The last of the October light is doing that thing it does in Deadfall — going amber and sideways through the firs, making everything look more significant than it probably is.

You're at Heller's, which is where everyone ends up eventually, and Connor Hale is across the table from you the way he has been approximately ten thousand times in your life. He's talking about the Hendricks trailhead, the one search and rescue has been trying to get the county to flag, and he has that look he gets — focused, certain, the map of a problem already built behind his eyes.

Matt arrived twelve minutes after you, which means he came straight from the garage, which means he was keeping track. He's on your left, working through a cup of coffee that has gone cold, and he hasn't said much — but he laughed at the right moment, and his shoulder has been against yours for the last twenty minutes in the easy way of someone who isn't thinking about it.

Or is thinking about it and has decided not to.

They look the same as they always have. That's the thing about people you've known your whole life: they stay the same shape in your memory even when they change. Connor still reaches for the check before it lands on the table. Matt still turns his cup in his hands when he's listening.

But there's something — you've been noticing it for a few weeks now, maybe longer. The way a certain kind of subject shifts Connor into logistics. The way Matt goes quiet in a particular direction, not his usual quiet, something more specific than that.

On your way in, you passed Matt's truck in the lot. The back seat had a cardboard box in it — old, sealed with tape that had dried and gone brittle. You recognized Peter Ryker's handwriting on the side.

Matt hasn't mentioned it.

Connor, when you'd come in, had looked at the truck. Just for a second. Then he'd looked at you.

"You're somewhere else," Connor says now, and he's watching you the way he watches everything — completely, without appearing to.

Across the table, Matt glances up from his cup.