4. Justice #2
They'll check the pawnshop where she sold the earrings.
They'll find the car dealer. They'll trace the route north.
They'll canvas gas stations and rest stops and diners and eventually they'll reach this county and someone in town will remember the pretty woman with the dead radiator and the fancy shoes who disappeared with the unfriendly mechanic in the tow truck.
I lock the gate. Walk back uphill. Snow crunching under my boots. Glock on my hip.
Let them come.
When I get back inside, she's exactly where I left her. Both hands on the mug. Coffee untouched. Eyes on the door. Waiting to see who walked through it.
She sees me. Her shoulders drop half an inch.
Half an inch. That's all I get. That's enough.
I kick the snow off my boots in the mudroom. Hang the headlamp. Unzip the canvas jacket but leave the Glock where it is. The cabin is warm. Woodstove has been doing its work, and the warmth hits my face like stepping into a different country.
The couch is empty. Blanket folded. Mug on the side table, coffee still full and gone cold.
Kitchen. Empty.
Bathroom door open. Dark.
My hand goes to the Glock before the rational part of my brain catches up. I clear the hallway in three strides and check the bedroom. Nothing. The loft. Nothing.
Then I hear it. A faint, rhythmic sound coming from below. Metal on metal. Soft. Deliberate.
The garage.
The internal door to the garage is at the back of the mudroom, behind the gun safe. I built it that way on purpose. One entrance from inside the house. One roll-up door on the exterior, padlocked from within. The door is cracked open now. Warm light spilling through the gap.
I push it wide.
She's sitting on the concrete floor next to my main workbench with her legs folded beneath her, my flannel shirt pooling around her like a collapsed tent.
Her feet are bare. The sweatpants bunch at her ankles.
Her hair is falling out of whatever arrangement she'd had it in, loose strands hanging along her jaw.
My wrench set is spread out on a shop rag in front of her.
All forty-two pieces. She's pulled them out of the rolling chest where I keep them in a state that could charitably be described as organized chaos and she has arranged them in descending order by size on the rag, and she is cleaning each one with a second rag she must have found in the supply bin under the bench.
The rag is already black with grease.
She doesn't hear me. Or she does and doesn't react.
Her hands move with a careful, methodical focus.
Grasp the wrench. Wipe the jaw. Wipe the handle.
Turn it over. Wipe the reverse side. Set it down in line with the others.
Lift the next one. Repeat. Her fingers are small against the chrome vanadium steel.
The largest wrench in the set is almost the length of her forearm.
Her hands shake. Still. They haven't stopped since I found her on the pass. But she works through the tremor with a precision that tells me something. This woman is accustomed to performing under duress. She's done things with shaking hands before. Many things. For a long time.
She picks up a 19mm combination wrench. Pauses.
Studies a patch of dried grease near the open end.
Switches to a cleaner section of the rag and works at the spot with her thumbnail underneath the cloth, scraping gently until the grease lifts.
She holds the wrench up to the overhead shop light.
Inspects it. Nods to herself, a private little motion, and sets it in line.
I've lived alone here for six years. Built the cabin with my hands.
Poured the foundation of the garage in August heat and hung the roll-up door in October rain.
Every tool in this room I bought with money I earned pulling engines and rebuilding transmissions for people who drove up from town and complained about the cost and never once said thank you.
These wrenches are mine. This space is mine. Nobody touches my tools.
She's touching my tools.
And I'm standing here letting her.
She reaches for a stubby ratchet wrench wedged behind the others and her sleeve rides up.
The bruises on her wrist catch the shop light.
Purple and green and the yellowish borders of healing.
Four distinct ovals where fingers pressed hard enough to leave their signature in her skin.
She notices the sleeve and pulls it back down with a quick, practiced motion.
The gesture is automatic. She's been hiding those marks for weeks, maybe months.
"You don't have to do that."
She startles. The ratchet wrench clatters against the concrete. Her whole body goes rigid, coiled up like a spring with too many turns, and her eyes find me in the doorway and her brain cycles through the same rapid calculation as before. Threat assessment. Escape routes. Options.
I don't move. Hands visible.
"The tools. You don't have to clean them."
She raises the ratchet wrench. Puts it back in line. Wipes her hands on the rag.
"I wanted to help. You've been..." She gestures vaguely at the cabin above us, the food, the clothes, the locked gate, all of it. "I'm not good at sitting still."
"Floor's cold. You're barefoot."
"I couldn't find my shoes."
"Your shoes are in the trash. They were destroying your feet."
She looks down at her bare toes on the concrete. Curls them in against the chill. Doesn't argue.
"I'll get you boots tomorrow."
"You don't have to do that."
"Not a discussion."
She stares at me. Something moves behind those wide brown eyes. Not fear this time. Something else. Something I don't have a name for. Something that makes her reach for the next wrench and start cleaning it again like I never interrupted her.
"This one's stripped." She holds up a box-end wrench. Twelve millimeter. "The corners are rounded off. You've been using it on bolts that are too large."
I push off the doorframe. Walk over. Take the wrench from her fingers, and she's right. The box end is wallowed out. I've been meaning to replace it for three months.
"How'd you know that?"
"I don't know anything about cars." She reaches for the next wrench. "But I know what damaged looks like."
The words hang in the cold garage air between us. She doesn't look up. Just keeps wiping. Methodical. Steady. Her hands still shaking.
I lower myself onto the concrete beside the workbench. Pull the shop rag toward me. Grab the 24mm from the unsorted pile. Start cleaning.
We work in silence. Her on one end of the line, me on the other. The only sounds are cloth on steel and the wind outside pressing against the garage door and her quiet breathing which has finally, for the first time since I found her, started to slow.
Then the tablet screams.
The alarm rips through the garage like a bandsaw. High-pitched, shrill, pulsing in three-second intervals. The security tablet is mounted on the wall above the workbench and its screen has gone from passive black to a flashing red border with white text scrolling across the center.
SENSOR 3 — LOWER ACCESS ROAD — MOTION DETECTED
Emilia drops the wrench. Both hands fly to her ears. Every drop of color drains from her face in the time it takes the alarm to cycle once, and she looks at me with an expression that I will remember for the rest of my life. Pure, distilled terror. The terror of a woman who has been found before.
"That's them. They found me."
I'm already on my feet. Already moving.