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Finley woke suddenly.
She blinked, glanced at her alarm clock. Two minutes until it burst into its rude clanging.
Then why the hell was she awake?
Pecking from outside echoed through her house.
What the hell?
She sat up. Pushed her hair out of her face. Her first thought was a bird. A woodpecker maybe.
A swiping sound, then more pecking. Maybe not just one bird.
Her feet hit the floor and she stood. Someone or something was out there poking around her house.
She considered the idea of a rat invasion. Or maybe a family of birds nested in the eaves. More pecking and swiping. Damn it. There was definitely something out there.
Dragging her fingers across the bedside table, she snagged a hair tie. On her way through the house, she wrangled her hair into a ponytail. More bumping and thumping outside.
Definitely not birds or rats.
She eased to the front window by the door and peeked beyond the blinds. No one on the porch or in the front yard. Then she spotted Jack’s SUV behind her Subaru.
What was he doing here at this time of morning?
At the door she slid on her flip-flops and stepped outside. She eased around the left front corner of the house. No Jack. She moved on to the rear corner and into the backyard. Jack stood in the center of her overgrown yard staring up at something. Her roof? The ancient antennae attached to the back of her house? The sagging soffit?
Worse than his oddly timed visit, he wore jeans and a tee. It was Wednesday. A workday.
Oh hell.
“Jack?”
He swung his face in her direction. “Sorry, kid. Did I wake you?”
Just then she heard the clang of her alarm clock through the wall.
She shook her head. “It was time for me to get up anyway.” She noted the pencil behind his ear and the notepad in his hand. “What’re you doing?”
“Your house needs painting.” He pulled out the pencil and made notes on the pad. “Yellow or white, maybe. The green roof kind of limits your color options.”
The roof was so old it was actually more of a dingy blackish gray than green, but he was right; color options were sort of limited.
She shook her head. “I need coffee.” She hitched her head toward the house. “Come inside. We’ll talk.”
He followed her inside without argument. Finding her boss in jeans and a tee contemplating color options meant one thing: he was on the edge. Somewhere, probably in the Rover, would be a bottle of bourbon.He always kept one handy when the craving hit. Some might see his need to keep his demons so close as a bad thing. It worked for Jack, and that was all that counted.
Finley popped into her bedroom and shut off the alarm before prepping the coffeepot and setting it to brew.
Jack sat down on the sofa and studied the notes he’d made. Finley pushed aside a pile of folders and notes she’d been reviewing on the Winthrop case and plopped into her fave chair.
“What’s going on?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t what she feared.
The case was one of those confounding ones that likely wouldn’t turn out the way Jack preferred, but otherwise all was well in the world of the firm. This wasn’t like the Legard case from a few months ago, when Jack had been personally involved to a degree. What had him teetering on the edge with his demons this time?
He tossed his notepad aside. “I’m worried about you, Fin.”
Ah, so he’d heard about Brant. Did everyone know? “When did you hear the news?”
