Page 27 of Matthew
She blinked. “What does?”
“That this place means something. That someone loved it into existence. It sticks.”
Callie’s throat tightened unexpectedly. She looked away before the emotion could rise too close to the surface.
He didn’t press. He sat with her, letting the wind do the talking.
She took another sip of water, then set the bottle beside her. “I guess that’s what’s pissing me off the most. We fought to make this place real. If someone’s screwing with it on purpose…”
“They won’t get far,” he said simply.
She turned to look at him. “You don’t know that.”
“I know you saw something that didn’t sit right, and you didn’t shrug it off. You took a photo. You called it in. That’s the difference between getting lucky and getting answers.”
Callie didn’t respond at first, letting his words settle. That calm, measured confidence again. The kind that didn’t rely on luck at all.
His phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket and glanced at the screen. “Carter. He’s got something.”
She blew out a breath and stood. “Then we should probably go to my office.”
Matthew nodded and rose to his feet. “I’ll text Caspian to join us.”
There was no urgency in his movements. Only a quiet readiness she was already learning to read.
Sammy stood as they did, giving a full body shake before falling into step beside her.
Callie led the way toward the office, her boots crunching over the gravel path. The sunlight had shifted since morning, casting long shadows across the rows of potted herbs. Everything looked the same as it had when they first walked the perimeter. But it didn’tfeelthe same.
Matthew followed a half step behind, his presence steady, his attention sharp. She didn’t have to look to know he was still scanning, watching the workers, the tree line, the edges of the lot, taking everything in without saying much at all.
They reached the side entrance of the main building, and Callie keyed in her office door code. “Not much of an office,” she said, pushing the door open. “It used to be the storage room for our seed orders. I decided to claim a corner and shoved a desk in.”
“Bet it still runs better than half the ops I’ve worked with,” Matthew said, stepping inside.
She almost smiled. Almost.
Sammy padded in behind them and curled up in his usual spot in a bed under the desk, head on his paws.
Callie left the door open and moved to her laptop, tapping the screen to wake it up.
From the hallway beyond the customer counter, the sound of the front door chimed.
Caspian stepped into the office a moment later, his eyes scanning the space before landing on them. “Nothing by the road. No fresh tracks, no tire marks. If someone parked out there, it was yesterday or earlier.”
Matthew nodded. “Carter just pinged me. Let’s get him on.”
He tapped his phone and hit speaker before placing it on the corner of Callie’s desk.
Two rings, then Carter’s voice came through, light and casual. “You rang? Please tell me this is the part where I get to say ‘Enhance’ like in those terrible crime shows.”
Matthew huffed out a breath. “You got anything?”
“Do Iever. Ran the plate. Truck’s registered to a company that doesn’t exist anymore—ghosted completely.”
Callie exhaled sharply. “So it’s a ghost truck.”
“Casper would be proud,” Carter said. “Oh, hey, he’s there with you. Are you proud, Casper?”
