Page 255 of What We Bury

His face tightens. “I know.”

The apartment fills with purpose. Milo works the scene. Knox disappears into the building. Micah walks with Sage to her bedroom, his hand on the small of her back, and I hear the low murmur of his voice through the wall, steady, reassuring.

Eli steps onto the fire escape to make his call. I stand in the living room and study the noose.

Seven coils. Clean wrap. Patient knot. This wasn’t anger—anger tears things apart, breaks windows, smashes locks. This was deliberate. Staged. A performance.

If Tyler were angry, he would have messed shit up, broken Sage’s things, left a threatening voicemail and probably his own fingerprints on the doorknob. Tyler is a bull in a china shop, and this scene is a scalpel.

I take out my phone and photograph the noose one more time—close-up, the knot work, the coil pattern—because something about it is bothering me in a way I can’t name yet, and I’ve learned to trust the itch.

Forty minutes later, we leave.

I’m not so sure Amy should come back either, but there’s no easy way to tell her about the threat without revealing more than we want to.

I make a mental note to have some of the rookies do drive-bys for the next few nights, just to be extra safe.

Sage has one bag and the look of someone walking away from a life that no longer fits. Milo’s got the evidence in a black trash bag.

We each drive our cars to my house. Sage rides with me. She’s quiet for most of the drive, staring out the window, her hands in her lap. I let the silence sit because sometimes silence is what people need, and sometimes filling it is the most selfish thing you can do.

Three blocks from my street, she speaks.

“Holden?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you ever get married and have kids?”

I keep my eyes on the road. “Never found the right person. And then the work changed me. Couldn’t imagine bringing kids into a world where the only real justice happens in shadows.” I glance at her. “Why?”

“I think you’d have been a good dad.” She says it without turning, still looking out at the street, the houses blinking by. “You’re good at taking care of people. Even if you hate admitting it.”

I keep my eyes on the road. Her declaration sits between us, sharp and silent. Eventually, I pull into the driveway. The house sits back from the street—white siding, black shutters, a porch I built myself one summer when I needed something to do with my hands that wasn’t violence. There’s a lawn that I mow every week, a garage I keep clean, and a mailbox that has my surname on the side.

It’s the most normal thing about me. The one piece of evidence that I once wanted a life that looked like everyone else’s.

I turn off the engine. Sage looks at the house through the windshield.

“It’s beautiful,” she says.

“It’s home.”

She turns to me, her expression is stripped of everything except the thing underneath—the raw, unguarded truth of a woman who just had her safe place violated and had to run. I’ve seen her file. So I’m all too aware that this isn’t a first for her.

“Thank you, Holden.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Milo’s going to explode my kitchen trying to overfeed you the moment we get inside. He’s like an Italian nonna.”

She laughs and it loosens the worried coil in my chest.

“Come on, wildcat,” I say, killing the engine. “Let’s get you settled into your new home.”

SIXTY-NINE

SAGE

Holden’s house smells like him.