“We will discuss plants.”
“That means yes.”
Then upstairs.
Her room waited at the end of the hall.
Desk assembled.
Lamp on.
Bed made.
Books stacked on the windowsill because the shelf remained incomplete.
Curtains absent.
Exactly as promised.
Camille stepped inside.
Sunlight covered half the floor.
She looked through the window toward the maple trees.
“The window is good.”
Darius stood in the doorway.
“I know.”
She turned.
“That’s why you bought it?”
“Yes.”
“Not the kitchen?”
“No.”
“Not the giant garage?”
“No.”
“This room?”
“Yes.”
Camille nodded slowly.
“That’s kind of sweet.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“Too late.”
She photographed the room.
Darius pointed toward the shelf parts.
“You can help.”
“No.”
“Your shelf.”
“Your system.”
She left him standing there.
At dinner, Camille asked about Cedar Ridge.
“People friendly?”
“Mostly.”
“Any teenagers?”
“Not many.”
“Places to run?”
“There’s a trail east of the subdivision.”
“How far?”
“About a mile and a half to a reservoir.”
“Safe?”
Darius paused for half a second.
Camille noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You made the dad face.”
“What dad face?”
“The one where you answer a question I didn’t ask.”
Darius took a drink of water.
“The trail is safe during daylight.”
“Interesting qualifier.”
“Standard qualifier.”
She studied him.
Then changed subjects.
Darius knew she would return to it eventually.
That night Camille went upstairs.
Darius sat alone in the living room.
The house was quiet.
Not empty.
Different.
He listened to Camille walking overhead.
A cabinet opening.
Water running.
Music faint through the floor.
Ordinary sounds.
For six years, Darius had wanted ordinary.
He stood and went outside.
Cool air.
Wood smoke from somewhere down the street.
Wind moving through maple leaves.
4212 beside the door.
The number had existed on a deed.
A license.
Police reports.
Federal evidence forms.
For weeks, it had become entangled with a case.
Tonight it meant home.
Darius stood on the porch.
He thought about Marcus Tilman.
The other twenty complainants.
Harold at the edge of his lawn.
Curtains moving.
His own decision not to reveal the badge.
The credential had saved him eventually.
More accurately, it had changed the officers’ behavior the instant they saw it.
That truth bothered him deeply.
He did not need federal credentials to own the house.
Did not need a badge to refuse a search.
Did not need a government title to deserve accurate reporting.
Yet once Ror saw the credential, everything he had dismissed seconds earlier suddenly mattered.
The law had not changed.
Only Darius’s perceived status had.
That was the part he could not stop thinking about.
Justice that required credentials to activate was not equal justice.
It was status-dependent mercy.
A much uglier thing.
Camille opened the front door behind him.
“You’re brooding.”