"You don't get to look at him like that, Rex."
His head doesn't turn but his shoulders drop a quarter of an inch, the only sign he's heard me. The hand on the bar tightens.
"You don't get to be jealous of a man who asked me out to dinner. Not when you can't even stay till morning."
His knuckles go white on the wood.
"Goodnight, Rex."
I take my water glass off the bar. I walk past him without slowing and I push back through the swinging door and up the stairs to my apartment. I don't look back.
Behind me, the bar is quiet.
I lock the door at the top of my stairs. I lean against the wood, and I let myself shake for a few seconds, and then I go to the sink and run the cold tap and wash my face.
The eyeliner smears down my cheeks in two long black tracks.
Chapter 4
Rex
The lean orc lifts the telephoto lens and aims it at the clubhouse.
I'm two hundred yards east, belly flat on the fire road ridge, pine needles grinding into my forearms through the leather. Binoculars up. Phone propped on a root beside me with the camera open. Different SUV this morning, silver instead of black, newer model, rental sticker on the rear bumper. Same bare plate frame. Same two orcs.
The bearded orc sits on the hood with a tablet balanced on his thigh, marking something on screen with a stylus. He draws a line, lifts his head, draws another. The lean one sweeps the lens in a slow arc: clubhouse, garage, the Anchor's rooftop, the harbour. He pauses on the Anchor.
They arrived at 5:30. Yesterday, 5:15. Friday, 5:02. They're settling into a pattern, which means they're getting comfortable, which means they haven't spotted me. Good. The minute I stop being invisible, everything I've watched in the last four days goes in the trash.
I photograph the SUV, the rental sticker, the bearded orc's tablet. The lean one's posture behind the camera. His elbows brace wide on the guardrail and his weight shifts forward onto the balls of his feet, balanced, coiled. Military or paramilitary. Knox said Bloodstone trains their scouts in pairs, one observer and one recorder.
By 6:12, they pack up. The tablet goes in a case. The telephoto breaks down into components that fit inside a padded bag, the lean one scans the road north and south before he gets in the passenger seat. The SUV pulls out and heads south on the coast highway, turn signal on, holding the speed limit.
I wait ten minutes after they leave, then belly-crawl back to where I stashed the bike behind a fallen Douglas fir. My map is spread on the seat. I mark the overlook: third morning, observation point number one. I mark the logging road east of the clubhouse where I found fresh tire tracks Wednesday afternoon, point two. And the pull-off near the harbour with a clear sightline to the Anchor's front door, point three. Three positions. Three approach routes. A triangle drawn around everything that matters.
The Anchor sits inside all three sightlines. I circle it on the map and stare at the circle until I'm sure I'm looking at it for tactical reasons.
Knox reads my report at the kitchen table in his house while Sarah feeds Reeve in the next room. I hear the baby fussing through the wall, a thin intermittent sound that stops each time Sarah murmurs to him. Knox doesn't look up from the map.
I've laid it out in the order he prefers. Photos first, annotated. Arrival and departure times in a grid. The three observation points marked with distances and lines of sight. Approachroutes drawn in red, alternate routes in blue. Four days of data compressed onto one page.
Knox turns the map ninety degrees and traces the triangle with his index finger. He stops at the circle around the Anchor.
"How long have they been running this pattern?"
"At least a week before I spotted them. The tire tracks at point two had four days of needle fall."
"And they haven't deviated."
"They already know where we are. Now they're learning our routines, positions, who goes where at what time. Building a picture." I tap the Anchor. "They're spending more time on the bar than the clubhouse. Second day in a row the lean one held on the Anchor's rooftop for longer."
Knox's face gives nothing, but his hand flattens on the table and the tendons pull taut under his skin. Sarah laughs at something in the other room, a bright sound that doesn't belong anywhere near this conversation.
"How many?"
"Same two every morning. Could rotate others I haven't seen yet, but the bearded orc and the lean orc are consistent."
"Keep tracking. Don't engage. I want two full weeks of data before we move."
