Page 12 of Sawyer
For a beat I consider telling him—the moment in the garden, the way my pulse recalibrates whenever Cam so much as says my name. Instead I scan the chandelier, assess vantage angles, run threat models—and lie. “All clear,” I say.
“Copy. Keep it tight, Sawyer.”
We hang up. I clench the phone, thumb barely shy of cracking the screen.Keep it tight.Dean has no idea how taut this line is.
Midnight. The mansion yawns with antique echoes while I comb floor by floor, tension coiling tighter than the sling onmy sidearm. Third sweep tonight—overkill, but after yesterday’s envelope breach I don’t trust the estate’s perimeters.
Library windows: latched.
Conservatory doors: alarmed.
Studio skylight: new locking pins installed. I hover there a moment, moonlight spilling over half-finished canvases. One bears the new cerulean swipe I added—the tiniest infringement on her art, yet somehow intimate as a fingerprint on skin.
I shove the thought aside, move on.
Upstairs, the hall outside Cam’s bedroom glows with a single sconce. I halt, ears filtering for anomaly: HVAC hum, distant surf, nothing else. Good.
Her door is closed, but soft light seeps beneath. She’s awake, probably coaxing color palettes or reading dog-eared poetry. I turn away—then stop when floorboards creak behind me. The door cracks open.
She stands in the sliver of light, wearing an oversized Kingsley Aeronautics T-shirt that skims mid-thigh, bare legs pale against the darkness. Sleep-mussed hair frames her face, and her eyes, heavy-lidded, settle on me like a secret invitation.
“Everything okay?” she whispers.
“Routine sweep,” I murmur back. My voice shouldn’t sound this rough. “Go back to bed.”
She opens the door wider, and steps into the hall. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Not a wink.” I want to tell her it’s the adrenaline, the case, maybe the espresso Edgar thinks I don’t sneak at midnight. But we both know what really keeps me wired.
She tosses me a look that reads she’s concerned.
“I’m fine, Cam.” I force a step back, widening the gap. “Door locked?”
She nods, chewing her bottom lip—the same lip I damn near tasted in the garden. “Tomorrow’s a big day,” she says softly. “Lots of eyes.”
“Nothing we can’t handle.”
“We.” She smiles at that syllable, like it tastes good. Then, gentler: “You’ll rest?”
“I’ll try,” I say, which is the safest form of the truth.
She reaches out—slow, tentative—touches the hem of my T-shirt, just a brush of knuckles. “Goodnight, Soldier Boy.”
I step away before I do something catastrophic. “Goodnight, Cam.”
She slips back inside, and the latch clicks. I stare at that door exactly three seconds too long, then force myself down the hall, down the stairs, down into the ops room where blueprints wait like cold water.
03:12 hours— my laptop glows with schematics of the Cabana Beach parking lot where the mural project will unfold. I annotate choke points, CCTV blind spots, assign sectors for Riggs. The act of planning is normally balm for my nerves; tonight it’s a tourniquet—tight enough to keep blood away from thoughts of Cam curled in bed, T-shirt riding high as dreams drift low.
Focus, Maddox.
I run drills in my head:
08:30—Riggs checks alley, establishes command post by van.
09:00—Cam sets up paint. Kids arrive; parents sign waivers.
09:05—perimeter walk every seven minutes; call signs, comm checks.
