Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 35507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Colt stands there, huge and unwillingly softened, watching the empty drive.
"She's going to be a problem," he says.
"She's going to be my favorite person in this county besides the pie waitress." I slide the tin closer to him. "Eli. That's the boyfriend. Works nights at the landing by the old boat sheds. Motorcycle he's not supposed to have."
Colt's gaze cuts to me, sharp. "You get all that from zesting an orange?"
"I get all that from listening. You should try it. People tell photographers things. We look like we already know."
"Boat sheds are down-river from the mill. I'll have Marin run the name."
"Don't spook her. She likes him."
"I don't care if she likes him. I care if he likes the landing for reasons that aren't a sixteen-year-old."
"You can resume scowling after you eat two."
"I don't eat muffins."
"You will today. House rules. I cooked last night. I'm baking this morning.”
He rubs a hand over his jaw, that raw scrape of stubble loud in the quiet room, and when he looks at me the look is heavy enough to lean on. "You're enjoying this."
"I'm enjoying not being shot at. The muffins are a bonus. Rowe is a bonus. You standing in my kitchen trying not to admit you slept well is the tax I pay."
"Your kitchen?"
"For now." I wipe flour off the counter with more care than the counter needs. "You can have the window. I'll take the oven. That's as close to a treaty as you're getting before noon."
He almost argues. And I see the exact moment he decides against it, knowing I’ll win anyway. He takes his mug back to the window instead, and I stay at the counter, listening to the sound of the waterfall.
7
Colt
Oakley hands me a muffin. They're tart and still warm, and watching her wait for the verdict with flour on her cheek does something vicious to the part of me that’s supposed to be working.
"Well?" she says.
"They're fine."
"They're excellent. We've covered this dance."
"They're excellent. Don't make a habit of being right before noon."
She grins, luminous and unrepentant, and I take my coffee back to the window before I do something unwise with that mouth. The tree line is quiet. The gate is shut. The house is one room and she fills all of it, Equinox shirt slipping off her shoulder every time she reaches for a cooling rack, dark curls falling past that slim line of throat I’ve been trying not to catalog since she sat up in my bed.
I'll give her credit. She claims the kitchen. Most people in her position go still. She bakes.
My burner buzzes. Marin.
"Talk," I say, stepping onto the deck and pulling the door until it almost latches. Oakley's head lifts. I hold up a finger. She holds up a muffin. Truce, for now.
"Eli Cade," Marin says, no hello, velvet and brutal in the same breath. "That's the name on a landing timesheet down by the old boat sheds. Nineteen. Paid cash under the table three nights a week. No tax file worth the ink. Motorcycle registered to a cousin in Halo City who doesn't appear to own a motorcycle."
"Rowe's Eli."
"Rowe's Eli. He also badges into the sheds on nights the landing log shows no scheduled freight. Alden isn’t going to like that sentence. I'm saving it for him after I finish being the messenger."
I watch the drop off the deck, water white and constant below the trees. "And the dock name from her photos."
"Stencil on the crate was Northline Bonded. Shell out of Delaware. Two directors, both dead on paper, both still signing for warehouse space in three states. One of those spaces burned last year in a fire. Northline invoiced Vanguard Helix for 'cold storage consultation' six weeks before your father went quiet. The photos she kept aren't fog, Colt. They're a receipt."
The deck rail bites my palm. "Send it to Banks. Loop Nash."
"Already did. Nash is going to call you in about four minutes."
"What do we do about Eli?"
"Don't spook the niece until Alden has a conversation. The boy could be dumb. Dumb still works nights at a landing that doesn't keep hours. I'll keep pulling."
She hangs up. I stand there with the phone dead in my hand and the falls talking below the trees. Oakley is at the glass when I turn. Of course she is. That camera mind of hers never clocks out.
"You're making the face," she says through the door.
I come inside. "Which face?"
"The one where somebody handed you a file and you want to put a hole in it. Sit. Eat another muffin. Then use words."
I sit because arguing with her about muffins is a losing campaign I already surrendered. "Marin ran the names. Eli Cade. Nineteen. Cash work at the landing. Badge swipes on nights there's no freight. Motorcycle that belongs to a cousin who doesn't own a motorcycle."