The problem with holding someone's hand is that your body remembers.
Not the act itself — the geometry of it. The specific calibration of pressure required to communicate this is for show versus this is something else entirely. My thumb found her pulse point yesterday. Settled there like it had coordinates. And now, in the parlor chair with the ceiling fan clicking overhead in a pattern that isn't quite random enough to ignore, I'm running a mental diagnostic on my own nervous system and coming up short.
The chair is a wingback that was probably comfortable during the administration it was purchased under. My neck has an opinion about the angle. My lower back has filed a formal complaint. None of this matters, because the alternative is upstairs in a brass bed with yellow flowers on the sheets, and I'm not going there.
I catalogue exits instead. Front entrance — my deadbolt holds. Back door, original hardware, functionally decorative. Window casings on the ground floor, three of which don't latch. Upstairs, Kari's bedroom door, her window over the porch roof with the sash lock that a firm sneeze could defeat.
The ceiling fan clicks. Upstairs, the floorboards creak once — Kari shifting in her sleep.
I don't move.
Perimeter check before sunrise, before the street wakes up, before Nina opens her shop and starts watching me through the window with the enthusiasm of a woman who has found a new hobby. The garden gnome in the front garden bed — ceramic, chipped nose, unsettling smile — has not been moved. I check anyway. Position relative to the doorframe, angle of the head, exact placement on the flagstone.
Back door: undisturbed. Window casings: undisturbed. Side alley where the recycling bins create a natural blind spot: clear. The cellar hatch on the east side: my padlock holds.
The notes don't follow a clean pattern, which bothers me more than a pattern would. First note was under contact paper near the kitchen sink — could have been placed anytime during the three years the inn sat empty, or minutes before Kari arrived. She told me about finding it during the hardware store walk, her voice going flat and factual in a way that told me she'd already rehearsed this version for her own benefit.
The second note is the one that matters. It appeared on the parlor floor while Kari was upstairs on the phone. Doors unlocked. Front door latch broken. Someone walked into an occupied building, placed the note, and left without making enough noise to alert a woman one floor above.
That's not opportunity. That's confidence. Someone who knows the layout, knows how sound carries, and isn't afraid to be inside while she is.
I pull up the satellite view of the block on my phone. Nina's coffee shop directly across the street, clear sightline to the inn's front door. Oren's place two doors down. Residential units opposite with second-floor windows facing the property. A parking area behind the shops connecting to the alley.
Not a large suspect pool. Not small enough to be comfortable.
Nina has my coffee ready before I reach the counter.
"Large. Black. No conversation." She slides the cup across. "How's the renovation going?"
"Fine."
"Kari's doing the upstairs bathroom next, right? She was telling me about the tile. Very bold choice. I told her bold is good, because most people play it safe with bathrooms and end up with beige. Acres of beige." Nina leans on the counter. "You know what she said about the tile?"
I do not know what Kari said about the tile.
"She said it reminded her of a bathroom she saw in a magazine when she was a kid, and she ripped out the page and kept it in a folder. A folder, Liam. She's been carrying a picture of a bathroom for most of her life."
This is information I didn't need, don't want, and will absolutely not think about later when I'm watching Kari tear out subflooring with a level of focus that borders on devotional.
"Enjoy your morning," I say.
Nina grins. "Tell your girlfriend I said hi."
I take my coffee and leave.
By the time I get back, Kari is already demolishing a wall. Not the structural wall — I checked the renovation plans taped to the kitchen counter, covered in sticky notes and highlighter and at least one doodle of a cat in a hard hat. The wall she's attacking is a non-load-bearing partition between the future dining room and what she keeps calling "the lounge area, but with intention."
"Morning," she says, without turning around. Safety goggles on her forehead, flannel shirt more drywall dust than fabric. Gerald sits on the floor beside a claw hammer and a pry bar she hasn't named yet. "There's coffee cake. Oren brought it."
"I have coffee."
"Coffee cake isn't coffee. It's cake. The coffee part is aspirational." She swings the hammer. A chunk of drywall surrenders. "Can you hold that piece? The big one. It's about to — "
It falls. I catch it.
"Thanks. Lean it against the other wall. The one I'm not destroying." She points with the hammer. "Also the drawer in the kitchen is sticking again. The one by the stove."
I don't respond. I go to the kitchen. Rail alignment issue — left runner seated too high, creating drag on the pull stroke. Multi-tool from my bag. Simple fix.
