Page 262 of What We Burn

I kiss him. Hard. Pull him into me with my legs and my arms and everything I have, and when he lifts me off the counter and pushes inside me—slow, devastatingly slow, his forehead pressed to mine—the sound I make isn’t about the sex. It’s about the word home and the way he describes our future, and what it means to finally have one.

We say goodbye to the counter and the fridge. Then the hallway. Then the bathroom door, which is logistically questionable but emotionally significant because it’s where he once leaned in the doorway and watched me brush my teeth and I caught him smiling in the mirror and pretended I hadn’t.

By the time we actually start packing, an hour has passed and I’ve come four times. Holden’s hair is standing up in six different directions and we’re both going to need a shower.

“You’re ridiculous,” I say, folding Amy’s sweaters into a box.

“A proper farewell requires a comprehensive tour.” He tapes a box shut. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to the laundry closet.”

“We are not having sex in the laundry closet.”

“For now.”

I throw a balled-up sock at his head. He catches it without looking.

His work phone buzzes before he can throw it back. Holden checks the screen, and every trace of amusement leaves his face.

“What is it?”

He tilts his phone toward me, long enough for me to see the header for a department-wide case bulletin.

“What does it say?”

“The warehouse fire is officially an arson investigation.”

My stomach tightens. “I thought there was nothing left.”

“There were twelve vehicles in that lot. Fire investigators recovered enough from the VINs to start identifying the registered owners. Several have already been reported missing. The others haven’t shown up to explain why their cars were abandoned outside a burned warehouse.”

“But they didn’t find any bodies.”

“Which is why Missing Persons is involved now.” He scrolls through the update, his expression hardening. “Arson has the fire. Missing Persons has the owners. Several vehicles were registered outside the city, so other departments are asking questions too.”

“Can you make it go away?”

“No.” The answer is immediate. “Too many people are already looking at it. If I interfere, I put myself in the middle of a case I have no reason to care about.”

“So what can you do?”

“Monitor it. Make sure none of the evidence points toward us.”

His thumb stops moving.

“What?”

“They recovered a partial tire impression outside the main burn area. Heavy all-terrain tread. Probably from a pickup that crossed the lot.”

“Knox.”

“It could belong to thousands of trucks.” Holden is already opening the encrypted group thread. “I’m not giving them the chance to narrow it down.”

He types quickly.

Holden:

@Knox Change all four tires on the pickup today. Different tread pattern. Destroy the old set. Don’t drive the truck again until it’s done.

Knox’s reply appears almost immediately.