Chapter 12
He sat down next to the folder like it might go off, which, fair, since I had built it exactly that way.
I’d printed the pages, hole punched them, put them in order of discovery rather than chronology because I wanted him to feel the sequence I’d lived through, not the timeline he already knew by heart.
“Eat first,” I said, sliding the salad bowl toward him. “Then we’re going to talk about the folder.”
“I’d rather talk about the folder.”
“I know you would. That’s exactly why we’re eating first.” I sat down across from him, close enough that our knees almost touched under the small table, and made myself hold his gaze instead of retreating into the kitchen the way every instinct told me to.
“You don’t get to set the pace tonight, Caleb. That’s kind of the whole point.”
He nodded once, and picked up his fork, and I watched him eat chicken I’d slightly burned on one edge with the same careful attention he probably gave everything, which should not have been as attractive as it was.
We got through maybe ten minutes of small talk that wasn’t really small, both of us waiting for the other to touch the folder.
At seven fifteen my phone buzzed once on the counter, right where I’d left it unlocked.
I checked it, texted Dani a single word so she’d know I was fine, and came back to the table before Caleb could ask.
“Dani,” I said, in answer to the question he hadn’t asked. “She’s two blocks over. That was the check in.”
“Good,” he said, and nothing else, which I appreciated more than I let on.
Then I set my fork down and pulled the folder over, opening it flat between us. The first page held his license and office address. I watched him recognize the shape of the research.
“I have notes going back to the first week,” I said, “before you ever fixed my latch. The same stretch of curb on Rover Street, three different times, and once in the public lot with the angle into the courtyard. I have times. I have a photograph of the tan sedan’s plate, which I ran, which came back registered to Rourke Investigations.
” I turned the page toward him so he could see it wasn’t a bluff.
“I have a copy of your PI license number from the state database. I know what you look like on three different days in three different shirts, none of which, for the record, disappear into a crowd as well as you seem to think they do.”
He looked at the pages for a long moment, not flinching, not performing surprise either. “That’s thorough.”
“I design puzzle rooms for a living. Thorough is the baseline, not the achievement.” I closed the folder, because I didn’t need him reading further, I needed him talking.
“Here’s my actual question. Your case was Trent.
I know that now, I looked into him too, once I had your name to work backward from.
Trent’s fraud. That’s a real job, a real client, a real reason to park on my street.
But you kept coming back after that case should have closed. Why?”
He didn’t look away from me, which I gave him credit for, even as some smaller, meaner part of me had almost wanted him to.
“Because I wanted to watch you,” he said.
“Not for a client. Not for a file. I stopped billing the hours the day I noticed I wanted them for myself.” He said it the way he probably confirmed facts on a witness stand, flat, unhedged, no attempt to make it sound better than it was.
“I told myself I was checking whether you were connected to Holloway’s case.
That lasted about ninety seconds before I knew it wasn’t true and kept doing it anyway. ”
“You broke into my apartment.”
“I fixed a latch that needed fixing,” he said, “after unlocking your front door with a key I had no right to use. Both things are true. I’m not going to let the second one erase the first.”
“Good,” I said, “because I wasn’t going to let you.” I watched that land. “I’m not forgiving the window because the latch got fixed and the spider got a courtesy relocation. Those are two different ledgers. I’m keeping both open until I decide I trust you.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to close either one early.”
“You’re better at this conversation than I expected.”
“I’ve had a while to think about what I’d say if I ever got the chance to say it honestly.
” He kept his eyes on me. “I’m not going to tell you it was harmless.
It wasn’t. I watched you without your knowledge or consent for longer than the case justified, and I don’t get to make that smaller by explaining it well. ”
I nodded slowly, because that was, more or less, exactly the sentence I’d needed to hear him say without my having to drag it out of him syllable by syllable.
“Okay,” I said. “Then here’s where we are.
I’m not interested in pretending the last two weeks didn’t happen, and I’ve decided, on purpose, with my eyes open, that I want to keep going.
That’s a choice, not a mood. So I want rules.
Actual ones, not vibes. And I want you to agree to them out loud, right now, at this table, before either of us gets to enjoy anything about tonight. ”
“Go ahead.”
I’d written them on the legal pad that afternoon, Dani’s twin copy sitting in a drawer at The Last Door as backup, because apparently we were both the kind of women who needed a paper trail for our own hearts.
“One. You never enter my apartment without direct permission again. Two. No cameras or recording devices inside my home.” His jaw tightened slightly, there and gone.
“Three. No threatening anyone in my life unless there is an actual safety reason. Four. No trackers without my knowledge and consent. Five. If I catch you following me, you come in if I invite you or you leave. No parking-lot loitering after I’ve waved.
” His mouth twitched. “Six. Any private fact you deliberately dig up about me costs you one honest answer about yourself. Seven. I can end the watching at any point. Closed curtain, direct no, stop. No negotiation.”
He was quiet for a beat, running it the way I imagined he ran everything, checking it against some internal ledger for holes.
“Agreed,” he said. “All seven.”
“You didn’t ask me to soften any of them.”
“Why would I? You already caught me doing the thing the rules are meant to stop. I don’t get to negotiate the fence after I’m the reason it’s going up.
” He said it without bitterness, which somehow made it land harder than if he’d sounded sorry for himself.
“I’ll ask for one thing, if you’ll let me, though it’s not a rule.
If I ever break one of these, tell me plainly.
I’d rather know than have you test me quietly and wait to see if I catch it myself. ”
“I can work with that.” I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding since he sat down.
“Okay. Here’s the last piece, and then we can actually enjoy the rest of this very overdressed salad.
I want three dates. Real ones, not this, this doesn’t count, this was a negotiation with chicken.
Brunch first. Then the evening market. And the third one, I already know what it is, but you’re not getting it tonight. You’ll find out when we get there.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” I agreed, “it isn’t. Welcome to how this feels from my side of the table.
” I let a beat pass, let the smallest smile show.
“Three dates. If you’re going to be in my life, I want to find out who you are when you’re not working an angle, and I want you to find out the same thing about me without a case file to hide behind. ”
“Three dates,” he repeated, like he was setting it into memory the way he probably set everything.
“Three dates,” I said. “And if at the end of them either of us wants out, we’re out, no argument, no grand romantic gesture in a parking lot. Deal?”
“Deal.”
We ate the rest of dinner slower than either of us had eaten the first half, and something in the room had loosened, not all the way, but enough that I caught myself laughing twice at things that weren’t actually that funny, just because laughing felt like the safest place to put everything else I was feeling.
He told me, when I asked, that Owen had made him buy three shirts before tonight.
I told him I’d burned the chicken and considered, briefly, blaming the oven.
We didn’t touch the folder again. It sat there between us for the rest of the meal, closed, his name in block letters on its cover like a promise neither of us had finished reading yet.
When he stood to leave, a little after nine, I walked him to the door myself instead of letting him find his own way out, because I wanted the last image of the night to be one I’d chosen too.
“One more thing,” I said, hand on the knob, not turning it yet. “Do you already know what I wear to bed?”
He didn’t look away, and he didn’t dress it up in anything softer than what it was. “Usually,” he said.
I opened the door anyway, and let him go out into the porch light he’d fixed himself, and stood there a long moment after his truck pulled away, thinking that I had just handed him seven rules and three dates and no real proof yet that rules were the kind of thing that could hold a man like him, or that I even wanted them to hold him completely.