4. And the Thunder Rolls #2
I turned to look at him. In the dim light from the house windows, his profile was all angles: sharp jaw, straight nose, the glint of his glasses. He was watching the storm with the same focused attention he'd given the breaker panel, as if weather patterns were another system worth understanding.
"You get it," I said. "The language part."
"I work with symbols. Old ones. Family crests, territorial markers, the visual shorthand that meant something several hundred years ago." He paused. "It's not so different. Finding the image that carries the meaning."
"Territorial markers?"
"Historical ones." But he said it a beat too late, and I filed that away. Another slip, like Jasper's pack. Another door that opened and then closed.
"What do you do, exactly?"
"I'm the family historian. Archivist." He adjusted his glasses. "I keep track of records. Old documents. Family history. The connections between things that happened centuries ago and things still happening now."
"The stories Lila mentioned?"
His gaze sharpened. "What did Lila tell you?"
"Just that people talk about your family. Old families in old towns." I shrugged. "I didn't ask for details."
"But you wanted to."
It wasn't a question. I felt the weight of his attention like a physical thing.
"I notice things," I said carefully. "Professional habit."
"What have you noticed?"
The rain fell. Lightning flickered in the distance, illuminating his face for a split second.
"That your brother Callum watches me like a hawk," I said. "That Jasper said 'pack' and then pretended he didn't. That your mother looked at me like she recognized me, even though we'd never met." I paused. "That you're asking questions like you're testing what I'll say."
He didn't deny any of it.
"You're very observant," he said.
"Is that a problem?"
"No." He adjusted his glasses. "I think it's exactly right."
"Exactly right for what?"
The thunder rolled in the distance. He was quiet for a long moment.
"You're the kind of person who needs to understand things before you trust them," he said finally. "You won't accept surface answers. You'll keep asking until the real picture emerges." His eyes met mine. "I think that's a good way to be; the right way to be."
I drew in a deep breath. He'd said it so simply. Like my constant questioning wasn't the flaw Marcus had always told me it was.
"Most people find it exhausting," I said.
"Most people want to be taken at face value." He looked at me then, really looked. "I don't. I'd rather be understood accurately than accepted easily."
We talked until midnight.
About design, and history, and the nature of symbols.
How images carried meaning across time. How stories persisted even when the truth had been buried.
He was brilliant in a quiet way, passionate in a contained way, and somehow I ended up telling him things I hadn't told anyone.
Not the Marcus things, but other things.
My design philosophy. My favorite projects.
The way light through magnolia leaves made me feel like anything was possible.
He told me about the archive, floor to ceiling with documents dating back centuries. The preservation work, maintaining paper that wanted to crumble, ink that wanted to fade. Finding connections in old letters, piecing together stories no one had thought to tell.
"It sounds lonely," I said. "All those hours with the dead."
"It's not." He considered this. "The dead have a lot to say, if you know how to listen. They're just patient. They don't mind if you take your time understanding them."
"Unlike the living."
"Unlike the living," he agreed. "The living want answers now. The dead have already waited this long. What's another few years?"
I laughed, surprised by it, by him, by the dry humor that kept surfacing beneath his serious exterior.
When he finally stood to go, the storm had faded to a gentle rain. At the bottom of the stairs, he paused.
"The archive," he said. "If you're interested in local history, I could show you sometime. There's quite a lot about the founding families. The Thornwoods, the Voss line. How they're connected."
"Are you offering me a history lesson?"
"I'm offering you context." His eyes met mine through the rain. "Sometimes it's easier to understand a place when you understand where it came from."
"And if I want to understand the people?"
He almost smiled. "That takes longer. But I have time."
He disappeared into the main house before I could answer.
I lay awake for a long time that night, listening to the rain fade to silence. Thinking about context and connection. About the way Eli Voss asked questions like he already knew the answers.
About what he'd said: The Thornwoods were very concerned with protecting their territory. Their people.
From what?
Lots of things want what they have.
I was almost asleep when I heard it. Not howling this time. Something else. A sound like claws on wood, scraping slowly up the exterior wall of my apartment.
I held my breath. Counted to ten. The sound stopped.
When I finally gathered the courage to look out the window, there was nothing there. Just the magnolia tree, silver in the moonlight, and the dark wall of the preserve beyond.
But on the wooden railing of my porch, there were scratches that hadn't been there before. Four parallel lines, deep enough to show raw wood beneath the paint.
Like something had been climbing. And then decided to stop.