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"What?"

"You texted her six times." I keep my voice easy. It's not a thing I'm good at. "Then you drove here. Then you got out and went up to the burned door instead of knocking on it."

"I did knock."

"Not on the door."

Lila laughs. It's a good laugh, warm and quick, and it comes about a half second late.

"Okay," she says. "That's aggressive for a Thursday."

"He's like this before coffee," Maren says.

"He's like this always."

"Touch it again."

The porch goes quiet.

Maren turns and stares at me. Lila looks at the door, then at her own hand, and I watch her decide something behind her eyes.

She reaches out and taps the char with two fingers and snatches them back with a hiss.

"Wow. That's hot."

"Yeah," I say. "It is."

She sucks her fingertips and shakes them out and says something about a work shift starting at eleven, and hugs Maren again, longer this time. Over the top of her head her eyes are wet and I can't tell which part of this is a performance.

That's the issue with liars who love the person they're lying to. Half of it comes back true.

"Call me," she says. "Please. I mean it."

She goes down the steps. Sid tracks her the entire way to the car and doesn't move until it's gone.

Maren stands in her own front yard in my shirt and socks, breathing steam.

The print is still there. Char rubbed pale in the shape of a spread hand, high on the door, right through the middle of the mark.

Fingers spread wide. Held.

"That was rude," Maren says.

"I know."

"She's had a key to my place since before I ever moved to this street."

"I know."

She waits. I've watched her do this since April, this specific waiting, chin up and eyes steady, giving me the room to be a better man than I've been.

I've got a scent and no proof. Maren lost her whole idea of what's real this last week and if I take her best friend away from her today and I'm wrong, she has nothing left standing.

But, if I'm right, Lila is the only thread in this town that runs back to the people who burned that door.

You don't cut a thread. You follow it.

"Are you cold?" I ask.