Page 115 of The Badger in His Burrow

“What are we watching?” I asked him.

“Hound of the Baskervilles,” came the reply. “It’s a good cold-and-stormy movie.”

It had started raining, and Elliot had made me promise we weren’t going to go anywhere tomorrow, since the roads were likely to ice over at some point during the night. He’d gotten breakfast food, and lunch food, and apparently also things he could make for dinner for the entire weekend, so he said nobody had to go anywhere until Monday morning.

I didn’t point out that was assuming nothing happened that required my attention over the weekend. Given that I’d had towork straight through the last one and had training the weekend beforethat, I was really hoping I wasn’t going to have to work this one.

Also, Elliot was half-naked in my apartment.

This time, he snuggled his way in front of me, pushing my legs apart with his butt so that he could lean back into my chest—shoving his way in so that I had to move my plate or risk losing it. “Watch the pizza!” I told him.

“I’ll get you more,” came his response, as he wiggled his butt again.

“Keep doingthatand you’ll need to get yourself more pizza, too,” I warned him.

He tipped his head back—against my sternum—and looked up at me. “Is that a promise?”

Between us, my stomach growled. “Eat your pizza, you tease,” I said.

He gave one more wiggle—because of course he did—and then hit the touch screen on his laptop with one toe, starting the movie.

I pushed myself up,feeling enough guilt about Elliot also doing the dishes that I wasn’t going to stay in our cozy blanket-and-pillow nest any longer. My tiny apartment did not have a dishwasher, so he was standing at the sink, scrubbing at the burned-on not-cheese on one of the pans.

“I can do that,” I told him.

“You could also dry,” he said mildly, picking at a stubborn bit with one fingernail.

I gave in and picked up a dish towel. Elliot smirked. “Judy Hart strikes again, I see,” he remarked.

“You have them, too,” I pointed out.

“So does at least half of Shawano and several people in Richmond,” he said, laughing. Then his expression grew serious. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” I replied, wondering what had caused the sudden mood change. “Whydidyou call Val today?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“All he said was that you’d told him about the… dead animals.” He glanced over at me, his hazel gaze sharp. “But you wouldn’t just call him to tell him, so whydidyou call him?”

I suppressed a sigh. “I had questions about what happened. Last year.”

“And you didn’t want to ask me?” His tone was flat, empty. Controlled.

“I didn’t want to upset you… or make you think about it any more than you probably already are,” I confessed.

“And you think I’m not already upset by the fact that some dickbag is leaving me dead animals?”

I felt my neck flush instantly. “I mean, of course you are. Which is why I didn’t want to ask.”

He turned and held out the now-clean pan, then leaned against the counter, crossing his arms over his bare chest. I forced myself to look at his face. “I’m not stupid,” he said. “I know this is probably related to… Dad’s death.”

Neither one of us said anything about the fact that those same people had tried to kill him, too.

“You know they found a note in the barn?” he asked me, suddenly.

“What?”

“The barn where they took me. Where Val and Taavi found me. They left a note saying I just couldn’t handle everything with Dad gone.”

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