text: "There's more than one use for everything." Johnny hauled the stiff, wobbling folds of thick chicken wire across the dry grass of his back yard.
  
  Luther yelped and skittered away from the clattering pile of metal mesh. "Hey! Watch where you're throwing things, Johnny. Come on."
  
  The dwarf pointed at his smaller black-and-tan coonhound and frowned. "You watch where you're sniffin' while I'm workin'. It's as simple as that."
  
  "You could've taken my head off with that," the hound muttered as he skulked away.
  
  Rex left the six-inch hole he'd been digging in the dirt and turned to face his brother. "You have no idea how gravity works, do you?"
  
  "Huh?"
  
  "It's all about the size, bro." He stuck his snout back into the hole and snorted. "It's not big enough to cut your head off."
  
  Johnny grunted and stalked toward the storage shed for his power tools he'd left charging overnight. I ain't fixin' to sit down and explain physics to a couple of boneheaded coonhounds.
  
  "Hey, where ya goin', Johnny?" Luther trotted after his master, his alleged close call with death completely forgotten.
  
  "Tools."
  
  "Tools for what?"
  
  Rex whipped his head out of the hole and stared at the dwarf. "Huntin' tools?"
  
  "Ooh! You make something new, Johnny? Something new and super-cool?"
  
  Johnny spun in front of the shed's open front door and gestured sharply toward the wooden structure in the middle of his yard. "Tools for that. For building? The project we started yesterday? Is it ringin' any bells?"
  
  Luther sat and his mouth popped open as he panted quick, heavy breaths and stared at his master. "Nope."
  
  The dwarf scowled and uttered a low growl of restrained frustration before he turned and stepped into the shed.
  
  "Well?" Luther called behind him. "Come on, Johnny. Spill it!"
  
  The bounty hunter ejected the two thick batteries from their chargers and inserted one onto the base of his impact driver. "I ain't gonna waste my breath tellin' you somethin' you're gonna let slip out your mind two minutes later. Again."
  
  "Yeah, yeah, okay." Luther trotted away from the shed and stopped when he saw the half-erected wooden structure sitting in the yard. "What is that?"
  
  Rex stared at his brother. "You need help."
  
  "Aw, you're jealous. We both know I got the best—hey!" Luther barked. "Johnny! It's a—" Without finishing the thought, he uttered an earsplitting bay and raced across the yard toward the side of the house.
  
  The dwarf straightened to turn toward the shed door and bumped his head against the bottom of the shelf over the worktable. "Dammit!"
  
  "Johnny, someone's here!" Rex called. "Someone's coming!"
  
  "In the road!"
  
  "Moving fast! A big ol'—oh." The hounds skidded to a stop in the gravel drive out front as the crunch of pebbles beneath slowing tires filled the air.
  
  With his impact driver and nail gun in hand, Johnny stepped slowly out of the shed and frowned at the sudden silence. A car door opened and shut. "Boys?"
  
  "Hey, lady."
  
  "Ooh! Ooh! Is that for us?"
  
  "What did you bring us, huh? I hope it's treats."
  
  "Or trash."
  
  "Or a stick."
  
  Lisa's laughter carried past the house. "Okay, boys. Chill out. You know I'm—Luther!"
  
  "Ha-ha, no, you're not."
  
  "You already know what I smell like, dogs. Back up."
  
  The hounds' tittering laughter filled Johnny's head and he snorted. The hounds are gettin' more friendly with her than I am.
  
  "Can't help it, lady," Luther said. "You smell like food. And two-legs. And two-legs food."
  
  "Lemme guess," Rex added. "You had eggs for breakfast."
  
  "Wait, eggs? Eggs…something about that sounds important."
  
  When the door of the screened-in porch creaked open, Johnny called, "Out back, darlin'."
  
  "Oh." The door clicked shut again and Lisa moved down the side of the house. Both hounds trotted beside her.
  
  "Johnny. Hey, Johnny. It's your lady friend."
  
  "Yeah, I thought she'd bailed but she didn't forget about you, Johnny."
  
  "Hard to believe. How long's she been gone, Johnny? Two years? Three?"
  
  Rex snorted. "Feels more like five."
  
  Lisa rounded the corner and stopped when she saw Johnny scowling at the small wooden hut with a power tool clutched in each hand. "Wow. I didn't know it was project day."
  
  He glanced briefly at her and sniffed. "Ever since yesterday."
  
  "What are you building?" She stepped around the structure and scrutinized it with a raised eyebrow.
  
  "A goddamn chicken coop."
  
  She burst out laughing.
  
  "How's that funny?"
  
  "Only the…" She waved him away and shook her head. "It's the thought of you raising chickens."
  
  "Uh-huh." He stared at her and finally rolled his eyes when the laughter didn't stop. "And I ain't raisin' ʼem, anyhow. That's already been done."
  
  With a deep breath to calm herself, she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Grown chickens, huh? So you decided to…you know, I don't even know what to call it. Does one buy chickens or adopt them?"
  
  "Neither." Johnny set the nail gun in the grass, picked up the long plywood boards he'd secured together at a thirty-five-degree angle, and set the whole thing on top of the structure to form the roof. "This here's only temporary."
  
  "It is? That's considerable work for a temporary chicken coop."
  
  "Well, Cal Hendry a couple of miles down the road ran into some kinda…I don't know. Family squabble. He's goin' outta town in a few days to deal with it and needs a place to keep the hens so I offered to put ʼem up here."
  
  Luther licked his muzzle and sat. "Chicken."
  
  The dwarf shook his head and took two corner braces and a handful of screws from his back pocket. "So now I gotta make this damn thing gator-, fox-, snake-, and hound-proof."
  
  Lisa waited for the impact driver's loud growl to die down before she took her tablet out from under her arm.
  
  Johnny pulled his head from beneath the roof and looked expectantly at her. "What?"
  
  "I hope Cal Henry a couple of miles down the road isn't counting on you to specifically be here over the next few days."
  
  He glanced at the tablet in her hands and sniffed. "Is that another case?"
  
  "Yep."
  
  "Dammit!"
  
  She frowned teasingly at him. "Well, try not to get too excited about it."
  
  "Oh, I ain't."
  
  "Johnny…"
  
  "A dwarf can't get a little peace and quiet around his own home? Nelson with his cases. Come on. I ain't been back long enough to put my feet up and soak in the good things in life I spent a helluva lotta time diggin' up."
  
  Lisa raised an eyebrow. "Portland was two weeks ago."
  
  He returned to the pile of partially completed chicken coop pieces and selected the long ramp with the thin strips of elevated wood running up the length like steps and rested it against the open side of the coop. "That ain't nearly long enough, darlin'."
  
  "Okay, well, you're officially out of retirement at this point." She winced when the nail gun hissed and thumped into the wood. "So the cases will most likely keep rolling in—which I know you expected."
  
  "It doesn't mean I gotta be happy about it." The nail gun hissed and thumped again.
  
  With a sigh, Lisa approached him and unlocked the screen of her tablet. "Take a look at this one with me, will you?"
  
  Johnny peered at her tablet and frowned. "No paper copy?"
  
  "No." Her knowing smile made him scowl. "There are a few pieces to this next case that aren't exactly…uh, in hard copy anywhere. Or even digital."
  
  The nail gun dropped into the grass, and the dwarf straightened to fold his arms. "I don't know what the hell that means but I have a feelin' it ain't somethin' I wanna hear."
  
  "Why don't you listen to everything first before you make that call, okay?" She swiped through the case file, then turned her tablet toward Johnny. He stared at her with a frown and didn't bother to look at the screen. "Right. This one's fairly simple as far as your cases go. A Kilomea in Baltimore's been blackmailing Senator Richard Hugh—"
  
  "Damn. Nelson's getting' desperate, ain't he?"
  
  "What?"
  
  "Tell him to get someone else. I'm sure he has a dozen other bounty hunters who could round up one Kilomea idiot tryin' to pick a senator's pockets for fun, as dirty as they are."
  
  "It's a sensitive situation with this specific senator," Lisa explained. "He has friends in the Bureau—particularly Director Vance."
  
  Johnny wrinkled his nose. "Who?"
  
  "Seriously?"
  
  "I never met the guy."
  
  She tried to hide a patient, knowing smile. "Well, that would be because you've only been back in the game a few months and haven't been to HQ."
  
  He cleared his throat. "I never got an invitation, either."
  
  "Oh, so if you were invited, you'd make the trip?"
  
  "Probably not."
  
  Lisa shook her head and glanced at the file open on her tablet. "Senator Hugh also has friends in Washington, which means the Department wants this done cleanly and efficiently. So no, I don't think they have another dozen bounty hunters who can take care of this the way they want it taken care of."
  
  The dwarf rubbed his mouth and the top of his beard. "They want me."
  
  "Yes, they do." She grinned. "And now, I'll be completely transparent with you—"
  
  "I still ain't takin' the job."
  
  "This is way less about the department and much more about why you need to take this case."
  
  The hounds splashed through the swamp on the other side of the yard, sniffing at soggy reeds and fortunately too focused on exploring to say anything. Johnny narrowed his eyes at her. "What are you gettin' at?"
  
  "Something big, Johnny." She closed out of the case file and pulled up a series of photos, handed him the tablet, and nodded. "Something you don't want to miss out on. Quite frankly, neither do I."
  
  With a grunt, he took the device in both hands and looked down. "Goddammit. Why are you bringing this to me?"
  
  "You have a fan site, Johnny."
  
  "Yeah, I can damn well see that." He swiped to the next photo. "Fuck. Uh-uh."
  
  Forcing back a laugh, Lisa folded her arms and didn't let him shove the tablet into her hands.
  
  "Take it."
  
  "Not until you go through all those photos, Johnny."
  
  "I ain't goin' through photos and I ain't walkin' down memory lane on your fancy whatever-the-pad, all right?" The dwarf gritted his teeth, glanced at the screenshots of Dwarf the Bounty Hunter: The Official Site, then snarled and jerked his head away. "This is a breach of privacy, you know that?"
  
  "Not really. It was all over the dark web—"
  
  "That's what I'm sayin'! Look at this shit. Pictures of my mug on every damn page. What is this? Some asshole tryin' to sell one of my jackets? Shit, Lisa. I don't even give out my phone number or take selfstagrams or whatever the hell it's called, and I did not sign off on having all this bullshit floatin' around the dark web. Take it down."
  
  She shook her head and leaned forward to catch his gaze. "That's not how it works. And besides, you don't want me to take it down."
  
  "The hell I don't."
  
  "Johnny."
  
  He gritted his teeth and exhaled a long, growled sigh as he glared at her.
  
  "Go through the rest of the photos."
  
  "What the hell does any of this shit have to do with the case, huh?"
  
  "So far? Only Baltimore. But we're about to change that." Lisa turned to step beside him and her bare arm brushed against the rolled sleeve of his black button-up. He glanced briefly at the contact and sniffed. She swiped her finger across the tablet in his hands and leaned toward him to point. "Look at this."
  
  Johnny snorted. "Some asshole's tryin' to defend a damn criminal bounty. Big whoop."
  
  She swiped again. "And the comment?"
  
  His eyes widened when he saw Lemonhead's username beneath the disgruntled poster's comment. "Motherfucker."
  
  "There you go." Stifling a laugh, Lisa moved on to the next photos. "He replied as Lemonhead to every single one of these 'defend the criminal' comments. There are fourteen in all. I ran a search through the site and this is the only thing he's commented. All of them are the same. The last was only a few days ago and the first—"
  
  "Right after New York." Johnny snarled. "I shoulda put a bullet in that burned fucker's head when I had the chance."
  
  The agent turned toward him and studied his scowling profile. "And if you had, Amanda would be somewhere unfathomably worse than where she is right now. So look at this and then we're done with photos."
  
  She swiped to the final shot of the private command-box message she'd received from this anonymous organizer. Johnny sighed. "Baltimore."
  
  "Baltimore."
  
  "Shit." He sniffed and read the private message over and over. "The Red Boar's been doin' his research too. I assume he knows exactly who I am at this point."
  
  "Well, we didn't count on the Bulldog alias to last longer than the Monsters Ball."
  
  "Uh-huh. Do you think he's the bastard who sent this to you?"
  
  "Maybe." She shrugged. "There's no way to tell for sure—or at least no way for me to tell. I know enough about the dark web to get in, keep quiet, and get out again, but I'm not what anyone would call a computer whiz."
  
  Johnny tapped the edge of the tablet. "This ain't a computer, darlin'."
  
  "Correct." She smirked and shook her head. "I uploaded these images from my phone."
  
  "You went through the dark web on your phone?"
  
  "No, Johnny. Can we get back to the important part of the conversation now?"
  
  He grunted.
  
  "So obviously, the Red Boar's been looking for other people and magicals who want to see you eliminated as much as he does—"
  
  "And he's puttin' together a 'take out Johnny Walker' powwow in Baltimore with a group of my ex-bounties." The dwarf grinned and stared intently at the tablet. "Then fuck yeah, darlin'. I'll take the case."
  
  "That's good to hear." Lisa turned the tablet off and slid it under her arm. "Because now—"
  
  "So when do we leave, huh?" He dropped to one knee to retrieve the nail gun and aimed it at the other side of the ramp.
  
  "Slow down for a second. There's a whole—"
  
  The gun hissed and thumped. Johnny tested the ramp, nodded, and stood. "'Cause I can load up and head on out tonight if we have to. Tomorrow mornin' at the latest. As long as Nelson gets everythin' put together the way he knows it needs to be done—"
  
  "Johnny, stop."
  
  He turned toward her with wide eyes and a crooked smile. "You got me to take the case, darlin'. Good work. How is that not enough?"
  
  "Because there's more."
  
  "Go on, then."
  
  Lisa pursed her lips and tried to go as easy on him as possible with the next part of her plan. "I don't think the Red Boar will risk showing his face at this meeting. The chances of that are slim to none, and I'm banking on none. I talked to Tommy last night and he agrees with me."
  
  "Why ain't he here to tell me that himself?"
  
  She wrinkled her nose. "After last time, it's probably best for both of you to have a little space from each other, don't you think?"
  
  The dwarf sniffed. "Don't matter. We can still roll in, take out a few conspirators, and squeeze that ugly bastard's location outta them."
  
  "Yeah. And that'd be painting a huge neon sign for the Red Boar that we're in Baltimore, we know he's there, and we're coming."
  
  "Hmm." He stroked his beard and pointed at her. "I'd call it more of a huge bloody sign. It feels more accurate."
  
  "Johnny, he managed to slip away from the Bureau fifteen years ago before what was probably one of their biggest operations and he's been underground this whole time. I don't think that kind of message will make him easier to find or deal with."
  
  "But you have a different message."
  
  "I do." Lisa took a deep breath. Here comes the final bomb drop. "Even though he most likely won't make it to this ex-bounty meeting, he'll probably still be in Baltimore to oversee the whole thing and make sure the thugs he's bringing together are on the right track. He'll stake the meeting out and vet his potential…uh, partners before any of them see his face. Which, fortunately for us, we've already seen."
  
  "Uh-huh."
  
  "What we need to do is draw him out, Johnny. Into the open. Give him a reason to attack you first and then we can close in. Because we'll be expecting him but we need to make the Red Boar think we have no idea what's coming."
  
  The dwarf regarded her speculatively and drew a sharp breath. "Or we could find where this fucker's stayin' in the city and bash his damn door in."
  
  "Or we can set a trap he won't be able to resist."
  
  "Well. I like traps." He nodded cautiously. "What are you thinkin'?"
  
  "Hear me out, okay?" Lisa glanced at the chicken coop and pretended to study it with marginal interest. "I have the whole thing mapped out, so whatever potential loopholes you might immediately shout at me, I'm very sure I've already covered them."
  
  "Uh-huh." Johnny waved his fingers at her in a gesture to continue.
  
  "And I've already gotten the go-ahead from Tommy and the Department to get this rolling."
  
  "Come on, darlin'. You're settin' up for a big reveal. I get it. Quit beatin' around the bush."
  
  She raised her eyebrows and drew a breath. "We're bringing Dwarf the Bounty Hunter back for a final season."
  
  He sniggered. When she looked at him and smiled, he stepped away from her, completely expressionless. "What. The. Fuck."
  
  "Johnny, listen—"
  
  "No. No, no, no." He dropped the nail gun and made her jump away in case it decided to fire on its own, and stormed across the yard toward the shed. "I ain't doin' it."
  
  "It's already been done." Lisa followed him and stopped when the dwarf disappeared inside the shed. "We've already sent a press release out to multiple networks and media outlets. The crew's been hired and they are coming with us to Baltimore. And Tommy bought the tickets."
  
  The sound of rummaging through tools and pieces of wood and metal rose from inside the shed. Johnny thumped a fist on the wooden workbench beneath the shelves, then poked his head through the open doorway. "Are you tellin' me that balding fuck has legit authorization from the Department to fund a goddamn reality show?"
  
  "Probably not."
  
  He disappeared inside the shed again.
  
  "But he's the only liaison who can bear to put up with you, Johnny. I'm very sure they simply give him a budget for your cases and don't ask any questions beyond that. They don't need to know how it's spent or what we do with the funds as long as you take the case and close it exactly like you always do."
  
  The shed was intensely silent for a long moment before Johnny exhaled a long, heavy sigh that sounded like compressed gas escaping from a release valve. His boots clomped across the floor and he stepped onto the grass and slammed the door shut behind him. "The Red Boar knows I did the show before. He'll see this."
  
  "That's the plan."
  
  "The plan?" The dwarf rubbed his mouth vigorously, then folded his arms across his chest somewhat belligerently. "Our plan is to go to Baltimore with a whole filming crew under the ruse of one more season of the damn Bounty Hunter. Is that about right?"
  
  "Mostly." Lisa stepped away to let him pass as he stormed across the back yard again. "Except it's not exactly a ruse."
  
  "Either it is or it ain't, darlin'. Which one?"
  
  "Well, we're not doing this for the sole purpose of how much fun it would be to bring Dwarf the Bounty Hunter back and follow him around Baltimore."
  
  Johnny scoffed. "Careful."
  
  "But we will be filming, Johnny. The whole time."
  
  He whirled to stare at her. "Say again?"
  
  The agent nodded. "And they'll be live-streaming parts of it—obviously not while we're talking about this Kilomea or Senator Hugh or the actual case and definitely not while we're working on setting things up to draw out the Red Boar. But the crew has permission to reach out to multiple network audiences and draw in more live viewers that way, plus a few clips posted to the YouTube channel—edited if they have to be, of course. And yes, there will be a full episode airing after we close the case and the Red Boar gets what he deserves."
  
  His nose wrinkled and his mustache twitched from side to side beneath a constantly shifting grimace. "Fine," he said after a long moment.
  
  "Good."
  
  He pointed at her. "I have one question."
  
  "Go for it."
  
  "What the hell is live-streaming?"