Page 65 of Faultline

The spot where her pulse beat against my thumb stays warm on my skin through three more welds.

The gate holds when I test it. I pack the welder into the truck bed, drive back up the switchbacks, and park at the cabin. A lot of the day is gone.

The cell tower that serves the valley sits on the ridge above town.

If that tower goes down, Whitewater Junction loses its connection to everything beyond the mountain. Landlines still function, but the coverage is limited to properties along the main road.

I call Carl. He picks up the way volunteer fire chiefs pick up. Immediately.

"I need the department's radio frequencies and a spare handheld," I say.

"You building a bunker up there?"

"I'm building a communication backup. If the cell tower goes, I need to reach you, Rhys, and Marc without relying on a system Cascade can disable."

Carl goes quiet for a beat. "I've got a few spare handhelds in the truck bay and an old base station that still works if you bang the side panel. I'll bring them up tomorrow."

"Bring two extra. One for Hank at the hardware store, one for Sally at the Ridgeline. Both locations sit high enough on the main road to see traffic coming from the bridge."

"You're setting up an observation network."

"I'm setting up a neighborhood watch with better equipment."

Carl almost laughs. The sound catches itself halfway. He understands exactly what I'm doing and why the humor doesn't hold. "I'll bring the radios. And Liam?"

"Yeah."

"Every name on the volunteer roster was in that room the other night. If you need bodies on the ground, you've got them."

I hang up and stand on the porch in the fading light. Inside, Tosh is on the phone with her legal contacts, her voice carrying through the screen door in the measured cadence she uses when she's building something that will hold up in court.

She paces when she works. I've learned the rhythm of it, the way her boots cross the kitchen floorboards in patterns I could map with my eyes closed.

The fact that I know this, that her movement through my cabin has become part of the background frequency of my life, is its own kind of vulnerability. One I'm not interested in examining too closely.

The spruce along the south slope are dark against a sky that's turning the color of old steel. The timber runs unbroken from the west ridge to the drainage, planted by my grandfather, maintained by my father, managed by me with a reverence I've never been able to explain to anyone who doesn't understand what it means to tend something that won't mature in your lifetime.

The soldier spent years learning how to read terrain for threats. Where the dead ground hides an approach, where the high ground gives advantage, how to turn natural features into obstacles that slow an enemy long enough to respond.

The logger spent years learning how to read it for health. Where the root systems anchor the slope, where the drainage feeds growth, which stands need thinning to let the next generation reach the light.

Those two men stopped being separate this morning.

I drive the north boundary one more time before the light goes. At the pullout where the logging road meets the highway, I spot them.

A dark gray SUV, two men in the front seats. The passenger is holding binoculars aimed at the ridgeline above my property. They clock my truck as I pass, and the driver reaches for something below the dash. The SUV pulls out behind me, follows me for a stretch, then turns south toward Palmer.

I memorize the plate number. Rental. Company logo on the rear bumper.

The men who left tracks and cut steel on my property before dawn are real. And they're operating in daylight now.

Tosh finds me on the porch after sundown. She's carrying her laptop under one arm and the thermos in the other. The glow from the kitchen window cuts across her face as she shoulders through the door.

"Harlow got lucky," she says. "The rental company retains fleet telemetry. She's got weeks of route data." She sets the laptop on the porch rail and opens it. "Look at this."

The screen casts a blue glow across the planking. A map. Lines tracing the roads with red markers where the vehicles stopped.

The data isn't complete. There are gaps, stretches of road with no markers where the coverage went dark. But the pattern is clear enough.