“Would you like some tea?” he asked.

“Do you have coffee?”

“Instant?”

“Sure,” Nic said, taking a seat at the table.

Booth put a kettle on a small gas stove. He prepared two cups on the counter—one with instant coffee grinds, and the other with a loose tea strainer.

“Hangover?” he asked.

Nic felt her heart jump. Had he seen them last night? Nic and Reyes, walking up the creaky stairs to her room? Reyes hadn’t stayed—but Booth may not know that. He would have heard them talking as they walked the stairs. He would have heard two sets of feet. And then silence, perhaps, if Reyes descended more discreetly.

Booth studied several canisters of tea before choosing one. They were lined up perfectly on the shelf.

“It’s much better, you know? Loose leaf tea,” he said.

Nic watched him, lost in her thoughts. And her fears about what he was now thinking.

He filled the strainer. The water boiled and he poured it into the cups.

Milk and sugar were on the table, but he brought saucers and spoons.

Nic sipped the coffee as she looked around the room. Booth was busy fixing his tea just so—one and a half spoons of sugar. A long pour of milk. A meticulous stir.

“Do you live here all the time?” she asked. There weren’t many personal effects. And hardly enough closet space for a few days of clothing.

“Yes,” he answered. Then he understood why she was asking.

“I have a second room next door. I keep most of my things there. I know it’s an odd arrangement, but I don’t see much point in renovating. I don’t mind it, and who knows? One day we might get busy again and I’ll need these rooms for guests.”

Nic looked at him carefully. Did he really believe that? After a decade-long spiral into an economic graveyard? How deep into this fantasy was he?

But none of this was why she was here.

“Remember when I went for that run?”

Booth smiled, causing his glasses to slide down his nose. He pushed them up with his middle finger.

“Of course. You escaped the bears and wolves.”

Nic smiled. “Yes. But I also found the fence my father saw.”

“Oh right. The fence.”

She heard Reyes now, in her head, telling her not to do this. Not to speak to Booth about his neighbors or Daisy Hollander or anything else from the past.

What had he said? That Booth was wound tight as a drum.