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“Morning,” I say.

He glances over his shoulder. The almost-smile is smaller in daylight. “Sleep okay?”

“Eventually.” I take the mug. “You always up this early?”

“Habit.” He flips something in the pan. “Toast is in the oven if you want it, and there’s fruit.”

I lean against the island instead of sitting. The floor is warm under my feet from the stove. “I tried to write last night. Got about four sentences before my brain checked out.”

“Is your deadline soon?”

“Always,” I answer, laughing. I sip his coffee, which is better than it has any right to be. “I feel like I’m always on some deadline even though it isn’t actually true. The notes aren’t helping either. Every time I open the document, I hear the last line someone sent me in my own villain’s voice, and I want to throw the laptop.”

He plates the eggs and sets them in front of me without asking if I’m hungry. “Marin said you’re pretty sure you know who it is that’s doing this.”

I stab a piece of egg and don’t answer right away. Daniel Pike. Twenty-nine, too intense even on his best days, the research assistant I fired eight months ago after he started showing up at my apartment with “just one more question” about a victim’s sister I’d already interviewed. He was good at the work, which is why I kept his annotated files longer than I should have. The notes started two weeks after I stopped answering his emails. Lines from my own books, rewritten just enough to feel personal.

“I have a guess,” I say finally. “Doesn’t mean he’s the one doing it.”

“Doesn’t mean he isn’t.” Caleb pours his own coffee and returns to his side of the island. The distance feels deliberate. “The handwriting matches samples from the files you turned over when you let him go. You want the rest of what she sent, or you want to keep pretending it’s just annoying?”

I set the fork down. “He had access. I gave it to him. That’s on me. But Pike isn’t—” I stop, because I don’t actually know what he is anymore. Obsessive, yes. Convinced the books were somehow letters meant for him, maybe. Dangerous enough to drive to the Adirondacks and play with fire? I don’t know. “I want to pretend for one more morning. Then you can ruin my calm facade with the file.”

He huffs a laugh. “Fair.”

We eat without talking for a few minutes. The quiet isn’t uncomfortable like you would imagine it would be between two strangers. Outside, wind moves through the trees and a branch ticks against the porch roof. I watch his hands holding his mug—scarred knuckles, steady grip—and tell myself it’s research. He’s a mountain man who helps when Equinox calls, living alone in this beautiful cabin and seems happy with his life.

“Did your sister pick the pink towels?” I ask, the fear of Pike and his instability still too close to the surface.

“Every one of them.” He doesn’t look up. “She stays a few weeks in the summer. Says the ridge is good for her head. I don’t argue.”

“And you just… built her a bathroom.”

“She asked.” He meets my eyes then. “She’s my most consistent guest, and I want her to love it here. I missed a lot of years when she was younger, and I was stationed overseas. I guess I’m making it up to her.”

His words tighten my chest. “You’re really a big softie, huh.”

“Better not spread that around, sweetheart. I’ll lose my tough guy image, and then I won’t be able to protect you.”

“Maybe I’ll be the one protecting you. I am a city girl who rides the subway frequently at night.

I take my plate to the sink before the silence can turn into something else. He doesn’t stop me. When I turn, he’s watching the tree line through the window. I should go back to the guest room and work on my laptop. Instead, I open the cabinet he pointed out last night, find the coffee beans, and measure them into the grinder to have something to do with my hands.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says.

“I know.” The grinder is loud. When it stops, the cabin feels smaller. “I looked you up this morning, before I came out here. There’s not much there. Service record in good standing. No social media.” I lean against the counter, arms crossed. “You’re either very boring or very good at not being found.”

“Both.” He turns. The space between us is the length of the island and somehow not enough and too much at the same time. “You always research the people driving you up mountains?”

“Only the ones who tell me to stay where they can see me.” I hesitate, then add, “And only after I’ve already spent too long wondering if the guy I fired is the one who knows exactly which lines from my books would get under my skin. Pike kept copies. I know he did. I just didn’t think he’d use them like this.”

Something shifts in his face. Not quite a smile. “You did stay where I could see you.”

“I stayed in the cabin.” I tilt my head. “Doesn’t mean I like you or that I’m ready to open Pandora’s box of creepy messages and who knows what else.”

“Noted.”

A branch hits the kitchen window hard enough to make me jump. Caleb moves around the island, one hand settling on my hip, the other braced on the counter, putting me between him and the glass. The contact is brief. Warm through the sweater. He doesn’t pull me back so much as put himself in the way out of sheer habit, then seems to realize what he’s done.