“I don’t know. I’ll be on the phone Monday to figure out what kind of shit he pulled to get out.”

“Fifteen to life . . . doesn’t that mean he’s there forever?” Mel’s question hung in the air.

“Obviously not, hon.” Wyatt held her close.

“Ziggy is one mean motherfucker,” Mark chimed in. “I remember him pulling Sheryl out of Sam’s by the hair one night, yelling that she hadn’t made him dinner.”

“I don’t remember that,” Mel said.

“You weren’t there. Dad looked at me and told me he was the reason you couldn’t go to Zoe’s house to play when you were in grade school.”

“What the hell is Sheryl thinking, bringing him back in the house?” Wyatt asked.

Luke glanced at the bedroom door and thought of Zoe sleeping off the effect of the news. “He better not hurt her.”

Jo stood before the open drapes, staring out at the lights of the Vegas strip. “He already has.”

Jo held Zoe’s hair back as she gripped the edges of the toilet and regretted the last three drinks from the previous night. “Fuck me.” She emptied her already empty stomach once again.

“You’re not my type.”

“I’m too old for this.”

“You’re not even thirty.”

Zoe’s clammy skin made her feel a hundred.

“What the hell was I thinking?”

Jo patted her on the back and spoke in soothing tones. “You have your reasons.”

Zoe had ignored the stares the night before, but at ten in the morning, with her pores reeking of alcohol, she couldn’t deny the truth. “Miss Gina called you, didn’t she?”

“Deputy Emery.”

Zoe sat her butt on the marble floor and accepted Jo’s cold washcloth. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, Jo.”

Jo pulled up the vanity bench and rested her hands on her knees. “I don’t get it. My contact told me he was slated for the next six years if he kept his nose clean.”

Zoe had followed the news enough to know the prison system was overcrowded and they were releasing inmates left and right.

“Hey?” Mel stepped into the bathroom with a chilled bottle of water.

Zoe took it but didn’t bother drinking it. She placed it to her forehead and closed her eyes.

“I can almost get the fact he managed to get out of jail. But my mom . . . what the hell?”

Mel took the edge of the small seat Jo sat on. “Aren’t they divorced?”

It turned Zoe’s stomach to think about it. “She said yes, but who knows.”

“I can check the county records, find out.”

Zoe blinked Jo’s way with a little nod. Much as she hated asking her friend to do that, she wanted to know the facts so she could deal with them. Her mother’s lies tended to affect everyone around her. “Has anyone spoken with Miss Gina?”

“I did. She said Zanya called her to ask when we were coming back.”

“I’ve got to get her out of there. And Blaze . . . that’s no way to grow up.” Much as Zoe wanted to let her sister get on with her life and make her own decisions, she couldn’t sit back and watch her childhood repeat with her nephew.

“One day at a time, Zoe.”

Mel, the forever optimist, asked, “Could he have changed? Maybe he’s—”

Both Jo and Zoe stared at Mel until her words died off.

Zoe took a chance, opened the water, and took a tiny sip. “Where are the guys?”

“Packing their stuff. Luke is changing his flight and booking yours for later.”

She looked around the bathroom in search of a clock. “Isn’t it close to checkout?”

“Don’t worry about it. We arranged a later checkout for you.”

“We’ll get back and gather as many details as we can before you get there.”

Zoe’s stomach started to protest the intrusion of water. She leaned forward. “We were having such a good time.”

“I had a great time, Zoe. I’m not letting your deadbeat dad ruin this whole weekend for us.”

Zoe attempted to smile even as her stomach rejected what she’d put in it.

The girls tucked her back in bed, and when she woke, Luke sat beside her. She curled next to him and let him stroke her head.

News traveled fast in small towns.

Jo stripped out of her civilian clothes the second she stepped in the door of her home and slipped into her uniform. Her sidearm was a welcome relief on her hip. Something she planned on keeping within arm’s reach until Ziggy Brown left town on his own or was back behind bars.

She’d read her father’s reports on the man.

He was a piece of human dirt who had little respect for his own life, let alone those of his wife and children. Even though Zoe was coming back to town to sort out some of the pieces of this broken puzzle, Jo couldn’t help but hope that her friend would go back to Texas so whatever was going to play out did so without her being there.

She stepped into the station after six.

It was Sunday, and normally Glynis had the calls forwarded to either Deputy Emery or Jo after five. The town wasn’t Mayberry, but the crime rate didn’t warrant a twenty-four/seven staff unless there was someone in the holding tank. Most of the time they shipped out their temporary incarcerated guests to Waterville, where they had a much bigger force. While Jo’s jurisdiction covered a lot of miles, the population wasn’t that dense. Her town felt suddenly smaller with Ziggy Brown out of jail.