Chapter 3
I own the building across the alley behind Harbor Walk. But I have no real reason to be standing at its second-floor window watching Avery Laramie direct a moving crew through the loading bay below. I've been telling myself I haven't thought about her, which was mostly true, until it wasn't.
She disappears through the loading entrance with a rolling cart, the wheels rattling over the metal threshold with a sharp scrape, moving like she's picking a fight with the building itself.
All five-four of her, thin enough that you'd underestimate her until you saw the way she handles the load without asking for help.
I shift my weight forward before I realize I've moved and keep my hand on the glass, holding the second-floor view of Harbor Walk's back side and the space I'm leasing to Avery.
My laptop sits open next to me with Pham's file on Stein, while Pancake presses her chin against my boot and huffs like she has an opinion about my priorities, before falling back to sleep.
I tap the sill once with my knuckles and keep her in sight. "We're not standing here tracking her."
Pancake snores and doesn't move while I check my watch and make myself stand still while ninety seconds pass.
Avery drags a cart through the back, shoulders set, voice sharp as she directs the two movers. One of them asks something I can't hear. She answers without looking up and points to something inside the building. The other guy waits for her next instruction like she's the only traffic light.
I turn, take two steps to the desk, and scroll down Stein's report.
My grip tightens on the trackpad as the same lines roll past again.
Three fires in the past eighteen months.
Acquisition offers inside ten business days.
The same accelerant signature from the Surfside Drive warehouse lining up with all of them.
Pancake's ears flick. She lifts her head and watches me like I'm the one acting strange.
I scroll back up and read two names I know: Danny Ruiz and Cora Mbeki. I remember the burn charts and my own graft schedules, and the long weeks of dressing changes and the smell that never quite leaves.
My shoulders pull tight and stay there. I shut the laptop halfway, then open it again and keep one eye on the screen and one on Avery as she argues with a dolly stacked with boxes.
I've worked enough fire scenes to know exactly what Danny's and Cora's names cost. I run a hand over my left forearm and shoulder, heat ghosting along scars that remind me I'm not going back to six years ago.
She comes back outside to lift a shelf with a dolly. She stops, adjusts the dolly under the side, tries again, and stops once more. I want to yell out to her that she should bring the dolly around to the wide side of the shelf, but she keeps trying like she doesn't care about physics.
"Stubborn," I say.
Pancake grunts and shifts to her back, paws in the air like she agrees.
I set my palm on the frame and watch the movers hesitate.
One of them tells her she should move the dolly to the wide side of the shelf and she snaps off another instruction while answering a question over her shoulder.
She leaves the mover with the shelf and drags a second cart through the doorway.
Dust marks her cheek, her curly dark hair pulled through the back of a baseball hat into a loose ponytail, and she's running the space like she owns it because she does for a month.
I pull up the security feed and angle it for the front, keeping the back in sight. Nothing notable except for a couple who walk by, tent their hands over their brows, and peer inside the pop-up store's windows.
My phone buzzes with JONAH in all caps. I glance at the time and type back a short acknowledgement without looking away from her because he already said the pen name leak means someone local talked.
As if I'd somehow interrupted her beauty sleep, Pancake looks up at me with a scowl. "We'll go in a bit," I tell her, leaning down to give her a pat on her head.
She ignores the comment and keeps watching me.
I close the security feed tab and see the Ventura County Star article I had open, reporting on the fire compliance issues her store needs to fix, her pen name getting outed, and the fact that she's relocating to my pop-up while repairs get done.
Lara Vaine. A name she gave her other life, the one that doesn't have a brother or a lease or a red tag.
The leak didn't just out her. It reached into the part she'd kept clean.
So either she gave that up, or someone else in Port Hueneme talked to a reporter about her business. That narrows it to someone inside her orbit. Employees, contractors, regulars. Anyone with access to her shop.
Around ten, the truck pulls out and the back door closes.
I take the stairs down and cross the alley toward my car.
A delivery driver is wheeling a loaded pallet toward Harbor Walk's loading bay door, lining it up to stack against the frame.
I change direction without breaking stride, take the pallet handle, and walk it back to the far side of the alley wall where it won't block the entrance.
The driver shrugs and heads back to his truck.
I keep moving to my car, taking a position where I can see through the front windows of the pop-up and track what she's doing inside without being seen.
I watch her struggle alone to move a bookshelf from near the east wall to the back stack and back again while the room keeps rejecting it, the natural foot traffic pulling toward the front window while she keeps trying to anchor the shelf to the rear, fighting the layout with pure stubbornness and losing.
I can't keep watching her fight the shelf placement from the car when I know exactly where it should go and could fix it. So I get out, cross to the front where she's propped the door open, and when I step inside she hears me and doesn't look up.
"I'm fine." She slides a book into place.
I don't ask if she knows it's me or someone else.
I cross to the back wall with a dolly, pick up the shelf, and move it across to the south wall. The placement anchors the traffic line correctly, making the room make sense.
She stares at me while I straighten.
"Put it back."
"It's in the right place."
"I have a system."
"You had a hostage situation."
She keeps staring. It's the same look she'd perfected by age seventeen when she caught Jonah and me raiding her father's good whiskey. "You're insufferable," she huffs, before turning to the cart beside her and lifting a stack of books, slotting them onto the built-in shelves along the north wall.
Pancake heads straight to the middle of the room, arranging herself directly in the highest-traffic area possible and going to sleep on a stack of Avery's inventory sheets and what looks like a book. My dog picks the worst possible place like it's a skill.
"Your dog," Avery says, pointing, "I didn't notice yesterday that she has three legs."
I look at one, then the other. "Yeah, well Pancake gets self-conscious talking about it, plus she's helping."
"What she's doing is committing literary crimes."
Avery looks at me like she's deciding whether to push, then looks back at Pancake. "Self-conscious," she repeats. It's flat enough that it means she doesn't believe me and isn't done with the question.
I scoop Pancake up before she can flatten another stack of paperbacks and carry her to the corner. "Stay," I tell her, setting her down.
She waddles straight back to the inventory sheets and drops onto them.
Avery looks up this time, eyes narrowing. "What are you doing here?"
I step to the cart and glance at the spines. "Okay. Explain your filing system before I accidentally shelve literary fiction beside murder and destroy your reputation."
She doesn't look up. "First of all, that's not how bookstores work."
She reaches for the next gap.
"Second of all, if you put literary fiction in Thrillers, I legally have to ask you to leave."
I pull a set from the cart, glance at the spines, and hand her the next group she needs.
She pauses, looks at the titles, then at me, like she wasn't expecting me to get it right. She takes them, squares them into place against the shelf, and keeps going.
She flicks another glance at me. "What are you doing here?"
I pull the next set from the cart and glance at the spines.
"Property inspection."
She blinks.
I gesture at the room.
"Turns out the tenant's hostile."
She looks at me like I'm a problem she hasn't solved yet. "I didn't ask for help. And not those, those," she says, nudging the stack in my hands aside and pointing to the next group in line that I missed. "Also, it's not your place to check in on me."
"Technically," I say, handing her the right stack this time, "it literally is."
Her eyes narrow.
I shrug. "Legally speaking."
"It's my store," she shoots back, stepping into my space to grab the next set of books like she's correcting me on principle.
"Your store is fighting the room," I say, pointing to the shelf I moved that now pulls the foot traffic into a clear path, making the space feel considered instead of cramped.
She takes the books out of my hands. "Interesting theory. Counterpoint. You're impossible."
I don't let go right away. "You want customers to walk in and know where to go."
"I want customers to browse," she says, tugging once. "There's a difference."
Pancake snorts and resettles on the papers, louder this time, like she's weighing in.
Avery points at her. "And your dog is actively sabotaging me."
"She's stress testing your layout," I say, finally handing over the books.
"She's stress testing my patience." Avery exhales, then looks back at me. "And, you. You don't get to just show up and take over."
"I haven't taken over." I nudge the shelf back into place when she isn't looking. "I told you. I'm helping."
Pancake stands, circles once, and drops right back onto the inventory sheets.