Page 77 of Where the Snakes Sleep

Ryan’s eyebrows shoot upward, the skin at his temples tightening.

The officer on the other end of the line rattles off an email address to send the video files to. We end the call. Silence settles between us like dusk behind a forest canopy.

“Well?” Ryan demands, tapping his fingers against the tabletop.

I exhale slowly. “They found nothing especially useful.”

“Fantastic,” he groans, the word drawn out.

Then I add, “But the lock was definitely forced open.”

His jaw relaxes slightly—relief burrowing beneath his lingering fear. Yesterday he’d wavered, doubting his own memory; unpleasant certainty feels better than endless wondering.

“What about the cameras? Why didn’t you check them yesterday?” he asks.

I tilt my head. “I was a bit busy, was I not?”

He frowns. “Why?”

“Because you’d just discovered your home had been violated, the police were here, and afterward I was occupied with you.”

Color seeps into his cheeks. “Thank you.”

“It was nothing,” I say.

He looks away and says quietly, “Yeah. But still, thank you. I… I’m not sure what I would’ve done without you. I try to ignore it, but being in a foreign country all alone, it’s… a lot. And then you add a break-in on top of that, and it’s just—I don’t even know—overwhelming? Too much?” He swallows thickly. “Thank you for being there for me, Camille.”

The raw emotion in his voice catches me off guard. I gather that since he’s still not meeting my eyes, he may feel the same.

“You are welcome, Ryan,” I say sincerely, sliding a steaming cup of coffee across the island toward him. The rich aroma of freshly ground beans wafts between us.

He accepts it with both hands. After he takes a sip, he asks, “Can we check the footage now?”

“After breakfast.”

“Camille—”

“Food first. What would you like?”

“Oh, uh, anything’s fine by me,” he murmurs.

Ten minutes later, we carry coffee, a small jar of apricot confiture, and two quarters of a baguette upstairs and into my study.

“Oh, this is kinda creepy,” Ryan whispers, eyeing the shelves bulging with labeled binders, the small monitor on the old wooden desk, and the papers scattered around it.

I glance around. The room is neat, functional. A single framed lithograph hangs above the bookshelves. Nothing sinister—only evidence of meticulous research.

“What’s creepy about it?” I question.

He shrugs. “Don’t know. Sort of gives off mad scientist vibes?”

“The room he chooses to complain about is the study, not the laboratory full of snakes,” I reply dryly.

His scoff is soft. “I believe I did complain about your lab.”

“Was that before or after you squirted all over the table and floor?”

Ryan’s cheeks instantly flush so bright I wonder if I’ve gone too far, but then his gaze flicks down to the desk, and he licks his lips like he’s imagining me bending him over it for a repeat of our time in the lab.