Any Other Name: A Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson

over the other. “I mean it, thanks. Look, I’m kind of vulnerable right now and I need a good word.”
    “Excuse me?”
    Her head dropped, and the tears collected in her eyes. “I’m coming to the end of my rope, and I need something to hold on to, something to give me hope—tell me you’re going to find my sister.”
    “I, well . . .”
    She sobbed. “Tell me you’re going to find her alive.”
    “I . . .”
    Her face grew fierce and then slowly lost all emotion. “Please.”
    Usually capable of reading a dangerous situation, recent activity excluded, I stood there like a tower of crumbling stone, the only strong keystone in me, the two words I knew were the wrong ones to say. “I will.”
    She watched me to see if I was telling the truth and then wiped her eyes with the back of a hand. “You wanna come in?”
    I stood there, making sure I was hearing what I was hearing. “Um, thanks but no . . . My head hurts, and I’m pretty tired.”
    “That’s okay, it’s an open invitation.” She stepped back in, closing the door behind her.
    As I stepped over to room 5, I noticed a handwritten note taped to the door that read
You have been changed to room 4
. The writing looked familiar, especially the emphasis on the period, which had stabbed a small hole in the paper, but I was too tired to analyze it, figuring Lucian and Dog had grown weary of my night-owl tendencies and had given me the boot.
    It was just a few steps to number 4, and I found it conveniently cracked open.
    I pushed the door the rest of the way in but then, fumbling for the light switch, I had my right hand caught in a reverse wristlock that turned me around and pulled me into the darkened room. A Browning tactical boot slammed the door closed behind us as my assailant dragged me back onto the bed, wrapped her legs around me, and bit my ear from behind, releasing it only long enough to whisper, “Good thing you fucking said no.”
    Boy howdy.

5
    Lucian sipped his coffee and smiled, watching the two of us talk like it was Wimbledon.
    “How was Belize?”
    “I got a tan.”
    “So I noticed.”
    The old sheriff choked, swallowed, and then interrupted. “Got any lines?”
    Victoria Moretti pushed a handful of blue-black hair back from her face and sipped her own coffee, sat the mug down, placed an elbow on the table and leaned in, looking back at him with a full load of tarnished gold. “You wanna try and find them, old man?”
    He blushed, and I believe it was the first time I’d ever seen him do it. “I don’t know if my heart is up to it.”
    “Maybe if you’d stop looking at my tits and look me in the face you could work up the nerve.” She grinned at him, showing the elongated canine tooth. “Don’t feel bad—many are called, but few are chosen.”
    “I didn’t take you for a Sunday schooler.”
    She reached over and took a piece of my bacon, along witha little bit of my heart. “That’s where the phrase is from—damned if I knew; I’m schooled in other stuff.” She bit into the bacon and narrowed the aperture of the cannons. “Why, you need a little teaching?”
    He cocked his head as he slid out of the booth the oil workers had occupied last night and glanced at me for a moment. “I think I’m gonna go walk your dog.”
    Vic watched him slip on his coat. “Stay warm out there, thinking about me.”
    He pushed through the glass door and then stood still, frozen by her words for an instant. “I believe I’ll do that.”
    I watched him head back for what had been our communal room and Dog. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen him scamper.”
    “I want to talk to you alone.”
    “I figured.”
    She slid out and switched over to the other side and took another piece of my bacon, being, after all, a carnivore. As she chewed I took the time to drink her in. She had gotten a tan and the blond streaks in her hair were incongruent in the depth of the Wyoming winter—a look I was more used to in the