One

      What Sheriff Wyatt Milan liked most about his job was that he knew what to expect in his quiet town of Verity, Texas. But on this October afternoon when he turned his car around the corner onto Main Street he knew change was in the air.

      A red limousine took up his parking space, plus some, right in front of city hall.

      “What the hell?” he said quietly.

      “Gosh almighty, there goes a quiet afternoon,” Deputy Lambert whispered. “Will you look at that,” he said louder.

      Wyatt was looking. Directly in front of the small city hall building stood a prominent sign with large letters: No Parking—Reserved for the Sheriff of Verity, Texas.

      He had expected the usual big empty space where he could park Verity’s official black-and-red sheriff’s car. Instead, the red stretch limousine took every inch of the allotted area.

      He and his family had money, as did many families in the town, but no one owned anything as flashy as an all-red limo. “That limo doesn’t belong to anyone living in these parts,” Wyatt said, more to himself than to his deputy, thinking something was about to shatter some of the peacefulness of his hometown.

      “In my whole life, I’ve never seen a limo that big and that red,” Val said with awe in his voice. “I’ll go look for the driver.”

      “He may be inside.”

      “No one was scheduled to see you today, were they?”

      “No,” Wyatt said, halting beside the limo. “You write a ticket and stick it on the windshield. Come in when you’re through. If the owner or the driver isn’t here, we’ll go look around town for him. The people who live here want a quiet, peaceful town. I want one, too. Thanks to my sister marrying a Calhoun, the old Milan-Calhoun feud has finally died down. I don’t want something happening to bring trouble elsewhere in town.”

      “Amen to that. Why would anyone park a big limo in the sheriff’s space?”

      “Either he’s lazy, starting trouble, unobservant or he’s someone who thinks he can do whatever he wants. Who knows?”

      Deputy Lambert stepped out and Wyatt drove around the corner and parked in the alley behind the building, in the small space allotted for two cars and a nearby Dumpster. His life had had enough upheavals—an emotional breakup years earlier with his fiancée and then coming home to his brother fighting with a Calhoun neighbor, keeping the century-old family feud explosive. When people wanted him to run for sheriff of Verity County, based in the town of Verity, he’d had to quiet fights between his brother Tony and Tony’s neighbor Lindsay Calhoun. Everything was finally coming under control. He didn’t want someone to come to town and destroy the peace he had worked hard to establish. He shook his head as he entered city hall. He hoped this was settled quickly and quietly and the red limo drove out of Verity the same way it’d come in.

      Entering the Verity County sheriff’s office through the back door, Wyatt walked down the long hall. His boot heels scraped the scuffed boards as he passed the large file room, a small break room and a meeting room with a small table and chairs. The hallway continued, dissecting the stone building. To the right were the mayor’s office, the town records office and the utilities office. To the left were the sheriff’s office and a two-cell jail. The center reception area was lined with vinyl-covered benches and in the middle was a desk where a clerk sat. Wyatt looked at Corporal Dwight Quinby whose wide eyes sent a silent message that something was up here at the office. Dwight’s tangled light brown hair became more snarled as he ran his fingers through it.

      “Sheriff, there’s a woman in your office. When she said she wanted to see you, I told her to have a seat out here, that you’d be back soon, but she talked