Page 22 of Faultline

The marks are mine. The satisfaction that rolls through me at the sight of them is not the response of a reasonable man.

"Coffee's on the stove," I say.

She crosses the room, takes the mug I set out for her, and pours a cup of coffee. Her fingers wrap around it with the casual certainty of a woman who's already decided she belongs at this counter, and the truth of it bothers me more than her presence does.

The counter takes her weight as she leans against it, wraps both hands around the mug, and drinks with her eyes half-closed while the steam folds across her jaw. She doesn't speak. She doesn't thank me for the coffee or make conversation or fill the silence with the noise most people use to avoid being known.

She just stands in my kitchen like she's always stood in my kitchen, and the silence that's been mine alone for years rearranges itself around her like she was always part of it. The ease of it puts me on edge. Things that come this easy don't last, and things that don't last leave damage.

"Woodstove kicks out more heat if you leave the draft cracked," I say, because the alternative is standing here cataloging the way her throat moves when she swallows.

"Noted." She lifts the mug, takes a slow pull, and sets it down with the deliberate care of a woman delivering a verdict. "This is strong enough to strip varnish."

"That a complaint?"

"That's admiration." Her gaze drops to my chest, bare above the waistband of my jeans, and travels back up to my face at a pace that's designed to let me know she's looking. "You always walk around half-dressed, or is this for my benefit?"

"My cabin. My rules."

"Interesting. That how you handle everything in your life? Your cabin, your rules, no discussion?"

The corner of her mouth is doing the thing it did through the café window, the expression that isn't quite a smile and carries twice the voltage. She's testing the perimeter of whatever this is, and she's doing it at seven in the morning with my fingerprints still on her skin, which tells me this woman doesn't back down from anything, including me.

We don't talk about last night. We don't reference the wall beside the woodstove, or the hallway, or the bed where I memorized the sounds she makes when her control snaps.

The silence holds it all, and neither of us touches it. The weight of what we're not saying takes up more space in the room than either of us does.

Within five minutes of moving to the table and opening her laptop, she's leaning forward with her whole body, elbows on the scarred pine, chin close to the screen. The posture is fierce and total. Her coffee sits, barely tasted, at her elbow, already cooling.

I wash the coffeepot, pull on a flannel and boots, and step onto the porch to read the morning.

The air is cold enough to sting. The frost on the porch railing has started to melt where the sunlight hits. The creek runs fast and clean below the cabin. A pair of ravens hold a territorial argument across the ridge, their calls carrying through the spruce in a conversation older than anything human on this mountain.

I take the loop trail that circles the clearing, checking the way I've checked every morning since Cascade started mapping property they don't own. Northern tree line undisturbed. Access road showing Tosh’s are the only new tire tracks. Gate latched, chain intact. I'm walking the eastern fence line when I find the boot prints.

They're fresh. Overnight, or close to it. Two sets, side by side, following the fence from the drainage culvert to the point where the tree line meets my property boundary. The treads are deep and evenly spaced, prints left by heavy men walking with purpose in boots designed for rough terrain. They follow the fence until they stop at a section where the top wire has been cut and folded back, the raw ends bright against the weathered steel.

Someone walked my fence line last night while I was in bed with Tosh. Someone studied my perimeter and opened a gap in the wire at the exact point where the tree line would conceal their approach from the cabin.

The wire was cut with bolt cutters, clean diagonal cuts with no hesitation marks. Whoever held the tool had cut fence wire before and didn't waste motion on the work.

I crouch beside the gap and study the ground on the other side. The boot prints continue into the tree line, moving uphill at a steady grade, and disappear into the undergrowth where the canopy thickens enough to hold the frost on the ground.

I don't follow them. Tracking a trail cold, alone, and unarmed into dense cover where the people who left the prints might still be watching is the kind of decision that gets combat engineers sent home in body bags. Instead, I photograph the prints with my phone and document the cut wire. The GPS coordinates go into the file with every other piece of evidence Cascade has left behind.

Then I walk back to the cabin and stand on the porch for a full minute before I go inside. My eyes trace the visible sections of tree line, the shadows beneath the canopy where a man with binoculars could lie flat and watch this place, just like the last one did.

Nothing moves. Nothing answers.

Inside, Tosh is on the phone. Her voice reaches me from the kitchen table in a register I haven't heard from her before, lower and steadier than conversation, words measured and pauses deliberate. She's talking to a client, and the quality of her attention is total.

The same woman who took my weight on her body a few hours ago is telling someone they don't have to decide anything until they're ready. In the same breath, she's asking whether anyone else has contacted them about the program. The gentleness in her voice has teeth underneath it.

She sees me in the doorway and holds up one finger. I wait. Her questions are specific and careful, each one building a file in her head even as she provides comfort.

When she hangs up, her expression says the call wasn't good.

"Jeanine," she says. "She's been contacted again. Different recruiter, same offer. Job placement in Fairbanks, housing assistance, relocation package. Clean language. Careful framing. Everything designed to sound like opportunity."