"Close enough to hear through the walls."
"Those walls are plaster and horsehair over original framing. Not exactly soundproof." She says it like a renovation problem. "How long do you think they’ve been listening?"
"A few weeks. There’s a project manager named Gus Novak — assigned to acquire this block for Halcyon Ridge. The harassment escalated when he took over."
"Gus Novak." She tests the weight of it. Gives the threat a name. "Is he dangerous?"
"He's desperate. That's worse."
She nods. Picks the dough back up. Rolls it. Sets it on the sheet.
"Kari."
"I'm fine. I'm processing. You brood near fence lines. I bake things."
The fury isn't professional. Professional fury is cold — narrows your focus, channels into response. This is hot. The kind that pulses at the edges of your vision, that wants to find Gus Novak and explain in specific terms what happens when you stalk a woman who names her power tools and thinks a garden gnome is adequate security.
I set my phone face-down. Uncurl my fingers. Breathe.
"I'm going to get everything Evie has on Novak. Employment records, vehicle registration. If he's been watching this house, he's doing it from somewhere with a sightline."
"Okay." Kari slides the sheet into the oven. Turns to face me fully, leaning against the counter, flour on her collarbone. "But first — are you okay?"
The question stops me.
"Am I okay."
"Not about the case. Not about Novak or the cameras." She tips her head, studying me the way she studies load-bearing walls — looking for cracks, for stress points. "About you."
Nobody asks me that. Vance asks if I'm compromised. Evie asks if I need resources. Nobody asks if I'm okay — not like this, standing in a flour-dusted kitchen with concern that has nothing to do with the case.
"I'm fine," I say, because I'm a liar.
"Mm." She holds my gaze three beats longer than comfortable, then nods like she's filed my answer under things Liam says that aren't true. "There's cookie dough left if you want to stress-bake with me."
"I'll pass."
"Your loss. The apron really brings out your whole reluctant-protector aesthetic."
The corner of my mouth does something I don't authorize.
Evie sends Novak's employment history — commercial real estate, three firms in five years. Before Halcyon Ridge, he worked acquisitions for a group in Virginia that settled two harassment complaints from holdout property owners. Not charges. Settlements. NDAs.
Gus Novak isn't violent. He pushes a boundary, then another, each step small enough that he can tell himself he hasn't crossed a line. By the time he looks back, the line is a mile behind him.
Vance texts: March says Novak drives a silver Nissan Altima. Delaware plates. Check the block.
I check the block. Twice. No silver Altima right now. Whoever Novak is, he's not sitting in a parked car on Kari’s block. Smarter than that, or more patient.
The house goes quiet after dark. Kari comes downstairs in an oversized sweatshirt, hair damp, smelling like coconut. She sits on the other end of the couch and pulls her knees up.
"Tell me something," she says.
"What."
"Anything. Something that isn't about cameras or Novak or the fact that someone's been listening to me talk to my tools."
"My first week at HPG, Vance put me on a protective detail for a diplomat's cat."
