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“He’s the only one of us that can outscore you at the range, Duke,” Frankie said

“You’re nipping at our heels, Frankie I’ll take you out for practice when this is all over”

“Thanks, Duke,” she said, s She looked pleased in that dad-noticed-ave someone as just your boss Maybe that hy Duke and his officers all called one another by their first names? It was more family than business I’d seen it before on sree

“Who asked you to turn into your leopard?” Olaf asked It surprisedwhen there were no threats involved He didn’t usually enjoy interrogation without them

Bobby shook his head “I shouldn’t have said that I didn’t mean it”

“Bobby, just confess, and it’ll be all over,” Duke said

“We’re trying to get to the truth here, Sheriff, or don’t you care about who really killed Ray Marchand?” I asked

“We found him covered in blood at the scene of the cri this case are you and Win”

“If it was so open-and-shut, why didn’t you pull the trigger while Bobby was unconscious, Duke? If you were so certain that he killed his uncle, then you’d have been justified in shooting him at the scene No one would have questioned it You could have written the report up almost any way you wanted it to read This is your town Your deputies think of you as a father figure If it was so simpl

e, why didn’t you just take the simplest solution, Duke?”

He tried to aze with his bored-cop face, but he had to look away Whatever he was thinking or feeling at that moment, he wasn’t sure he could hide it fro emotion The question hich one?

“Unconscious see into a cell,” he said at last

“You couldn’t do it,” I said

“Not like that, no” Duke raised his eyes and let er and confusion in theer men who had history with their “coach” It was Leduc’s history with thee had been done to the relationships, if nothing else

Duke turned those angry eyes to the prisoner he’d known since he was in elementary school “But if Bobby would man up and be the uts all over that room, that I could shoot”