“What happened?”
“I made it about three feet in before the current took me.”
Her eyes widened. “And then what?”
“Then I was floating downstream and significantly less confident in my abilities.”
The small sound she made—not quite a laugh, but close—was the best thing he'd heard all day.
He pulledinto the Victorian's drive a little after four. The house was quiet, Garrett's truck gone, no sign of Declan or Wade.
“I've got the evening shift at the pub,” he said, wishing he didn’t.
She looked at the house, then at him. As if maybe she was as reluctant to leave as he was to let her go.
“That’s okay. I should be getting back anyway.”
He walked her to her car. She unlocked it, then paused before getting in.
“Thank you,” she said. “For today. It was nice.”
He nodded. “My pleasure.”
He watched until she drove away, rubbing his chest where a sudden sense of loss had taken up residence behind his ribcage.
25
ATTENTION TO DETAIL
MORGAN
Patience was a virtue.One, apparently, that Morgan had to work on.
It wasn’t normally an issue. Waiting was part of her job as an MDI. But that was when she was an objective observer. Being personally involved hit differently.
Frank's house was quiet this morning. Shadow had followed Frank out to his garage, doing whatever it was they did out there every day. She didn’t ask, and Frank offered neither explanation nor invitation.
That left her inside, waiting and semi-obsessively checking her phone while Donna did her thing. She hadn’t spoken to Patrick since they’d parted ways the day before, but he had uploaded the most recent info on Anthony Varro like she’d asked. The logicalpart of her brain knew it would take time for anything to shake out. The illogical part of her brain didn’t care and wanted it now.
Donna was at the counter, working through meal prep with the systematic efficiency of a line cook, wielding the chef’s knife with a slightly unusual grip. Her thumb and forefinger wrapped around the blade rather than the handle in the kind of hold that gave you control over the edge rather than just the weight of it.
Probably helped with precision.
Morgan filed it away, because she had more pressing puzzles to deal with.
“Can I help?” Morgan asked.
Thus far, she’d refrained from interfering, mostly because Donna seemed like the type of woman who neither wanted nor appreciated help, but she needed a distraction.
Donna looked at her over her shoulder. Not warmly, exactly—but without the censure Morgan half-expected.
“You can scrub those, then cut them up,” she said finally, nodding toward the bag of potatoes, fresh from the farmers market and coated in soil.
Morgan took the bag to the sink, grabbed the scrubber, and got to work.
“How long have you known my grandfather?” Morgan asked, when the silence had settled into something comfortable enough to speak into.
“A long time.”