He turned toward Cabot. “While we’re waiting for cleared comms, I want you to write every name you can remember that will attend the wedding. Add the staff members. I want it on paper.”
“Understood.”
“Wiley, when Eamon clears comms, you run Henry against every Onyx Bay channel you can find. Check him against your logs.”
Wiley nodded once.
“And what about me?” I asked.
He paused. “You’re with me at the window. We track the rotation and count the watchers. We record their timing.”
“Joint coordination.”
“Yes.”
“And I need something from you,” I said.
He waited.
“When we’re at this window, you move when I tell you to move. No independent decisions. If I say down, you go down. If I say back, you back up.”
Dane’s jaw tensed. I guessed he didn’t like being told what to do, and he liked it even less coming from me.
“Agreed,” he said.
I didn’t expect that response, but it was what I needed.
“Good.”
I went back to the window and opened a half-inch of viewing space. Dane took his position at my shoulder. He breathed, and I remembered the line of his back under my hand, the give of muscle along his spine.
I focused on the street. A cab rounded the corner from Mount Vernon, slowed in front of the third house up, and kept going.
The second watcher came around the corner again. I started counting.
Chapter seven
Dane
Iwas checking the back-door deadbolt for the third time that hour when I heard Farrow leave the parlor.
I knew it was him before he cleared the doorway. The ancient floorboards gave everyone a signature sound. Reed was square on his heels. Cabot landed mid-foot and rolled. Wiley walked the way he thought, forward-leaning. Farrow was the lightest of us. He stepped on the seams.
The hall from the parlor to the kitchen was sixteen feet long. It would take Farrow fifteen seconds to reach me. Cabot and Wiley remained in the parlor with Reed at the front door.
Farrow stopped a step behind me.
The kitchen light was the color of weak tea. The late sun caught in the upper panes of the back window.
Farrow closed the last distance and wrapped his arms around my waist. One arm was low across my hips. The other reached higher, the palm of his hand flat over the left side of my chest.
He pushed his chest up against my back as he exhaled against my neck. I kept my hand on the lock.
Farrow pressed his lips against my jaw.
“You’ve been holding that lock for two minutes,” he said, low. “I think it’s locked.”
“It is locked.”