Page 23 of At First Spark
She looks at me like she doesn’t entirely trust that word coming from anyone.
I tilt my head toward the house. “You can come back here in daylight. You can walk through every room. You can tell the inspector where to stand and the contractors where to breathe. Tonight, you sleep somewhere that doesn’t have a view where half the backyard burned.”
“I have someone coming out to look at cameras,” I add.
She glances over at me. “Already?”
“Yeah,” I say. “House first. Then here.”
“And that’s supposed to fix it.”
“No,” I say honestly. “It’s supposed to give us a chance to see what we’re missing.”
There’s a long pause. Then, very carefully, “Temporary.”
The word sits between us. A line she needs. A boundary she’s trying to make solid before the whole night slips too far from her control.
I nod once. “Temporary.”
That seems to matter to her. I’m not sure why that matters to me.
Ray walks up behind me with his gloves off and his expression already halfway to tired. “Mac wants the owner’s info for the report.”
Lark answers before I can. “Lark Carrington.”
Ray’s gaze flicks from her to me, then back again. He catches more than he ever comments on.
“Phone number,” he says, holding on to the clipboard.
She recites it.
He writes it down and glances at the dog. “That thing bite?”
“He has standards,” Lark says.
Ray’s mouth twitches. “Good.”
Then he moves back toward the truck. Beckett approaches next, hauling some piece of equipment over one shoulder and grinning in a way that should be illegal.
“So,” he says, looking straight at me, “this is definitely the kind of thing that turns into a story everyone tells later.”
I don’t look at him. “Go away.”
He looks at Lark instead. “I’m Beckett. The competent one.”
She blinks once. “That doesn’t seem right.”
I almost laugh. Almost.
Beckett clutches his chest. “You wound me.”
“That means she has excellent instincts,” I say.
He grins wider. “See. He likes you.”
Lark’s expression doesn’t change, but I feel the air tighten anyway.
“Shaw,” Mac calls from the truck.
