Gavin's face flashed in her mind before she could block it out.The way his mouth had thinned every time she'd talked about the inn as something worth keeping.The way his voice had gone cold and reasonable when he'd explained that selling Norman House was the smart play, the responsible choice, the only decision that made financial sense.The way he'd looked at her life's work and seen nothing but an obstacle to the future he'd already planned without her input.
He had wanted to strip her existence down to something small and contained and easy to control.When she'd refused, when she'd chosen the inn over his vision of their life, he'd made her pay for it in a thousand tiny ways until she'd finally found the courage to walk away.
Her fingers tightened on the ruined stake until her knuckles ached and the splinters bit into her palm.
"Say it," Colby said quietly, watching her face.
"I hate that the first person I think of is my ex-husband," she said, the words tasting bitter."I hate that my brain goes there automatically, like I can't imagine anyone else who might want to hurt me.But I do think of him.I can't help it."
"I get it," he said."I've been thinking about him, too."
She looked up at him, searching his expression."You think I'm overreacting.Jumping to conclusions."
"I think you're scared," he said, "and I think that's a completely reasonable response to finding your property vandalized.I also think we treat this like the serious thing it is and let Diaz make the official call about who might be responsible."
She blew out a breath that shuddered on the exhale."You're calling Diaz."
"Yes," he said, already pulling his phone from his pocket."Right now.Before anyone else walks through here and disturbs the evidence."
He stepped a few feet away to make the call, but he didn't go far.Didn't leave her alone with the broken line and the pulled stake and the violated trailer door hanging crooked in the morning light.
She listened to his side of the conversation, trying to ground herself in the familiar cadence of his voice.
"Sergeant, it's Colby Landon."A pause while Diaz responded."We've got a problem out at Sabrina's land.The property off Miller Road."Another pause."The tool trailer's been forced open.Nothing appears to be missing, but tools were moved around inside the cabin frame, and someone cut the layout lines we'd staked yesterday."His shoulders rolled once, tension seeking and failing to find release."No, no one else should have been here.Just the three of us yesterday, and Jason handed the keys directly to Sabrina when he locked up.She had them in her pocket the whole drive home."A beat."Yeah.Boot prints.Fresh ones, different from ours.We haven't touched anything except the saw, and that was before we realized what we were looking at."He glanced at her, his eyes softening briefly before he turned back toward the tree line."Copy that.We'll wait for you at the road."
He ended the call and met her eyes."She's on her way.She was already at the station."
"Now?"Sabrina asked, though she'd heard him say the words.
"Now," he confirmed.
The word station made her stomach twist into a familiar knot.Reports.Files.The official documentation of yet another crime scene with her name attached to it.She thought of the look on Diaz's face the day of the fire, careful and assessing, professional but not cold.The sergeant had been thorough then.She would be thorough now.
"Does she think I staged this?"Sabrina asked, the question escaping before she could think better of it.
Colby blinked, genuine surprise crossing his features."Why would she think that?"
"Because everything I touch lately seems to end up under investigation," she said, the bitterness rising in her throat."Because I'm starting to wonder if I'm some kind of magnet for disaster.Because a reasonable person might look at my track record and start asking questions."
His expression softened, but his voice brooked no argument when he spoke."No.Don't do that to yourself.You didn't set your inn on fire, and you didn't bust your own trailer door open and cut your own stake lines.This is somebody else's mess that they're trying to dump on your doorstep.We're going to treat it that way."
"We," she repeated, the word catching in her chest.
"Yeah," he said."We."
It helped.Not a lot, not enough to stop the skitter of fear still racing through her veins, but enough that she could suck in a proper breath without feeling like her ribs were made of iron bands.
"What do you need me to do?"she asked.
"Stay where I can see you," he said."Don't step on anything we haven't already walked on.When Diaz gets here, you tell her exactly what you saw yesterday, exactly how we left things, and exactly what's different today.Every detail matters."
She nodded."Okay."
Colby walked back to the trailer and pulled out his phone again, this time opening the camera.He took photos of everything with that same precise attention that had turned sketch lines into a cabin frame yesterday.The twisted lock.The gap around the damaged door.The boot prints in the mud.The angle of the sawhorses inside the cabin.The cut twine lying in the grass.
He cataloged it all like evidence, because that's what it was now.
Sabrina watched the way his mouth tightened as he frowned at his phone screen, the way his eyes narrowed when he noticed something she'd missed.Protective had always been a word she associated with soft things.Warm blankets on cold nights.Cups of tea pressed into shaky hands.Late checkouts for guests who needed an extra hour of sleep.
