Chapter 14
Sera
“Could you pass the salt?”
Travis picked up the shaker and set it exactly between us, close enough for me to reach but far enough that our fingers wouldn’t touch. He’d been doing that for two days. Calibrating distances. Finding the precise midpoint between polite and nowhere near me.
“Thank you.”
“Sure.”
I salted my pasta. He salted his pasta. We both looked at our plates with the kind of concentration usually reserved for defusing nuclear warheads.
Two days of this. Of please and thank you and measured eye contact and conversations about the Kindt data that were so aggressively professional they could have been transcribed into a Bureau briefing without changing a word.
Of sitting across from a man I’d kissed and pretending the kiss had happened to two other people in some other room.
It mattered. Not to him, obviously. But to me it mattered so much I could still feel the exact pressure of his mouth if I stopped actively trying to not think about it even for a second.
I’d been replaying it on a loop since the gym. Not the way a woman replays a kiss she’s happy about. I was replaying it the way I replayed data that didn’t fit a model. Examining it from every angle, stress-testing the inputs, looking for the explanation that made the pattern hold.
Proximity. That was all. I’d been standing close to him, breathing hard from the training, face flushed, body warm. His hands had been on me for an hour, adjusting my stance, correcting my form. We’d both been a little excited because I’d gotten the move right.
The human nervous system doesn’t distinguish between types of physical arousal. Elevated heart rate is elevated heart rate. The body connects the dots whether the dots belong together or not.
He’d looked at me and his brain had filled in a different face. Naomi and I shared enough similarities. In the right light, with his pulse up and his guard down, the resemblance could do the work.
He’d kissed me and seen her. I was sure of it.
And the proof was sitting across the table, eating pasta with mechanical precision while I asked him to pass the salt like we were coworkers in a break room.
Across the table, Travis cut his pasta into precise, equal lengths. He’d been doing it since I sat down, and I wasn’t sure he was aware of it. His focus was on the food in a way that suggested his focus was actually miles away.
“The southeastern corridor data from this afternoon looked promising,” he said without looking up. “I think we should run it against the fuel purchase records tomorrow.”
“Sounds good.”
“And the timing anomaly you flagged on the northern route. I want to overlay that with the communication bursts from last week.”
“I can have it ready by morning.”
“Great.”
Great. Wonderful. Two analysts discussing workflow over dinner. Nothing to see here.
“You’re both being ridiculous,” Maude said from the ceiling.
Neither of us responded. The silence that followed was the kind that even Maude didn’t try to fill, and Maude always tried to fill silence. That she didn’t now told me something I wasn’t ready to hear.
I put my fork down. “I think I’m done.”
“You’ve only eaten a third of your meal.”
“I’m not that hungry.”
He looked at me then. Actually looked, for the first time since we’d sat down. Whatever he found on my face made something shift behind his eyes, but it passed before I could catalog it.
“You should eat more,” he said. “Maude will lecture us both.”
“Maude can take it up with my appetite.”
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 from she’s a friend to hide, 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.”
She was a friend. I could tell by how Travis was talking. This woman was someone he cared about, similar to his colleagues at Warrior Security.
“I know. I’m sorry. My truck’s in the shop so I got a rental.”
“What’s in the box? You have some sort of computer problem you need help with? I might have been able to help you over the phone.”
“No. No computer problem. But, ah, I need a favor. A small one. Tiny, really. Barely qualifies as a favor.”
A pause that lasted long enough to be a negotiation all by itself. Then Travis let out a sigh.
“How many?” he asked. “And what kind?”
I had no idea what this conversation was about.
“Three. Kittens. They’re weaned, although just barely.
The mom has some medical complications. They just need a place for a week, maybe two.
Three at the most. I’ll find them homes, I promise.
I’m just out of room. The cat house is full, I’ve got two litters already at my place, and Dr. Carter’s boarding kennels are packed because of that hoarding case in Kalispell. ”
“Lark.” He was about to say no; I could already tell.
“They’re so small, Travis. They barely take up any space. You won’t even know they’re here. Remember the puppies at Christmas? You said they were fine. You said, and I quote, they were less annoying than most humans.”
“I said they were less annoying than Beckett. That’s a different bar. Beckett is the most annoying human on the planet.”
“Please. I wouldn’t ask if I had another option.”
A pause. Long enough that I pressed my shoulders harder against the wall.
He’d taken puppies in at Christmas? Somehow, I had no problem imagining that.
“Lark, I can’t. Not right now. I’ve got a lot on my plate and the timing is bad.”
“Travis, they’re six-week-old kittens. They eat and they sleep. They’re not going to interfere with whatever tech project you’re buried in.”
“It’s not that. I just… can’t take on anything else right now.”
He was definitely going to say no.
I heard it in the silence. He was going to send her away. Turn down a friend, a woman who cared about him, because I was hiding in his house and he couldn’t explain why. He was going to add one more wall, close one more door, push one more person away. Because of me.
No.
I stepped into the doorway.
“Hi.” I waved to her. “I think I’m what’s on his plate.”
Lark was standing on the porch with a box in her arms, three small faces peering over the edge. Her whole body went still for about one second. Then her eyes moved from me to Travis and back to me.
“Well,” she said. “That explains a lot.”
Travis had gone rigid beside me. I could feel it without looking at him.
“Lark,” he said carefully, “this is my friend Sera. She’s staying here for a while.”
“Okay. Friend. Okay.” Lark was obviously still reeling.
Travis scrubbed a hand down his face. “It’s pretty important you not mention this to anyone. More serious circumstances than just trying to avoid gossip.”
Lark looked at him, absorbing the request without flinching. Something passed across her face that had nothing to do with curiosity and everything to do with recognition. This was a woman who understood the necessity of keeping some things quiet. A woman with secrets of her own.
“Of course,” she said. “Who or what happens in your house is nobody’s business but your own. So I won’t say a word.”
“Thank you.”
Lark turned to me. “It’s nice to meet you. Few people get past this man’s porch. I usually need animals to do it. You must have something I don’t.”
“Well, I broke in the first time. So… probably not the route you would want to go anyway.”
She grinned, and it was the kind of grin that made you want to tell her things. Open and uncomplicated and completely genuine.
“Well,” she said, holding the box out toward Travis, “since your plate just got a little less full, you’ve got room for these three.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She put the box in Travis’s hands and pulled a folder from under her arm. “Feeding schedule, what to watch for, my number in case anything seems off. They’re eating on their own but they still need monitoring.”
Travis looked down at the box. Looked at me. Looked back at Lark.
“Take care of my kittens,” Lark said. Then, softer, her eyes on me: “Take care of each other.”
She was down the porch steps before Travis could respond to that, into the rental car, taillights disappearing down the drive. Travis closed the door and locked it and stood with his hand on the deadbolt for a moment longer than necessary.
“You were supposed to stay out of sight.”
“I know.”
He looked at me. I looked back. Neither of us blinked, and neither of us pretended that what I’d just done was an accident.
“She won’t say anything,” I said.
“No. She won’t. But it was still a risk.”
“You were about to distance yourself from a friend because of me. Say no, when you would’ve otherwise said yes. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
He carried the box into the kitchen, overlooked the cold dinner plates and the saltshaker still sitting in its careful neutral zone, and set it on the kitchen table.
Three kittens. One solid black, one gray striped, one white with orange patches.
All oversized ears and wide uncertain eyes.
The black and the gray were huddled together in the corner of the box.
The white one was attempting to climb the cardboard wall with a determination that far exceeded its physical capabilities.
We sat back down. The pasta was cold and neither of us reached for it. The box sat between our plates like a strange centerpiece, and the sounds coming from it were small and insistent and impossible to ignore.
I reached into the box and picked up the climber.
It fit in one hand, a warm weight with a racing heartbeat and claws that immediately hooked into my sleeve.
I settled it in my lap, and it turned twice, kneading the fabric of my jeans, and then began its next expedition.
Up from my lap to the table edge. Front paws on the surface, back legs scrambling, and then it was up and moving with the unsteady confidence of something that had no idea it could fall.
It walked directly through Travis’s plate.
Small white paw prints in cold marinara sauce. Across the pasta, over the rim, and onto the table, leaving a trail of tiny red marks on the surface. The kitten sat down in the center of the table and licked one paw with complete self-possession.
The laugh came out of me before I could catch it.
Not a polite sound. Not the controlled, appropriate response I’d been offering since the gym.
A half snort/half cackle that pulled my shoulders forward and crinkled my eyes shut and felt like something I’d been holding too tight had slipped out of my hands.
I opened my eyes.
Travis wasn’t looking at the kitten. He was looking at me. And for the first time in two days, he didn’t look away.
He smiled.