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his family until a couple days ago. Will there be trouble for him? Will my being here make that worse? I am a little bit of a celebrity. Somebody somewhere is going to want to leak this story eventually.
    The sheriff doesn’t even blink as he sits back again. “He say where he was goin’?”
    Duke blinks, mouth slightly open. He looks as surprised as I am that his announcement didn’t get a reaction from the sheriff. Duke takes a slow breath, and then answers the question. “No, he just stormed off.”
    “He got a cell phone on him?”
    “Left it here.”
    “D’he take a truck? Horse? Leave on foot?”
    “Took my truck.”
    Smoot shifts in his seat again and looks off out the window. “Dean takin’ his meds like he’s s’posed to?”
    There’s a guy out there somewhere who needs to take medicine. Okay. That’s okay, really. It might just mean he’s diabetic or gets migraines.
    But then why does Smoot care?
    Duke sighs heavily. “He didn’t take ’em with him.”
    “What’s he like when he’s off ’em?”
    “Emotional. Paranoid. Fists, then brains.”
    Oh, shit . I squeeze my steepled fingers until my knuckles ache, but I can’t make myself stop. Is that bipolar? PTSD? Something violently sociopathic?
    “You think he could’a done this?”
    I try not to shift around in my seat. Oh, God .
    Duke rubs at his eyes. “He’s done some stupid shit, but I don’t know why he’d do somethin’ like this. If he’d wanted someone hurt for what I told him, he’d come after me, not drive into Houston and plan all this out. He…reacts. He doesn’t do that premeditated thing.”
    Someone drugging me with an eye to violating me in some way could be a crime of opportunity. He had the stuff on him, he saw me, he used it on me. The forethought is in going out with roofies in his pocket in the first place. But somebody who isn’t rational without medication doing all that? Well, sometimes crazy probably got it right.
    But surely not. I mean, surely Duke would know or be able to sense something like that from his own brother. So it’s just a coincidence.
    Smoot drops the angle on Dean and moves on to something I should’ve asked Duke myself if I was able to think with my big head whenever I look at him.
    “What made you head on out where you found Mr. Seville?”
    “Laughlin called early. Said he had two of mine in his herd. I figured I had a fence down up that way. Thought I could get them later, so I went out for the fence to keep any more from wandering.”
    “Cows?” I ask, and then clear my throat. That’s my first question here? For heaven’s sake, Allan .
    Duke sits back again and gives me a little grin. His dimple caves in and he just looks happy. I like that I’ve put that look on his face.
    “Cattle,” he says.
    I shrug. “So what’s that mean? Hamburger instead of milk?”
    The both of them chuckle at me, but that’s fine. I have no problem owning my city slicker status.
    “We sell to Wendy’s exclusively now. It’s our second year doing that.”
    “Congratulations?”
    He nods and tips an invisible hat to me in thanks, still grinning. Gosh, he’s cute.
    “Well,” the sheriff says, “you let me know when you hear from Dean. I need to talk to him, too.”
    Duke loses his smile. “Yessir.”
    “Now, I need to talk to Toby and Ray. Where they at ’bout now?”
    “They’ll be up checking the herd.” Duke stuffs his hand into his pocket, probably going after his cell phone since he says, “I can call ’em. Have ’em come back in.”
    “How far are they from where you found Mr. Seville?”
    Duke pauses. “A mile or so.”
    “Have ’em come on over to us there, then. Two birds and all.”
    Smoot gets up and steps over to Duke. He puts a hand on Duke’s shoulder and catches his eyes. “Don’t make no difference to me who you sleep with, son. It’s the twenty-first century; them old ways of thinkin’ need to end and I’m fixin’ to see they don’t hold water in my