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“Caleb’s box.” He cracks a valve, reads the bottle’s gauge, closes it. Then he looks at me again. “What’s wrong with your face?”

“Nothing’s wrong with my face.”

“Something’s wrong with it. That’s your pre-mission face.”

He takes a few steps toward me, his head tilted. “You used to get it at the briefing table before we went outside the wire.”

Rob clenches his jaw and stares at the wall, doing his impression of me. “Like that. Like a damn statue.”

While he poses, I get my envelope out of the wire basket on Caleb’s door.

He watches me fold it in half and put it in my jacket. For a minute I consider what I’m about to say. Then I say it.

“H.S. is Hank Simmons.”

Rob’s hands fall still at his sides. “Hank Simmons? Reads the Standard-Examiner at Marlene’s every morning and tips a dollar on a cup of coffee? That Hank?”

“Gabe ran it. Tractor, chain, shift schedule. It’s almost certainly him.”

“Holy shit.” Rob scrubs his hand over his head. “Does Lindsey know?”

Everybody keeps asking me that.

“She knows I’ve had a feeling. I’m going over there now.”

His expression changes. “You okay?”

“No.”

That surprises him. It surprises me too. Six months ago I would have said fine. I would have said it to his face and meant him to believe it.

“For fourteen years, I went in first. You find out what’s there. Then you bring people in. That’s the job.”

Fuck. This is hard. I look out the bay doors at Main Street, at the green awning on the flower shop down the road.

I say, “Gabe offered to send me out to Hank’s. Find out what it is first. And on the drive over here, that’s all I wanted. Get the answers. Walk in there with it all figured out so she doesn’t have to feel one second of it.”

Rob’s standing perfectly still when I look at him. I tell him, “But it’s not mine. It’s hers. She’s waited seventeen years for this. I’m not doing it without her.”

For a few seconds he’s silent, then shakes his head. “Damn, Sarge. When did you get smart?”

“About a month ago.”

“Early in the morning, I bet.”

I don’t answer that. I don’t have to.

“She’s going to take it hard,” Rob warns. “Don’t try to make it stop. Just stay with her.”

“Gabe said the same thing.”

“Gabe’s been married a while.” He cracks the next valve to check the tank. “I’ve been in love with Cassia for four years. We know things.”

I’ve got a lot to learn. But I know this.

It’s cold, with the sun dropping toward the ridge. The bell over the shop door is ringing for somebody on their way out. Bonnie Sorensen comes out with a pot of mums under each arm. “Evening, Romeo,” she says.

I feel my brows do a weird motion but thankfully she leaves.