Page 37 of Claimed on the Ridge

"What," he says.

"His name is Gary Simmons." I open the laptop and turn it toward him. "Anchorage. He filed a missing persons report."

Bryan crosses to the desk and reads. The scroll is slow and methodical, and his face doesn't change. Bryan's face never changes when he's working.

He straightens up. "What do you need?"

"Nothing." I close the laptop. "Yet."

Bryan holds for a beat, nods, and leaves. The door clicks shut behind him.

I sit in the quiet with the name behind my eyelids and the sound of Kendall's voice saying'funny thing about cages.'

Gary Simmons built his cage out of charity galas, hospital wings, and a name big enough to make doctors look the other way. He put his wife inside it and left marks that Amberly found on a clinic table in a town he's never heard of.

I'm going to find Gary Simmons. I don't need a plan for what comes after.

9

KENDALL

Alex woke up dangerous this morning. More dangerous than usual.

He's been watching me since I walked through his door. That's not new. The man watches everything with the steady patience of someone who has never once been in a hurry to act.

He watches the way predators watch, not with aggression but with absolute attention, and I've spent enough time around dangerous men to know the difference between surveillance and interest.

This morning the watching is different. He's in the kitchen when I come downstairs. The coffee is made, the fire rebuilt, the lodge warm and settling around us.

Last night I slept hard for the first time since I got here. Amberly's anti-inflammatories earned their money last night.

"Morning," he says.

"Morning."

The word is the same. The weight behind it isn't. He's looking at me the way he looks at a storm system on the ridge. He's measuring what's coming and deciding whether to shelter or stand in it.

I pour coffee and take my usual spot against the opposite counter. The kitchen has become our neutral ground, the place where the banter happens, where we've been circling each other in a pattern that feels more like a slow-motion collision than a conversation.

"You slept," he says.

"That obvious?"

"You missed the third step when you came down."

I drink. He noticed. He notices everything.

"Amberly's pills," I say. "They knocked me out."

"Good."

It's not sympathy. It's not concern dressed up as interest. It's just good. The simplicity of it gets under my skin in a way that has no business getting anywhere.

The fire pops in the main room. Cameron's truck rumbles past the window.

"Bryan left early," Alex says. "Cameron's running the road. Dash went with him."

"Running the road?"