Chapter 16: The Shop

Erik's POV

The call came at twenty past two, while Leah's neurologist was still talking through the burner I had in my own pocket.

I'd given her one and kept its twin.

I had the line open on speaker on the dash and I heard the whole lunch, every word.

Then my shop alarm went off on the other phone.

The alarm was the fifth call that week from the same cheap sensor.

The last four had been the wind.

This one sent me a picture of two men standing in the middle of my floor.

I put the truck in drive and didn't hang up on Leah, because I didn't know how.

"Erik?" Her voice was small on the speaker. "What is it?"

"Shop. Probably nothing. Stay on the porch if he lets you out. Don't go in the study."

"Erik."

"Level?"

There was a breath.

"Level," she said.

I hung up and drove.

It took nine minutes.

The side door was open when I got there, and the lights were on.

They were big men in good jackets, and they had been in my shop for long enough to take their gloves off.

One stood by the bench.

The other stood at the bow of the skiff I was planking for a client in Hood River, with his hand flat on the cedar.

"Hargrove," the one at the bench said. "Good, you're home."

I looked at the hand on the cedar.

I looked at the camera mounted over the door, which had a small red light, and which neither of them had looked at once.

His brother had put it there, the summer before he died.

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