Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Still gorgeous enough to punch the air from my lungs, but pale beneath her freckles. Her long chestnut hair is tangled and while her blue eyes are sharp and alert, they’re rimmed with a fatigue that can’t be hidden.
Her voice is barely above a whisper. “Hey.”
Every memory I buried claws its way up—her smile the first time she climbed into my truck, the sound of her laugh in the dark, the way we held hands when we shared morning coffee at the kitchen nook table.
“Hey,” I answer, eyes roaming over her again to soak in all the minor differences that five years might have wrought. There are none as far as I can see. Tessa’s the same, not even extra laugh lines, but there is weariness.
She steps back from the door. “Come in.”
The house feels the same the second I step inside. It smells of lavender, her preferred scent in the wax warmers distributed throughout. It was a scent I learned to love.
The entry opens into the small living room with its original hardwood floors, slightly scarred but polished. Built-in bookshelves I helped install flank a brick fireplace that’s more decorative than practical this time of year, though we always had it lit in colder months. A low slate-blue sofa sits exactly where it always has, angled toward the coffee table instead of the television, because Tessa has never been one to sit still long enough to watch. A woven rug softens the space, and a standing lamp in the corner casts a warm, steady glow.
But the walls are different.
The frames are still there—black metal, clean-lined—but the photos have changed. Where there were once shots of us on the Oregon Coast, her laughing into the wind, my arm around her waist, now there are landscapes. A wildfire skyline she must have photographed from a ridge. A black-and-white shot of the Seattle waterfront in fog. A close-up of old brick in Pioneer Square.
No trace of me at all, but I would expect nothing less. All my framed photographs of her were tossed when we ended our relationship but for some reason, I never deleted the digital stuff. That’s still buried in a folder on my phone.
Tessa moves into the kitchen wordlessly, shoulders slumped as she works the coffee pot. Nothing’s changed in here. Same white cabinets and butcher-block counters, a narrow island that doubles as a workspace and dining table. I’ve stood there with her at midnight, both of us leaning over takeout cartons while she outlined a story on a legal pad.
Tonight, that island is covered in paper.
I look down to see topographical maps marked in red ink. Without hesitation, I flip through documents and see printed land transfer records clipped together in neat stacks. A legal pad filled edge to edge with her tight handwriting. Her laptop glows at one end of the island, screen split between spreadsheets and what looks like a property database. Beside it sits a flash drive—small, silver, looking ominously important.
I glance up at Tessa and she’s watching me as the pot begins to brew. “I didn’t know who else to call,” she says quietly.
“Tell me what happened.”
She approaches me from the other side of the island, eyes flicking to the piles of papers and back to me. “I’m investigating a big story, but I didn’t think it would be dangerous.” She waits a moment to gauge my reaction, because the danger is what broke us completely. “I didn’t think someone would die,” she whispers.
My body jolts, feeling like I’ve been zapped with electricity, followed by a hollow cold slicing through me. “Someone died?”
She nods. “Tonight. A whistleblower.” Her voice cracks, and she crosses her arms over her chest as if holding herself together. “His name was Erik Lanning and he worked for a company called RainVest Holdings. He contacted me a week or so ago with a story about his employer, a major land developer, who was buying fire-damaged land at deeply discounted prices using shell companies.”
“I imagine that’s a common practice,” I observe.
Tessa grabs the silver flash drive and holds it up. “It can be… but Erik said he had proof that RainVest was actually starting the fires.”
My eyebrows shoot up as that’s quite a bold claim.
“And the evidence is on that drive?”
She nods, dropping it back onto the pile. “Along with all the other public documentation I accumulated. He gave this to me tonight, in a parking garage.”
Dark parking garage. That’s so very Tessa. “And?”
Her eyes gloss. “I watched him die.” She takes in a ragged breath as she grips the edge of the counter. “An SUV ran him down. I was ten feet away and the sound when he was hit…” Tessa experiences a full body shudder, and I have to suppress the instinct to take her into my arms for comfort. It’s not my place anymore, and that’s not why she called me.