And behind it all, the carriage house sits exactly where I left it. Burned down to a truth nobody can argue with.
Lark goes still the second I put the truck in park. Her hand tightens once around the strap of her bag, then she reaches for the door.
I get there first.
“Hold up.”
She turns her head toward me, irritation already taking shape. “What?”
“I’m getting out first.”
Her expression goes flat. “You know that’s annoying, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re doing it anyway.”
“Yeah.”
That almost gets me another one of those almost smiles. Almost.
I step out, circle the front of the truck, and scan the property before I open her door.
No movement in the windows. No one on the road slowing down to stare. No sign of anyone returning in the night. Still, something under my skin stays tight.
Lark climbs out without waiting for help, Rook hopping down after her with a grunt that sounds personally offended by the ground.
She looks toward the carriage house and doesn’t say anything at first. That worries me more than if she had.
I shut the passenger door and stand beside her in the gravel. Morning air carries the damp scent of wet ash and salt, but there’s something else in it too now—the exposed, stripped-back smell of burned wood cooling in daylight. It gets into the back of your throat. Stays there.
“They’ll want to see it before you move anything,” I say quietly.
She nods.
“I know.”
But she doesn’t sound like she hears me. She sounds like she’s somewhere else entirely.
I follow her gaze to the wrecked frame of the carriage house. What’s left of the roofline has caved inward. One side wall still stands mostly upright, blackened and skeletal. The lean-to on the back corner is half collapsed, its contents obscured by charred debris and steam-darkened wood.
“You planned to stay there,” I say.
She glances at me then, not surprised I figured it out.
“That was the idea.”
“It would’ve needed work.”
“It still has bones,” she says, the words coming quickly this time, defensive in a way that tells me I hit something raw. “Or it did.”
I look back toward the structure.
“Yeah.”
Lark exhales slowly. “My dad loved the carriage house.”
That gets my full attention.
