The bakery's back step looked smaller in the dark than it had on a video screen.
Reno sat in his truck in the alley with the engine off and the heater long since cooled, and he watched the metal door for the eighteenth time in as many minutes. The deputy Wheeler had promised was parked at the mouth of the alley, where the streetlight let her be seen on purpose. That was the deal. The deputy was the visible deterrent. Reno was the second pair of eyes nobody knew about.
He'd argued briefly with Wheeler about being out here at all. Wheeler had not been opposed so much as resigned. I can't stop a private citizen sitting on a public street, the sheriff had said, but if you so much as get out of that truck, you and I are going to have words. Reno had agreed to the terms. Reno had also packed a thermos.
He was working on a theory, and theories worked better in the dark.
The figure on the camera had been left-handed on the tension wrench. Plenty of people were left-handed. Plenty of people were also trained left-handed for fine work because their right hand was needed for the heavier tool. The fact didn't narrow down the universe much. But there had been one other detail Reno had not mentioned in Wheeler's office because he hadn't been sure of it yet, and a man didn't say things he wasn't sure of when a woman like Grace was watching his face.
The figure had favored the left leg coming up the alley.
Not a limp. Nothing that obvious. Just a quarter-second longer transfer of weight on the right side than on the left. The way a man walked when his right knee had been hurt in the past and had healed, mostly, but had taught the rest of him to compensate without thinking about it.
It was the kind of detail Reno noticed because Reno had spent the last three months learning how a body told on itself.
He didn't know what the detail meant yet. He was sitting in the dark with it, the way a lawyer sat with a piece of evidence he wasn't sure how to use.
A car passed at the end of the alley. The deputy's headlights flashed briefly. Then the alley went dim again, and the only light was the orange of the sodium lamp.
He picked up his phone. He set it down.
He picked it up again.
The text had come in three hours earlier, while he was helping Hank carry a vanity through the front door of the Edwardian. Hank had stayed out of the way and let him hold one end of the cabinet without commenting on his knee, which was the closest thing Hank Steele did to a love language.
Got home OK. Lily asleep. Thanks for today.
He'd answered while sitting on Hank's stairs because his knee had reminded him, sharply, that hauling a vanity up a porch was not on his approved list.
Glad. Lock the deadbolt.
I did before I took my coat off.
Good girl.
He'd stared at good girl on the screen for a beat after he sent it and considered that he had spent an entire afternoon being very careful about his words, and now here he was, casual as could be, calling a woman he'd known for six days good girl. He'd almost typed an apology. He hadn't.
Three minutes later:
Reno?
Yes, Ma'am?
Is it weird that I keep thinking about that pause when you didn't tell me what you used to do for a living?
He'd looked at the screen for a long time.
It's not weird. I owe you that conversation.
You don't owe me anything.
I think I do.
When you're ready.
He'd put the phone in his pocket and gone back upstairs to help Hank measure for plumbing fixtures. Hank had taken one look at his face and not said a word, which was the second-closest thing Hank Steele did to a love language.
Now, in the truck, in the dark, he looked at the phone again. There was no new message. He hadn't expected one. Grace would be sleeping. Or trying to.
