The boxes were in the lobby when I got home from Treeline.
My boxes. My things. Labeled in handwriting I didn't recognize — neat, efficient, the handwriting of someone who'd been told to pack a woman's apartment and had done it the way you execute an order. Kitchen. Bedroom. Bathroom. Closet. Each one taped shut with the precision of a man who understood that the woman those boxes belonged to would notice if anything was missing or mishandled.
I stood in the lobby of my Baker apartment building — Cole's building, Cole's ground — and looked at the boxes and felt something detonate in my chest that was halfway between fury and the terrible relief of a woman who'd known this was coming and hadn't let herself admit it.
My phone rang. Cole.
"Don't," I said.
