"Failure!"

  "A Disgrace!"

  "It's all your fault!"

  The voices ricocheted in the dark. Buck sat alone in a chair, head pinned back by a blinding spotlight. The circle beyond the light shifted—then filled with faces. Mole faces. Elderly. Furious. Disgusted.

  "You didn't save him!"

  "Why didn't you try harder?"

  "You're terrible! Awful! He trusted you!"

  Dozens of them, closing in, all spitting venom and blame. They hurled reprimands like spears. Every word punctured him over and over with guilt. Buck folded forward, hands over his ears. He tried to shut them out—but they were right. It was his fault. His bullet. His cowardice. Sam died because of me.

  The shouting cut off like a slammed door. A hand touched his shoulder.

  The tired fox stood beside him. Bloodshot eyes. Quiet voice. "Keep moving forward, Buck. You know what you need to do."

  He stepped aside.

  Behind him, the light flared—and Sam lay there. Crushed beneath the rubble. Clothes burned black.

  Buck fell to his knees and grabbed his partner’s hand. A rasp. Barely more than a breath.

  "He’s……lyin’…"

  What—?

  A violent pounding rocked his front door and Buck jerked awake, drenched with sweat. It took him a full moment to realize the pounding was real. And it matched the beating in his skull. His hangover was in full swing.

  He stumbled his way to the door and opened it, if only to make it stop.

  An angel stood in the hallway, basked in the fluorescent lights. Goldie, wrapped in a soft brown overcoat. Her blonde locks tied back. Eyes full of quiet relief.

  "Goldie? What are you doing here?"

  "I called—twice. You didn’t answer." Her gaze swept him from head to tail, taking in the wrinkled shirt, liquor stains and trembling hands. "I needed to make sure you were still breathing."

  Buck gave a hollow scoff and stepped aside. "Don't I look all right?"

  "No," she said gently, stepping into the apartment. "You really don’t."

  The smell hit her immediately. Alcohol, sweat, stale regret. A bottle rolled under her shoe. Buck had broken into his emergency stash in an attempt to sleep, even if that meant blacking out. "Looks like you've been having a real hard time. Are you having those dreams again?" she asked.

  Buck collapsed onto the couch and rubbed his face. "More than ever. They're…getting meaner."

  Goldie sat beside him, voice soft. "Then maybe you shouldn’t be here alone. You could come stay with me for a few days. Clear your head. It can't be easy surrounded by all these memories."

  He stared out across the wreckage of his living room. Scattered bottles amidst old case files and photos. The ones on the wall hurt the most. Sam smiling in all of them. The smile felt wrong now. Forced. Lie after lie hanging adorning his home.

  "I need them," Buck muttered. "They keep me focused on the right path. I can't give up the hunt. Not yet."

  Goldie stood and paced the apartment, fingers tracing a clean spot on the mantle. "You can’t—or you won’t?" She plucked a bottle off the floor and held it up. "This isn’t the right path, Buck. It’s self-destruction."

  Buck clenched his jaw, but stayed silent.

  She sat again—closer this time—and rested a hand over his. "I'm not gonna presume to tell you what you already know. What Sam would have wanted. He’s gone, Buck. I know you want to put him to rest but the only one who can do that is you. Not me. Not Sparks. And you can't do that with all these chains you keep strangling yourself with."

  Something broke inside him.

  "He’s not here because of me," Buck snapped, voice cracking as he ripped the bottle from her hand and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall. "I took him there. I pulled the trigger. He saved me—and I ran. I left him to die."

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  The words echoed in the silence.

  Goldie wrapped her arms around him from behind and pulled him into her shoulder. "I know," she said quietly. "I know you didn’t choose it. I know you never meant for it to happen. But this road you’re walking right now? It’s not justice. It’s punishment. And that’s not what he stood for."

  Buck swallowed hard, eyes burning. "…What other choice do I have?"

  "You always have a choice." She guided him to face her. "Losing someone is always hard but you need to choose what's good for you. What's safe. What's right. I know you'll find the truth. Solve the mystery. Lock up the bad guy. It's what you’ve always done, but you can't do that if you're convinced you're the one who needs to be punished."

  Buck let out a shuddering breath, staring at the mess. Really seeing it for the first time. "…I really slipped this time, huh?"

  Goldie smiled and smoothed the fur behind his ear. "You walk a lot of slippery slopes, darlin'. I wish I knew the words you needed to solve your problems. If I did, I'd have said them long ago."

  He only had to think about it for a moment. "How about, 'keep moving forward'?"

  Goldie’s face brightened into a brilliant smile. "I think that's a fantastic way to start." She kissed Buck gently on the cheek. "Remember, you promised me more social calls from now on."

  Buck chuckled softly. "Far be it from me to break a promise to a lady. Thank you, Goldie."

  She grabbed another bottle off the floor. "Why don't you get cleaned up? I’ll make coffee and clean up this battlefield."

  The hot water burned away the nightmare. By the time he stepped out, he could breathe again. He thought of Goldie—the only person he trusted with the truth of Sam's death. He’d run to her that night and told her everything. She never turned him away.

  He needed to keep going. For Sam.

  Buck dressed and stepped back into the living room. Goldie was opening a window as streaks of light from the distant cavern ceiling cut through the gloom. A breeze carried her perfume across the room.

  "A new perspective can mean a world of difference," she said, as if it were the simplest answer in the world.

  Buck nodded once, heart lighter than it had been in days. When his phone rang, he answered it with renewed vigor.

  "Detective Piper," growled the voice on the other end. "This is Gaul Sootmin. We need to talk. My office. One hour."

  By the time Buck was actually within speaking distance of Gaul, it had been over two hours.

  First, the receptionist made him stew in a tiny lobby chair for thirty minutes. Then she redirected him to the Crystal Meadows Country Club. When he finally made it through the front gate (after an argument about the dress code), a valet informed him the attorney was "on the greens."

  It took everything Buck had not to turn around and walk away.

  The country club was a beautiful waste of space. Huge swaths of land had been cleared and made to look like the lands above. Rolling green hills for a golf course and lines of trees separated several game courts. Buck was led to the attorney who was standing beside a long table covered in blueprints and in deep discussion with a construction foreman.

  "No, no. If the pool goes there it will become a distraction on hole seven. I want this section divided—"

  "Sootmin!"

  Gaul didn’t even look at him. Just held up one finger. The valets closed the gap between them, just in case.

  Buck marched closer, fed up with the chase. "Hey. You called me, asshole. Say your piece already. I’ve got a killer to find."

  Finally, Gaul sighed, excused the foreman, and waved off the valets. "Mr. Piper," he said sharply, turning around at last, "you speak as though your time is more precious than everyone else’s. Presumptuous, even for you."

  "What do you want, Sootmin?" Buck asked with a sneer.

  The lion walked off toward the private firing range behind the club, beckoning for Buck to follow. Along a padded bench lay an assortment of air-powered crossbows and pistols. Gaul loaded one with calm, methodical precision.

  "I thought we had an agreement, Mr. Piper. An understanding. You were to stay away from my client." His sentences were punctuated by his actions. Loading the weapon. Locking the bolt into place. Pulling back the lever. He raised the weapon to aim downrange. "Instead, I've come to find you've been doing the absolute opposite."

  The crossbow fired with a snap. The bolt whipped through the air and—thunk. Near bullseye.

  Buck selected an air pistol and fired out of sheer irritation. The shot landed high and outside. "I’ve already cleared that up with the police," Buck growled, selecting a tool and adjusting the weapon’s sights. "Sparks isn’t a suspect anymore."

  Gaul’s mane bristled. "Perhaps not. And yet you continue sniffing around. I showed you courtesy, detective. In return, I expected professional restraint."

  He fired again—bullseye.

  Buck took another shot. Only slightly off the mark this time.

  The lion reloaded without looking away from the target. "Apparently I wasn't clear enough. My mistake. Next time I'll talk to a few of your colleagues on the police force and bring up that baffling mystery around your partner's disappearance."

  Buck flinched. His shot went wide.

  The temperature of his blood dropped. "I don't like being threatened, Sootmin."

  "And I don’t like being ignored." Gaul spun toward him, voice a low snarl. "Last warning. Stay away from my client or there WILL be consequences." He turned away and straightened his cuffs. His hand trembled slightly—this wasn’t anger. It was fear.

  Buck narrowed his eyes. "What are you scared of, Gaul? What is it you don’t want me finding?"

  Gaul went perfectly still. For one horrible moment he almost looked caged. Then he spoke over his shoulder, voice flat and final.

  "Pray you never find out, detective. For your own sake."