Page 117 of No Good Fight

“I know.”

She shifts the box under one arm and steps back into the house on her own. “Good job not saying it.” Then she kisses me on the cheek when I’m carrying the other boxes.

The dining room table becomes a workbench within minutes. I cut through packing tape and line up the supplies I’m gonna need in rows. Two exterior cameras, four window sensors, a router battery, a signal booster, cable clips, three backup lights, mounting brackets, weatherproof covers, anchors, screws, and everything else.

Alex comes back from the kitchen with a legal pad, a black marker, and the last of the coffee. She doesn’t ask where to sit. She pulls out the chair beside mine and drops into it with her knees tucked under her, marker cap already between her teeth.

I take it out of her mouth before she can chew through it.

She gives me a look.

I set the cap beside the map and slide the legal pad in front of her. “Don’t poison yourself while helping. The last thing I want is to lose you right after I finally got you.”

She writes across the top of the page in thick black letters.

Ryder’s Paranoia Palace.

I stare at it long enough for her mouth to twitch.

Then the marker moves again. A rough square for the house. A rectangle for the garage. A line for the fence. The pine in the back corner gets a jagged greenish-black scribble, even though she only has one marker and no green to work with. She labels it Murder Pine.

I tap the page with the handle of my screwdriver. “That’s the wrong corner.”

She draws an arrow without looking up. “Then your murder pine is poorly located.”

I lean over her shoulder and point to the actual blind spot near the side yard. “This is where the camera dropped him. Between the fence and the old maple. Pine is farther back.”

The marker stops.

Not for long, though. She scratches out Murder Pine, rewrites it by the maple, and adds Pine Was Innocent with a line to the tree. Her wrist brushes the edge of the table, and the sleeve slips back enough to show the bruise near her forearm. Finger marks, darker than they were this morning.

The screwdriver handle digs into my palm.

In my head, the masked man comes through her apartment door again. This time I’m there. This time Mrs. Vance doesn’t have to swing her cane because I reach him first. I picture the crack of bone under my hand with enough detail to make my breathing slow.

Alex slides the legal pad under the screwdriver until the map blocks my view of her arm.

“Show me where the sensors go,” she says.

Not stop. Not calm down. Not you’re scaring me.

So I do. Because I’ll do anything for her.

I release the screwdriver and pick up the first small box. The cardboard gives under my thumb, bent where I squeezed it too hard. Alex sees that too, but she only pulls the instruction sheet from the packaging and smooths it flat on the table.

The first sensor goes on the back door. Alex sits on the floor beside me with the instruction sheet across her knees, reading silently while I clean the frame with an alcohol wipe. She hands me the adhesive strip before I ask, then the sensor, then the smaller magnet. When I press it into place and count under my breath, she reaches up and puts one finger against the doorframe beside mine.

I stop at twenty-three.

She keeps her finger there until thirty.

The app chimes when I test it. Alex flinches. Not much, but enough for me to see. She reaches for the handle herself and opens the door again. The chime sounds a second time. Her shoulder tightens, but she shuts the door and does it again.

By the fourth chime, her jaw isn’t locked, and I’m beyond proud of her for taking the initiative to desensitize herself to it.

I lower the alert volume on both phones without making a point out of it.

Outside, the air is damp and cold against the back of my neck while I climb the ladder to mount the camera over the garage. Alex stands at the base holding the hardware tray with both hands. She could stay inside. She knows that. I know that. But neither of us says it.