Page 67 of Eyes in the Shadows

She smiles proudly, looking down at the meal. “Chicken piccata, homemade pasta, roasted broccoli. I don’t know how you guys were eating it steamed, it’s so… fibrous,” she says, wrinkling that cute nose.

It only took, like, two days of eating her food to question how I was eating any of it before. I’m never going back. My first bite bursts on my tongue with tart, lemon flavor. “Fucking fantastic,” I moan.

She’s watching me with a keyed-up expression. “Good? Not too salty? I was a little concerned because I’m used to a different kind of kosher salt than what’s here—kitchens use Diamond and most home cooks have Morton—so I was worried that the salinity was a little off—”

“It’s perfect,” I say, cutting her nervous explanation short. The way she glows with satisfaction is enough to convince me that I should make a point to assure her how amazing everything is from now on. I like that look of contentment.

We fall into light conversation as we eat. I’m spearing one of the final few broccoli trees when I remember to update her on the change to my schedule. “Just so you know, I’ll be leaving a bit earlier and getting home a bit later for the next couple of days. We’re doing surveillance somewhere a little bit further, now.”

“Oh, okay,” she says, looking down at what’s left on her plate. “Is it just you doing surveillance?”

“It was before, but Dimitri’s helping now.” I sit back a little and regard her. “You know, he took the night shift. He’s never taken the night shift willingly like that.”

She tilts her head. “You said that with a certain emphasis but I don’t think I have enough context to understand what exactly you mean.”

“He said he did it so we could be together more, and he’s not a man predisposed to being soft or sentimental.”

At that, she laughs. “I’d never have guessed,” she says, the gentlest of roasts. “That was really nice of him.”

“It was. You must have won him over somehow.”

“I think it was the knives.” She smiles and pushes around the last broccoli piece, before spearing it on her fork. “I’m surprised Wesley can’t help with your surveillance. Isn’t hacking into people’s doorbell cameras kind of his wheelhouse?”

I snort. One of his favorite topics. “Do yourself a favor and don’t ask Wes about doorbell cameras, unless you like anti-establishment and personal privacy rants.”

At that, she smiles. “Love ‘em. And conspiracy theories.”

“Oh, really?” I push my plate away, finished. “Such as?”

“Well, have you heard about all the cheese they’re keeping in caves in Missouri? The government bailed out big dairy years ago and they’ve just been hoarding, like, a billion pounds of it.”

My smile turns doubtful and I blink at her. “Big dairy? Seriously?”

“It’s why there’s cheese so many places it doesn’t belong, like stuffed in the crust of a pizza that’s already topped with it—government subsidies. It’s a conspiracy,” she declares, crossing her arms as I chuckle. “I’m gonna find it one day. If I ever go missing, look for me in the gouda.”

“I’m going to look this up, you know,” I say, wearing a huge, amused grin. “I’m not just going to take you at your word.” I totally would.

“Good, you shouldn’t. If I had my phone, I’d send you some links.”

I laugh. “To answer your original question, no. Wes won’t hack doorbell cameras for this kind of thing—Dimitri and I can handle the watch. We need his RAM for more important things most of the time.”

“The anti-establishment stuff, I get. But why does he draw the line at doorbell cameras? Don’t you guys regularly do stuff that’s pretty invasive? And isn’t he, like, a hacker? Seems like getting into places he isn’t invited is kind of the idea.”

I shrug and collect both of our plates to go start washing up. “We all have those lines we won’t cross.”

Her laugh is more of a bark, like she didn’t mean to make the noise out loud and stopped herself. I throw her a look over my shoulder.

“You’re telling me there’s a line you won’t cross?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at me.

I pause, considering. I’d told myself no video inside her apartment was that line. But, really, combining looking in through her window and the audio from the bugs kind of made that a moot point. I haven’t dug through her past enough to know every single detail, but that’s just because she’s here with me now, and I don’t feel like I have to.

“For some things, maybe. But not when it comes to protecting the things that are mine.” I place the plates in the sink and turn around to face her. She’s sipping from her water glass. “There’s nothing I won’t do to protect you, Eleanor. I’m not the good guy, and I don’t want you to forget that. I’m the guy that would kill everyone just to save one person, if that one person is you.”

From the look on her face, I know she believes me. And I’m heartened by the flash of heat I see, however buried it is behind the discomfort.

“I know,” she says quietly. “But I also really hope we never have to put that to the test.”

25

---