Page 51 of Fragile Sanctuary

I nodded with a grunt. But everything was far from okay. I’d found a string of five fires around the time of the one here at the Victorian that had me on edge. It was too many for a small town like Sparrow Falls.

“He probably just wants to crawl up Shep’s ass a little more,” Owen grumbled from the other side of the room.

He said it loud enough that he knew I’d be sure to hear it, whichtook some doing when we were all wearing N95 masks. My eyes narrowed on Owen. He’d made it clear he wasn’t happy with my being in charge or his assignment of pulling drywall. But it was getting old, fast.

“Stop acting like a two-year-old who had his binky taken away,” I snapped. “You don’t want to do your job? Quit. It would probably make this restoration go quicker.”

Owen straightened, the red on his cheeks peeking out from around his mask. “I can’t have an opinion now? You’re wasting our fucking time working on areas that don’t need work.”

My back teeth ground together. It was the same argument we’d been having all day. “Next piece of drywall you pull, take off your mask and smell the damn framing. Then tell me if you still think it doesn’t need to be treated.”

“Whatever,” Owen mumbled, turning back to his work.

Carlos shook his head as he pulled a sheet of drywall. Lowering his voice, he said, “This restoration stuff isn’t his gig. He’s more into building from the ground up.”

“Then he should walk,” I snapped.

God, I was a prick. Everything about my discoveries from last night had set me on edge. I was probably the one who needed to walk away from the site today.

The sound of tires on gravel had me looking up. Shep’s silver truck headed down the driveway.Finally.

“I’ll be back,” I told Silas and Carlos.

Silas gave me a chin lift in answer and turned back to his work.

I picked my way through the house, making sure to be careful where I stepped. Much of my path was pulled-up flooring that revealed the framework below. We’d placed boards that we could walk across, but you still needed to be cautious.

When I made it outside, I yanked off my mask and sucked in the fresh mountain air. A slight hint of smoke clung to it, likely stirred up by all our work. As Shep climbed out of his truck, I strode across the parking lot toward him.

“How’s it going?” he asked as I approached.

“It’s going. It’d be a hell of a lot quicker if Owen wasn’t moaning and complaining the whole time.”

Shep winced. “Sometimes, he’s a great worker. Others, he’s a liability. I don’t get it.”

“Control issues,” I muttered.

Shep raised a brow in question.

Sometimes, I hated that I couldn’t turn off the profiler part of me. The piece that analyzed everything and everyone. “He does well when he has tasks he feels in control of. When he has autonomy. But he just doesn’t know enough to get those assignments on a restoration. So, he’s throwing a fit.”

Shep frowned as he stared at the house, almost like he could see Owen through the walls. “I could move him to another project. We’ve got plenty.”

“Might be a mistake. He’s gotta learn to do the things he doesn’t want to do.”

“True enough,” Shep mumbled and then looked at me. “Something else?”

He always knew when I had something on my mind. I didn’t typically hover and didn’t seek out conversation. I liked to do my work in silence. It was almost meditative. I could pound out the demons while working this job.

“Did Rhodes play a spring sport in middle school? Before the fire, I mean.”

Shep blinked a few times, confusion clear on his face. “Uh, yeah. She and Fallon played lacrosse in the seventh grade. They were both awful.”

I wanted to smile at that. I could so clearly see her all smiles and trying with everything she had but being an absolute disaster on the field. But the fact that she would’ve frequented that locker room around the time of the fire swallowed all my humor in a single second.

“Did she spend a lot of time downtown around then, too?” I pushed.

Shep stiffened. “What’s this about?”

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