Page 40 of The Case of the Hollow Bond

“I will.”

Her gaze stays on me long enough to make the lie feel heavier.

I bend and kiss her forehead. Her skin is warm. Her scent wraps around me, and my alpha surges hard enough that my teeth ache with the need to mark. I pull back before instinct does something we can’t undo.

Pepper watches me carefully. “I’m safe.”

“I want to keep you that way.”

“You can keep me safe without disappearing into the job.”

The words land too close. I leave before she sees it.

My office is cooler than the attic and smells like paper, dust, and the faint mineral damp of the channel. Without thinking about why too hard, I pull the caretaker ledgers from the bottom cabinet and spread them across the desk.

The gazebo appears in a maintenance record from 1934. Gazebo relocated from east spring path. Original structure retained. Repairs to roof, rail, and foundation.

There are no details and no explanations. I keep searching. On an older property map, there’s a route near the cemetery boundary labeled as Home Road.

I photograph both pages for Pepper to study.

The gazebo wasn’t built beside the current dock. Someone moved it, but why? And who? Does it even matter?

Ezra appears in the doorway. He’s paler than he was beside the spring, but still solid enough that his shoulder presses against the frame. “It’s contagious. She’s got you looking for answers.”

“I don’t know what it means, but I thought property records could help.” I show him the ledger.

He reads it, then looks toward the ceiling as if he can see through the floor to Pepper’s nest. “She’ll be thrilled.”

“She needs sleep.”

“She can be thrilled while horizontal.”

I close the ledger. Ezra’s gaze moves over me, lingering on the way my hands grip the desk edge.

“What?” I ask.

“You’ve been hard since dawn.”