Page 18 of Faultline

"Rhys wants you off this street."

"I heard him."

Marc nods once and leaves. I spend the next two hours copying every file onto a backup drive, deleting the originals from my laptop, and locking the paper files in the trunk of my car. If they come back, they'll find empty drawers and a wiped hard drive.

Let them search an office that's already been hollowed out by the woman they underestimated.

The Ridgeline is half full when I walk in that afternoon. Paula is behind the counter. Rhys is at the corner table with his back to the wall, coffee already in hand, and across from him sits a man I've only seen through glass.

Liam Stoddard is bigger up close. That shouldn't surprise me, because he looked big enough at a distance to recalibrate the scale of the street around him, but the reality of him across a café table hits differently than the memory.

His hands are wrapped around a mug that looks like it belongs in a child's tea set against the span of his fingers. Scarred knuckles. Calluses thick enough to catch the light. He's wearing a flannel over a thermal, both rolled to the elbows, and his forearms are roped with the kind of muscle that comes from years of physical work, not a gym.

He looks up when I approach, and his eyes track me the way they did outside the Ridgeline. Steady. Unhurried. Attention that doesn't catalog vulnerabilities or project need. He's reading me like he probably reads his forest, with patience and the absolute conviction that whatever he finds will be worth the time it takes to look.

The pull I felt at a distance is stronger without the barrier. It settles low in my stomach and stays.

"Rebecca MacIntosh, Liam Stoddard." Rhys gestures to the open chair.

I sit. "Tosh."

Liam's gaze drops to the files in my hands, then back to my face. He doesn't offer a handshake. He doesn't smile. He waits.

I pull out the folder.

"Show me." His voice is lower than I expected, quiet in a way that makes you lean in to hear it, and I realize immediately that the leaning is the point. A man who speaks softly in a room full of noise isn't being polite. He's making you come to him.

I hold his gaze and don't lean. "Rhys says you've got survey markers, a surveillance post, and sabotaged equipment. I've got three missing women, a corporate subsidiary running relocation schemes, and a recruiter named Denise Stahl who's pulling court records on the women she's targeting." I set the folder on the table between us. "Your land side. My human side. Same company at both ends."

Liam opens the folder. He reads with slow deliberate focus that makes the rest of the room feel like it's moving too fast. He turns pages at his own pace. His jaw tightens once, on the page where I documented Della Pruitt's timeline. Then he closes the folder and looks at Rhys.

"She's right. It's the same operation."

"I know," Rhys says. He sets down his coffee. "Tosh's office was broken into. Professional job. Nothing taken, everything searched."

Liam's eyes come back to me. His hands go still on the mug. The shift is subtle enough that most people would miss it, but I've spent years reading men who go quiet before they go dangerous. When he speaks, his voice has dropped a register.

"Where are you staying?"

"Above the office."

"That's not what I asked."

Rhys leans back. "Liam's property is the most defensible position in the area. Sight lines, gated perimeter, combat training. Your place is one staircase above the room they just walked through."

"I'm already a problem that needs solving." I keep my voice level, because the alternative is letting Liam Stoddard see that the break-in shook me more than I've admitted to anyone, including myself. "I've been a problem since I started pulling their relocation records."

"Then be a problem from a position they can't reach," Liam says.

I look at him across the table, at the scarred hands and the quiet certainty and the way his body occupies space like it was designed to stand between a threat and everything behind it.

The practical decision is obvious. Rhys is right about the defensibility. I sleep above the office they walked through last night, separated by a deadbolt they've already proven they can defeat. This is tactical. This is the smart play. I tell myself that, and the part of me that's been replaying the width of his shoulders since the café window tells me I'm a liar.

"I'll need the Wi-Fi password and a surface to work on," I say.

Something moves at the corner of his mouth. It isn't quite a smile, but it's close. "I've got a table."

The drive to Liam's property follows the switchbacks up the eastern shoulder of the mountain. His truck is ahead of mine, taillights steady through the curves, and I follow the red glow into a landscape that gets darker and denser with every mile of elevation.