The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. Not quite anything.
I picked up my fork and moved a piece of pasta from one side of the plate to the other and wondered how many more dinners could survive this much politeness before one of us cracked.
Then the alarm went off.
Not a subtle ping. Not Maude’s measured voice reporting a sensor anomaly. A sound that filled the compound from every speaker, a pulsing electronic wail accompanied by lights along the ceiling that flashed from the ambient low setting to full bright in a rhythm that felt designed to make your heart rate match it.
Travis was on his feet before the first pulse finished. The man who’d been cutting pasta into careful segments was gone. In his place was someone I’d seen in pieces over the past two weeks but never quite like this. He moved to the counter where he kept a holstered weapon I pretended I didn’t know about and had it in his hand in a motion that was fluid and practiced and utterly without hesitation.
“Maude. Kill the alarm. Report.”
The wailing stopped. The lights held at full.
“Single vehicle on the access road. Approaching from the county highway at normal speed. Vehicle is not in my database. Make and model are consistent with a civilian SUV, late model.”
“Plates?”
“Running. One moment.”
Travis moved to the kitchen window and stood to the side of the frame, not in front of it. He held the weapon low against his thigh and scanned the dark beyond the glass with the systematic patience of someone who had done this before.
Three minutes ago he couldn’t look at me across a dinner table. Now every part of him was aligned and focused, operating on a frequency I could feel from across the room. The transformation was so complete it was almost disorienting, like watching someone switch languages mid-sentence.
I was behind him and to his left. He hadn’t told me to move there. I’d done it on my own because two weeks of watching him work, of learning the geometry of his world, had taught me things I hadn’t consciously registered until my body put them into practice.
“Plates come back to a rental agency in Missoula,” Maude reported. “Current renter is Lark Monroe.”
The tension in Travis’s shoulders dropped by half. He lowered the weapon but didn’t put it away.
“Lark’s truck is a white F-150. Why is she in a rental?”
“I don’t have that information. But the driver matches Lark’s physical profile based on dash cam capture. She’s alone.”
Travis exhaled through his teeth. “Open the gate. Let her through.”
“Done.”
“Lark is a friend,” he said, tucking the weapon into his waistband. “Lives and runs an animal rescue outside town called Pawsitive Connections. She stops by every once in a while, although she usually calls first.” He turned to me. “It’s better if you stay out of sight.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve never had anybody staying here before, and nobody knows you’re here, and it’s easier for both of us if it stays that way. It’s better if everyone thinks I’m up to my normal hermit ways. Less questions overall.”
He wasn’t wrong. I knew he wasn’t wrong. But something about the speed of it, how fast he’d moved fromshe’s a friendtohide, settled in my chest like a stone.
“Where do you want me?”
“Right here is fine. Just stay back from the door. It won’t take me long to get rid of her. Probably a computer problem.”
I moved to the wall beside the front door. Back flat against it, out of the sight line, but close enough that when he opened the door I’d hear everything. He gave me a look that said he’d have preferred me in the next county, but he didn’t argue.
The knock came about a minute later. Three sharp raps, confident, expecting to be answered.
Travis opened the door. Cool air pushed in from outside and with it a voice that was warm and slightly breathless.
“Before you say no, hear me out.”
“Hey Lark. Where’s your truck? You were causing my security system to get all excited.”
