Page 81 of Shadow

“It’s justice the system couldn’t deliver.” He’d looked at her. Expression serious in the television’s glow. “Sometimes that’s the only option left.”

She’d understood what he wasn’t saying. That he’d done exactly what the protagonist was doing. Didn’t mean she agreed. Still, it gave her an insight into his words in the rain. I might be a little dedicated to the cause. No matter what it takes.

That, she could appreciate.

He was a reader. Suspense novels, mostly. Lee Child. Michael Connelly. She’d found him at two a.m. last Thursday during his watch shift, sitting on the sectional with yet another battered paperback.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he’d asked as she came downstairs.

“Wanted tea. What are you reading?”

He’d held up the book. Lee Child.

They’d talked for twenty minutes about Reacher’s moral code. About characters who operated outside the law but inside their own ethical framework.

There seemed to be a trend in his entertainment choices.

He worked out in the garage every morning at five. She’d discovered that accidentally last Monday while taking out the trash. Opened the garage door and froze.

Asher was doing pushups. Shirtless. Skin gleaming with sweat in the early morning light. Muscles defined and flexing. She’d counted without meaning to. Fifty. Sixty. Seventy pushups without stopping.

Hello.

Then he’d moved to the pull-up bar he’d installed on the garage door frame. Pulled himself up. Controlled. Steady. Ten pull-ups. Fifteen. Twenty.

He’d caught her staring. Stopped mid pull-up. Dropped to the ground.

“Sorry. Didn’t think anyone would be up.”

“I was just—” Her voice had come out rough. Oh, for heaven’s sake. “Taking out the garbage.”

“Sorry. I should have done that.”

She gave him a frown, then walked over to the can. “I’m capable of taking out my trash.”

He’d pulled on his shirt. “Yeah. My dad always took out the trash.”

She closed the lid. “I’m happy to abdicate that to you.”

Now she always set the garbage by the garage door and made sure to stay inside until after six thirty.

He went running every morning after his garage workout. And yes, she’d tracked his phone, just curious. Five miles. Same route. Down Aspen Ridge Drive, left on Willow Creek, around the park, back through the neighborhood. Forty-five minutes.

She’d just checked the tracker once. Time to trust him to come back.

And he always did. Winded and flushed, his eyes bright and his T-shirt soaked with sweat.

“Good run?”

“Great run.” Every time. That smile.

Then he’d shower. Come downstairs with damp hair and clean clothes, smelling like soap and shampoo. And they’d make breakfast together. Coordinating without words. Him chopping vegetables. Her scrambling eggs. Moving around each other with practiced ease. Then, after breakfast, he’d disappear for a nap.

A short power nap while she filed a report to Caroline.

This morning she heard the shower turn off upstairs. Water pipes groaning.

Daphne closed the tablet.