Tessa kept her gaze on the door. “That violet,” she said quietly. “Either he’s unlucky — or he’s waiting for us to blink first.”
Raines’s Street — Drive-By
Instead of heading straight for the highway, Scout peeled off onto a side road.
Tessa glanced at the GPS, then at him. “Where are we going?”
“Raines’s place,” he said. “Figured we’d take a look.”
“Scout, you know we can’t just roll up there,” she said. “No warrant, no consent?—”
“We’re not rolling up,” he cut in. “Just seeing what we’ve got from the street.”
A few turns later, he slowed. “That’s it. Number thirty-two.”
Raines’s house sat on a rise above the road — white siding, dark shutters, neat porch. Beyond the backyard fence, the railroad tracks cut a clean line through the trees, close enough that a whistle would rattle the windows.
“Close,” Scout murmured. “You’d hear every train that came through.”
Tessa’s gaze moved past the house. A detached garage sat off to the side, two bays with an upstairs window glowing faintly. A small security camera was mounted under the eaves, its dark eye angled toward the drive.
“Garage with a loft,” she said quietly. “He could work out there and still be home on paper.”
Farther back, half-hidden by bare limbs, a small shed crouched near the fence line. Both doors were chained and secured with a heavy padlock.
“There,” Scout said.
“I see it,” she replied. “But from the road is all we get. We step onto that property without a warrant, everything we find is poison.”
He blew out a breath. “Yeah. I know.”
He eased the cruiser forward, letting the house slip out of view in the side mirror.
“We’ll get Burke what he needs for a judge,” Tessa said. “Then we come back.”
“Soon,” Scout answered.
He turned them back toward town.
Drive Back to Sylva
The cab felt small.
Rain tapped steadily against the windshield as Scout eased the cruiser down the mountain road.
“And he didn’t volunteer that,” Tessa said, flipping back through her notes. “His house is right on the line, and he let us talk about the office instead.”
“No,” Scout said. “He didn’t.”
The quiet settled between them.
He rolled one shoulder, a small, restless adjustment. Then spoke.
“Those three professors hate each other,” he said after a moment. “Sinclair, Keller, Raines — every one of them trying to throw the others under the bus.”
“And it’s working,” she replied. “We’re looking sideways at everyone.”
“Raines never misses a chance to knife someone in the ribs,” Scout muttered.
