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Her eyes hold mine. The want is still there on her side. I can feel it through a screen. She doesn’t use it to soften anything, and I don’t offer my restraint like a down payment.

“Everything else,” she says, “has to be earned. Without a deadline.”

The screen goes dark.

At 11:48 that night, my phone rings on the nightstand.

Her personal number. The one she gave counsel to give me for emergencies only.

I’m on my feet before the second ring. “Tessa. Are you hurt?”

“No.” Her voice is low and a little rough. “Nothing’s wrong. There’s no threat. I’m not calling about the case.”

I stand in the dark in my bedroom, my heart slamming, and I wait.

“I can’t sleep,” she says, “and I hate that you’re the reason.”

I sit back down on the edge of the bed. My hand is shaking. I put it flat on my knee. “I can’t either.”

“Good.” A breath. “That was petty. I meant it.”

“It’s fair.”

I hear her breathing and something like traffic very far away. Nothing else tells me where she is, and I don’t try to find out.

“Why did you do it?” she asks. “Not the version for the record. Not the security reasons. I want to know why you.”

I close my eyes.

“When I was fourteen,” I say, “my father sold my mother’s horse without telling her. She loved that mare more than she loved most people. He didn’t hide it. He just decided, and it was done, and she found an empty stall. When she cried, he told her the horse had been a liability and he’d handled it. He said if she’d needed to be consulted, she should have been watching the books.”

Tessa doesn’t say anything.

“That’s how it worked in this house. If you didn’t see it coming, it was your fault. So I learned to see everything first. I learned to know where everything was before anybody could take it. I thought that was the opposite of him.” I look at the photograph on my wall, Calvin’s hand on my shoulder. “It’s not. It’s the same thing. I just aimed it at you and called it protection.”

For a long time she’s quiet.

“I’m not calling to forgive you,” she says finally.

“I know.”

“I don’t know what I’m calling for.”

“You don’t have to know.”

Another breath. Softer. “Tell me something that isn’t about the case. Or your father. Or me.”

I think about it. “There’s a gray cow in the east pasture who opens the lower water-lot gate with her nose. She’s been doing it for six years. We’ve changed the latch four times. Cole thinks she’s a genius. I think she just has more patience than anybody on the payroll.”

A sound comes down the line. Small and startled. It might be a laugh.

“What’s her name?”

“Calvin called her The Accountant.”

This time it’s definitely a laugh, tired and unwilling and real, and I want to hear it again.

“Goodnight, Garrett,” she says.