Page 55 of Dozer

Her eyes stay on mine for a long second. "That's the thing about you, Dozer."

"What?"

"You say that like you actually mean it."

"I do."

"I know."

She goes back to the kit. I let her. Some things need to be offered, not extracted. I've learned that much about her. Maybe I've learned it because I'm learning her.

Outside the room, the hospital settles around us with a low groan from somewhere deep in the walls. Kenzi looks toward the doorway. I automatically move closer, not enough to crowd her, enough that our shoulders nearly touch.

She glances at me. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Protecting."

"Occupational hazard."

"Maybe."

Her fingers brush mine when she reaches for the evidence tray. Neither of us pulls away immediately. It's barely a touch, a second, maybe less. It still feels like a warning shot. She looks down at our hands, then back at me. I release her first.

"We've got work."

"Right."

She turns toward the evidence. I take the door. It's what we both know how to do. She catalogs. I watch the entrance.

But something has changed, and neither of us is pretending otherwise. We're not just two people trying to survive long enough to uncover a leak and protect evidence, anymore. We're becoming something harder to separate. Something I don't have a name for yet. Something I don't particularly want to stop.

CHAPTER 18

Kenzi

“This is going to take a minute,” I tell Dozer. “The solution has to have time to work.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to explore.”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean, no? Have you ever heard the phrase a watched pot never boils?”

“No. That is a stupid phrase. Watching it has nothing to do with how long water takes to heat up.”

“You are exasperating,” I tell him.

“Noted.”

“I’m going to explore.” I don’t phrase it as a question.

Five minutes later, I find the file cabinet by accident, which is how most of the best discoveries in my career happen, and I've stopped pretending otherwise just to sound more impressive than I am. My work is impressive enough without having to lie.

I'm crawling through what used to be a records annex when my flashlight catches on something behind a collapsed section of drywall. At first, I think it's another piece of rusted equipment, but the angle is wrong. I shove a loose panel aside and uncover metal. Fireproof. The good kind, the kind designed to survive a building falling down around it.