In this chap­ter, Joe arrives at the Wolf and learns that Nate has secured a room. Bar­tender Kim Miller offers him a beer, hint­ing she knows about his rough day, though Joe ini­tial­ly fears she’s refer­ring to his fir­ing. The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to a scan­dalous arti­cle by Bil­ly Blood­worth, which mocks the sheriff’s office and fea­tures a pho­to of Joe’s daugh­ter, Sheri­dan, dur­ing a raid. The arti­cle omits crit­i­cal con­text, paint­ing the law enforce­ment oper­a­tion as far­ci­cal. Joe is furi­ous, espe­cial­ly at the exploita­tion of his daughter’s image, but real­izes Blood­worth and Sophie have already left for Den­ver, evad­ing imme­di­ate con­fronta­tion.

Joe’s anger dri­ves him to retal­i­ate by report­ing Blood­worth and Sophie to Col­orado author­i­ties for fraud, exploit­ing his remain­ing law enforce­ment con­nec­tions. Mean­while, Kim reveals an anony­mous call from some­one she believes is Steve Pol­lock, adding anoth­er lay­er of mys­tery. The call’s secre­cy sug­gests Pol­lock may be avoid­ing direct con­tact, rais­ing ques­tions about his motives. Joe’s frus­tra­tion mounts as he grap­ples with the fall­out of the arti­cle and the loom­ing threat to his career, feel­ing pow­er­less yet deter­mined to push for­ward despite the odds.

Lat­er, Joe updates Mary­beth on the day’s events, includ­ing Nate’s the­o­ry that Mis­sy, Marybeth’s moth­er, orches­trat­ed the con­spir­a­cy against him. Mary­beth reacts with unchar­ac­ter­is­tic fury, vow­ing to cut ties with her manip­u­la­tive moth­er. The cou­ple dis­cuss­es their pre­car­i­ous finan­cial sit­u­a­tion and Joe’s impend­ing ter­mi­na­tion, though he clings to the slim hope of bureau­crat­ic recourse. Mary­beth, prag­mat­ic yet sup­port­ive, ques­tions whether con­tin­u­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion is worth the risk, but Joe resolves to per­se­vere, dri­ven by his sense of duty and stub­born­ness.

The chap­ter under­scores Joe’s resilience in the face of pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al crises. His deter­mi­na­tion to uphold jus­tice, even as his career crum­bles, con­trasts with the media’s sen­sa­tion­al­ism and polit­i­cal machi­na­tions. Marybeth’s unwa­ver­ing sup­port high­lights their part­ner­ship, while the unre­solved threads—Pollock’s call, Missy’s schem­ing, and Bloodworth’s escape—set the stage for fur­ther con­flict. Joe’s inter­nal strug­gle between duty and sur­vival encap­su­lates the chapter’s ten­sion, leav­ing read­ers antic­i­pat­ing his next move.