She goes very still. "What car?"
Shit.
"There was a rental spotted on Route 9. Crow ran the plates." I set down the sandpaper, facing her. "It's nobody—a woman here for a funeral."
"A rental from where?"
"Atlanta."
Frustration shifts to something else on her face. Anger, maybe. Or fear dressed up as anger.
"A car from Atlanta was spotted near here, and you didn't think to mention it?"
"I just did."
"After it was cleared." She's not pacing anymore. She's standing in the middle of the room, fists clenched at her sides. "How many other things have you 'cleared' without telling me?"
I don't answer.
"That's what I thought." She's shaking now. "Every time your phone buzzes, it's about me. About my case. And you just—pocket it. Like I don't have a right to know."
"You don't need to panic over every false alarm."
"That's not your decision to make!"
"Actually, it is." I step toward her. "My job is to keep you alive. Part of that is keeping you calm. Stable. Not spiraling every time there's an update."
"I'm not spiraling—"
"You've been pacing for three hours." I take another step. "You can't write. You can't read. You won't eat unless I put food in front of you."
"That's not—"
"You're barely holding it together, Eden." I'm too close now. I know I'm too close. But I can't stop. "And you want me to add to that? Give you more to carry?"
"I want you to treat me like a person!" She doesn't back away, just tilts her chin up to hold my gaze. "Not a package you'rebabysitting until delivery. A person who has a right to know what's happening in her own life."
She's close. Too close. Close enough that if I reached out, I could touch the hair falling across her cheek, tuck it behind her ear.
I reach for her.
Not thinking. Not planning. Just my hand rising toward her face, toward that soft curve of her jaw—
She shoves me with both hands flat against my chest, pushing hard. I stumble back—not because she's strong enough to move me, but because I let her.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Her voice cracks. Her whole body is trembling.
"Eden—"
"No." She steps back. Then again. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to loom over me, tell me what I do and don't need to know, and then—"
"I wasn't going to—"
"Wasn't going to what? Touch me? You were already moving!"
She's right. I am.
