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Denver crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits as he stared Leo down.

I waited for him to arrive before saying, “Leo, isn’t it a little late?”

He may be eighteen now, and a legal adult, but he was still just a kid in my eyes.

“I don’t think so, Sheriff.” He chuckled. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re out here in the middle of a storm and should be inside where it’s warm,” I pointed out.

Plus, after overhearing all the shit that you might’ve done, I’m not sure what to think of you. Nor do I want to see you.

Not that I shared those things with him.

Leo had always been a mystery to me.

Something never sat quite right when it came to him, and after listening to some of the things that’d happened to Jessamy…maybe I was being purposefully obtuse.

She was very adamant that Leo had something to do with their parents’ and their grandmother’s deaths. He probably even had something to do with the grandfather’s death, even though he would have been a child at the time.

Though Jessamy’s grandmother’s death had been ruled of natural causes.

The parents of Jessamy and Leo?

That I didn’t know.

Odin, the town medical examiner, hadn’t found signs of a struggle. Hadn’t found any cause of death other than hypothermia.

There’d been no drugs in their systems. No bruising. No nothing that would indicate anything nefarious.

According to Odin, it was like they went outside and had just…passed.

I’d looked into everything anyway.

Leo had shared the codes and passwords to look into the security system. It’d been armed at eleven after video surveillance showed Leo going upstairs, and the two of them exited. They didn’t come back. The next person that caused movement was Leo coming downstairs dressed in his school clothes.

So, unless he was able to crawl down the stairs from a third-story window—none of the other windows opened and I hadn’t been able to ask why since both parents were dead—and expertly navigate around several security cameras to then kill his parents in a way that looked like they froze to death…

“I saw my sister’s car…”

“You need to stay away from her,” I ordered. “She’s asked you to stay away. Things always get violent when the two of you are together. Don’t make it to where the judge has no choice but to allow the protection order to go through.”

Leo scowled. “What protection order?”

The one that I’ll file on her behalf if you keep fucking with her.

Because, despite the sweet personality he always gave off, I knew he wasn’t innocent in whatever was going on with him and his sister.

Leo was likely helping instigate it all, and was able to hide his transgressions. Meanwhile, Leo infuriated Jessamy so badly that she couldn’t stop herself from reacting.

“The one that she’s trying to get against you,” I said. “Right now, there’s not much for him to think she needs protection from, but if you keep harassing her, then she’ll get one.”

I saw Leo’s sweet demeanor slip slightly and knew that I’d hit a nerve.

“Right,” Leo said, recovering quickly. “Have a nice night, y’all.”

Even his Texan accent was fake.

Kid was born and raised in Montana.