—a woman I’d never met, but whose work had been entrusted to me. Corkboards crisscrossed with red string, coffee cups in varying states of abandonment, open files, white boards and sticky notes had been added to my workspace. All those leads? Dead ends. Which made walking away feel almost reasonable—until tonight.
With a looming deadline, I’d catalogued everything—tidy folders, labeled files, neat denial. I planned to pick up the trail again once my current manuscript was done.
“Kari,” Dalton says, and somehow my name sounds like a warning. Or a vow.
I swallow.
“You know your brother. He knows Maggie is here and he wanted me to check on you. I was going to call you in the morning,” he adds. “Plans changed.”
“Define changed.”
“We have reason to believe The Reaper has resurfaced.”
Ice slithers down my spine.
“I know.”
His eyes narrow. “What do you mean, ‘you know’?”
I hesitate for half a second too long.
“Start talking, Kari.”
I cross my arms and lean against the doorframe. “After that initial rush, I listened to Gideon and put all of the stuff from Sookie away on a flash drive. I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I have my own life and career to think about.”
“And now?” he asks suspiciously.
“I got a message from him. Just a little bit ago. On my laptop.”
He’s already moving. “Show me.”
I lead him to the table. He yanks out the chair and opens the laptop. The screen stays dark.
I explain what I saw—the warning, the threat, the signature Reaper brand of intimidation. His expression doesn’t change, but the air around him does. The calm before something breaks. I can feel it in the way his gaze narrows, in the way the air between us grows heavy, electric. Like he’s holding something back. A storm tightening behind his ribs.
“Was the laptop online?”
“No.”
“External drives?”
“None connected.”
He mutters something under his breath and pulls out a small device. Plugs it into the USB port. It starts scanning.
