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His eyes stay on mine a beat longer than they should. “Where did you learn cattle? You didn’t learn that alley in a classroom.”
“My father was a brand inspector in eastern New Mexico. Thirty-one years. He used to take me to the sale barns on Saturdays and make me read hides for a quarter apiece.” I don’t know why I’m telling him. I don’t tell people this. “I got rich by the time I was nine. Then I got expensive.”
“Is he still inspecting?”
“He died when I was twenty-two. Heart.” I lift the coffee. “So I know what twelve days looks like.”
Garrett doesn’t say he’s sorry. He nods slowly. The room is quieter than it was.
I don’t know what to do with that either, so I hand him my list: the original intake application for account 4473, the administrator log, the scale ticket, the vehicle record.
“Done,” he says. “I’ll send a truck to take you to the county clerk.”
“I have a rental.”
“My driver knows the roads.”
“The clerk’s office is on a public square, not at the end of a cattle trail.”
He holds my gaze. Attraction and irritation sit close together in his face, both controlled, neither hidden. “Then text my office when you leave and when you arrive.”
“I didn’t agree to report my movements to you.”
“Then tell someone you trust.”
“That was always the plan.”
He stands. At the door he stops. “Tessa.”
The first time he says my name. One word, no false warmth. It still goes lower than it has any right to.
“Garrett,” I answer, because my professional judgment has apparently decided to take the afternoon off in small, deniable increments.
The corner of his mouth moves. Then he’s gone, and I sit for a full ten seconds before I remember I was holding a coffee.
The county clerk’s office occupies a limestone building old enough to have been modern twice. The clerk looks at my sketch of the brand and says, “That bar part of it?”
“I’m asking you to search both versions.”
“That usually means the bar is the question.”
The current book confirms that the consignor’s registered mark wasn’t active on the day Lot 118 arrived. The older mark under the bar points toward a registration in another county. I pay for certified copies of everything and add it to my file, and before I leave, I call the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association through its published number and ask for the regional Special Ranger.
Eli Mercer answers like a man with six other calls waiting. “Tell me what you observed, not what you think happened.”
I like him immediately.
I tell him about the brand, the tag hole, the ownership field, the cut tie, the camera. He tells me not to collect anything outside my contract, not to play detective with ranch staff, and to call 911 first if someone threatens me.
“Anybody threaten you yet?” he asks.
“Someone created a cattle disturbance near me. Intent isn’t established.”
A pause. “You always answer that carefully?”
“Only when words might become a report.”
I don’t tell him why. I don’t tell anyone why, usually.
