Our eyes meet for half a second. His are brown, steady, and behind the steadiness there's conflict. Not the careful distance of earlier in the week. The look of a man who's afraid of what I am and afraid of what I'm not.
I don't understand it. I file it.
At three, my phone rings. Daniel.
I step outside to take it. The parking lot, the gravel, the October air — cold enough to feel, not cold enough to hurt. The cat is on Vaughn's motorcycle seat.
"Nico. How's the assessment going?"
"Extending another few days. There are gaps in the property file I want to close."
"Langford's asking about the timeline." Daniel's voice is careful. The careful of a man who's relaying pressure without applying it. "He wants the report by end of week."
"Tell Langford the report will be thorough."
"I always do. He's just — this one matters to him. I don't know why. He's been checking in more than usual."
More than usual. Because Langford personally flagged this property. Because whatever connects the feed store to thesalvage yard to Knox's bar, Langford knows the connection and I don't.
"Daniel, can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"How many properties has Langford personally flagged in the last eighteen months?"
Silence. Not the comfortable kind.
"That's a weird question, Nico."
"I know. Humor me."
"I'd have to check. A handful? More than usual, I think. Why?"
"I'm being thorough."
"You're always thorough. This feels like a different kind of thorough."
He's right. It is. The professional kind of thorough ends with a clean report and a recommendation. This kind of thorough ends with — I don't know what it ends with. That's the problem.
"Just curious," I say. "Send Langford my regards."
"Nico—"
"End of week, Daniel. I promise."
I hang up. Go back inside. The bar absorbs me the way it always does — the warmth, the wood, the quiet hum of a building that's been standing for sixty years and intends to keep standing.
Ezra doesn't look up when I sit down. But his shoulders loosen by a fraction. The tension draining out of a man who was wound tight about my absence and is relieved by my return, even if the relief is something he won't admit.
I go back to my spreadsheet. Four properties filled. Seven blanks.
End of week, I told Daniel. Four days to figure out what connects a feed store in Wyoming to a bar in Washington.
Four days. I work faster.
* * *
At four-thirty, I pack up. Thirty percent on the bar. The routine.
