Larger Than Life by Alison Kent (read the beginning after the end novel .txt) 📕

is my search, Wagner. Not yours. I'm allowing you here as a professional courtesy only. Don't think that means I won't cuff you if you get in my way."

"Uh, Sheriff?"

At the question from his second deputy, the one who'd been searching through the attic and was just now catching up, Munroe turned. The younger man dusted dirt from his shoulders and cobwebs from his hair before shoving his hat on his head.

"What is it, Levi?"

Levi jerked a thumb back toward the direction from which he'd come. "The back wall on the second floor? It's not the back wall. I mean, it is. But there's an inconsistency in the construction. It doesn't quite fit."

"Bloody fucking hell," Mick muttered, hearing Neva catch her breath.

Munroe frowned. "Fit? What're you saying?"

The young deputy nodded, adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "The age, the materials. The rest of the attic is original. The back wall is more consistent with the newer construction downstairs."

Mick had to give the sheriff credit. Munroe ignored Wagner's gloating chuckle and turned. "Neva? You want to tell me what Levi here is talking about?"

She shrugged, shook her head. "I had different contractors in and out during the original remodeling of the barn. One of them replaced rotting wood in several places. I'm assuming that's it."

"Uh-huh." Yancey turned back to Levi. "Find a way through the wall. Take out a board if you have to. I want to know what's behind it."

"Sheriff, please." Neva stepped forward, her hands clenched and held to her chest. "Searching is one thing. Destroying is another. This is my place of business. My livelihood."

"Which is why I'm keeping it to one board," he emphasized, holding up one finger. "I won't make it two unless I have to. And I won't have to take out the one if you can prove that wall is just a wall."

Neva cut her gaze toward Mick. He heard what she was asking, gave her an imperceptible shake of his head. No reason to volunteer ammunition. Let them find what they might find on their own. He hated to have her place turned upside down. But cleaning up later made for a much better option than rolling over now and playing dead.

Neva sighed, crossed her arms, and said, "Do what you have to do, Sheriff."

"I'll take that as your consent," he said, and she nodded, though it hardly appeared a willing concession.

Ignoring Mick as had been the case since arriving, Munroe held her gaze for several more seconds, seeming to deflate as he gave a go-ahead nod to his deputy and followed the younger man back toward the studio door. The second deputy and Holden hurried to catch up.

Mick looked over to where Neva stood hugging herself tightly and staring into the distance. Hands at his waist, he let his gaze fall to the ground, bit off words he never said aloud. He'd been upstairs in the safe room. The wall Sheriff Munroe was on his way to tear down opened into the rear of the dormitory.

Neva was aware of the same thing and obviously making a mental run-through of the room as she'd left it. She had no way of knowing nothing was the same. That he'd been there since she had. That the arrangements he'd made with Rabbit meant the sheriff wouldn't find a thing. And that much, at least, she deserved to know.

He crossed to where she was standing, took hold of her hands, waited until she looked into his eyes, then whispered his demand. "Trust me. They're not going to find a thing tying you to Liberty or any of the girls."

She huffed, a laughing sort of exhalation that he wasn't sure whether to take as a yes or a no. "They'll find the room. And that's enough. That's all they'll need. I'm done here," she said before she turned and headed back to the patio, not even waiting for him to catch up.

He did, and they entered the studio, took a left instead of a right, and made their way beyond Candy's work area to the main staircase rising to the barn's second floor. The steps and railing here were new, matching the build-out of the rest of the structure, the ascent less steep than that of the flight hidden behind the shipping center.

Once in the attic, however, the newness quickly wore off and old took over. As they picked their way in and out and around a half decade of storage, the clutter of boxes and shelving and bins, Mick realized how an addition to the main structure could easily stand out. And when they reached it, how much it did.

"I can't believe this," Neva muttered at his side, standing back and watching the young deputy take a crowbar to a vertical two-by-eight in the center of the wall. "I was looking for an old order of Candy's, digging through boxes. I didn't even think about putting them all back."

"Boxes wouldn't make any difference." The wall was aged, yes, but not to the degree of the rest of the attic. "It's obviously not original."

Neva looked caught between anger and exhaustion, her skin pale, her freckles in high color, bright enough to stand out in the overhead light that was dim and slanting in through the walls, spotlighting dust motes. "Why didn't I paint it or stain it or something?"

The woman amazed him, the way she never gave herself a break. The way she had to take all the blame, carry all the burden. The way she leaned on him one minute, seemed to forget in the next that he was there to help.

"That's not a hard one, Neva. You were more concerned with what was going on on the other side." A what, Mick realized straight away, that everyone and their daddy was another two-by-eight from finding out.

The deputy handed the first board to the sheriff, who authorized a second to be pried away. A third followed, the gap wide enough now for even