Chapter 5 - The Walls Close In
At dawn, Sheriff Rick Barnes arrived at the courthouse with an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth and a cup of diner coffee in his hand.
He was a thick-necked man of fifty-five, with a barrel chest, graying hair cut into a high-and-tight burr, and the swagger of a man who had never faced a consequence in his entire life.
He pushed open his office door, took two steps inside, and froze.
His floor safe stood wide open. The shelves inside were untouched—the banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills sat completely undisturbed. But the shelf where the black ledger had rested was empty.
Barnes’s face flushed dark crimson. "Cole!" he roared. "Cole, get your worthless ass in here!"
No answer came.
Then Barnes looked down at his desk.
His coffee cup slipped from his fingers, shattering on the hardwood floor, dark liquid splashing across his polished leather boots.
Sitting on his blotter was the black envelope. The brass skull gleamed dull and menacing in the morning light.
Beneath it lay a handwritten note on plain courthouse stationery:
*You should have stayed home on Tuesday, Rick.*
Barnes reached for his desk phone, his hands shaking with a sudden, violent rage. He dialed dispatch.
"Who was in my office last night?" he bellowed into the receiver. "Pull the security tapes! Pull the maintenance logs!"
"Sheriff?" the dispatcher’s voice trembled. "We... we have a situation on Black River Road. Deputy Evans was found in his cruiser twenty minutes ago."
"Did he wreck it?"
"No, sir. He was... he was sedated, sir. Zip-tied to his wheel. His firearm was unloaded and thrown in the ditch. And sir..."
"What?!"
"They painted something on the side of his cruiser. In white industrial paint."
Barnes gripped the receiver so hard the plastic creaked. "What did they paint?"
"*REAPER.*"
The line went dead.
Barnes slammed the receiver down, his chest heaving. For the first time in twenty years, the air inside his own office felt thin. He had built this valley into a fortress. He had bought the politicians, intimidated the business owners, and broken anyone who dared raise their voice.
He opened his center drawer, reached past his spare magazines, and pulled out an old, heavily dog-eared file he had received from a friend in the State Department nearly fifteen years ago.
It was a background check on Dennis Irwin.
At the time, the file had come back almost entirely redacted—black marker obliterating eighteen years of service history, leaving only a birth certificate, an honorable discharge from the Army with no assigned unit, and a janitorial placement certificate.
Barnes had laughed when he first saw it. He had called Dennis a "broken veteran pushing a broom."
Now, looking at the brass skull on his blotter, the laughter died in his throat.
"You're dead, Dennis," Barnes hissed to the empty room. "I don't give a damn what you used to be. You're an old man with a mop, and this is my county."
May you like
He grabbed his radio. "All units. Code Red. Mobilize the tactical team to the waterworks. Call Harlan Vance. Tell him to get his ass to the courthouse immediately."
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