The house behind him was quieter than it had ever been.
Noah released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. It was the weight of change. All of it. He didn’t want things to change, but he couldn’t stop them. He wasn’t meant to stop them. Life moved forward not in reverse. He went inside. The kitchen still smelled like the coffee he had made that morning. Mia's empty room was at the end of the hall, the door open, the stripped mattress a pale rectangle in the light. Across the hall, Ethan's door was closed. The music had stopped.
Noah headed down and knocked. "Hey, Ethan. You okay?"
A muffled "Fine."
He stood in the hallway with his hand flat against the doorframe. He could open the door and sit on the bed and try again. He could tell Ethan about Fiona, about grief, about the way loss makes you want to pull away from the people who can help you most. He had the words. He had said versions of them before. But the door was a wall and Ethan was behind it and Noah had spent enough years in law enforcement to know that forcing entry never ended the way you hoped.
"I'm here if you need me," he said. “Maybe later we can watch a movie?”
Nothing.
He walked back to the kitchen and washed the breakfast dishes by hand even though the dishwasher was empty. He dried them and put them away. He wiped down the counter where the Luther card had sat two days ago. He swept the floor. He did the small things a person did when the house was too quiet and the alternative was sitting still with thoughts he wasn’t ready to have.
At noonhe sat on the porch with a glass of water and stared at the lake. A loon surfaced near the far shore, dove, and came up thirty yards from where it went under. He watched it repeat the pattern three times. The bird never came up where he expected it to.
His phone buzzed. It was a text from Mia:Stopped for gas in Keeseville. Car is fine. No creeps. Cookies are gone.
He typed back:Already? Save some for your roommate.
Too late.
He set the phone down and closed his eyes. The sun was warm on his face. For a few minutes he let himself feel nothing but the heat and the quiet and the faint sound of water against the shore.
Callie arrived around four.
She didn't call ahead. She pulled her Jeep into the gravel beside the Bronco and got out carrying a brown paper bag and a six-pack of something non-alcoholic. Noah was still on the porch. He had moved to the steps at some point, his back against the railing, a case file open on his lap, the photocopy of the letter tucked inside the front cover.
"Brought lunch,” she said. "Or an early dinner. Whatever this is."
"What is it?"
"Sandwiches from that place on Lake Flower. The one with the good bread."
"You didn't have to do that."
"I know, but I figured you might not be in the mood to cook.” She sat beside him on the steps and set the bag between them. She was wearing jeans and a gray pullover, her hair down, no badge. She looked more like herself than a detective, and Noah realized he didn't see that version of her often enough.
She handed him a bottle. He twisted the cap and took a drink. They sat in the kind of silence that didn't need filling.
"So, Mia get off okay?" Callie asked.
"Yeah. Texted from Keeseville. She's fine."
"And Ethan?"
"The usual."
Callie nodded. She didn't offer advice. She didn't tell him it would get better. She just sat with it, the way she sat with crime scenes and witness interviews and all the other things that couldn't be fixed by talking.
"Got the warrant approved for Pike's property," she said after a while. "We execute tomorrow morning. Seven AM. State is assisting with two troopers."
"What are you seizing?"
"Firearms, computer, phone. Everything we can justify under the scope." She peeled the label on her bottle. "If one of his rifles matches the ballistics, we've got him. If not, Savannah's theory starts to crack."
“And your honest thoughts?”
