Melting ice

Evidence

*Ava*

The message arrives while I am labeling Rasmus's evening medications.

My phone buzzes against the kitchen table. Once. Then again.

I expect Ginnie, or Detective Morales asking for the time stamp on the sedan. Instead, I see a number I blocked two days ago.

Unknown numbers do not stay blocked when someone is determined enough.

I open it anyway.

A photograph fills the screen.

My bedroom window is visible through a gap in the curtains, a crooked slice of my real home. The picture has been taken from the sidewalk. Under it, one line waits in a gray message bubble.

‘You look better when you smile for me.’

The kitchen disappears around the edges.

Rasmus is at the counter behind me, making tea with the kind of concentration usually reserved for surgery. He has one hand braced against the granite. His other hand holds the kettle too tightly.

"Ava?"

I lock my phone.

Too late. My fingers have gone cold.

"It's nothing."

His expression changes. "That is not a nothing face."

"It's handled."

The lie comes out clean. I have used it on coaches, on frightened parents, on my mother when Dad was in the hospital and I was seventeen years old with a medication chart taped above the microwave.

Take at eight. Take at noon. Take before bed.

If I could make the boxes neat enough, nobody had to be afraid.

My phone buzzes again.

Rasmus does not move toward me. He only sets the kettle down.

"Ava," he says softly. "Please."

The gentleness almost makes it worse.

I hand him the phone before I can decide against it.

He reads the message. The color drains from his face. For one sharp second, anger moves through him, hard enough to make his jaw lock and a small growl escapes his clenched teeth.

Then he gives it back.

"Call Ginnie," he says.

"I already sent the car photograph to Detective Morales."

"This is new evidence."

"I know what it is."

"I know you do." His voice stays even. "You should not have to know it by yourself."

The front door opens before I can answer. Butterscotch barrels inside first, carrying one of Caleb's socks in his mouth. Caleb follows with a paper bag of groceries, and Ginnie comes behind him, phone pressed to her ear.

She sees my face and stops.

"Detective Morales," she says into the phone, suddenly all business. "We have another message. Yes. I'll send it now."

I hate how quickly my life becomes a file.

Ginnie sits beside me at the table, her legal pad already open. Caleb takes the sock from Butterscotch, who looks deeply betrayed. Rasmus stays at the counter, quiet in a way that makes me more aware of him than when he is teasing me.

"Here's the clean version," Ginnie says. "We preserve the original. Morales gets screenshots and the device information. We ask the building manager for the exterior camera footage from your apartment."

My stomach turns.

"There's more," I say.

Ginnie's pen pauses.

I stare at the phone in my hands. "He messaged before I blocked him. After I canceled. I saved it, but I didn't send it."

A long silence settles over the kitchen.

Caleb's face closes off. "What did he say?"

I do not want Rasmus listening. I do not want anyone listening.

The words are stupid. Petty. They should not have stayed with me. Yet they did.

"He said I was leading him on. That women like me always think they can treat people badly because somebody will clean up after us." My throat burns. "He said I should be grateful he was interested."

Ginnie's eyes lift to mine.

I force myself to keep going. "I only exchanged a few messages with him. I told him I had to reschedule. I was trying to be polite."

"You were polite," Ginnie says.

"I know." My laugh comes out thin. "Intellectually, I know that."

Rasmus's crutch scrapes softly against the floor. I look up.

He has moved closer, pain pulling his mouth tight, though he pretends otherwise.

"I am sorry he made you carry that," he says.

It is not the right sentence. It is too kind, too close to the part of me I keep locked down. My eyes sting before I can stop them.

I look away.

Ginnie reaches across the table and turns my phone faceup. "Show me everything."

So I do.

I unlock the folder hidden inside a medical textbook app. Screenshots. The date cancellation. His first irritated reply. The apology that turns into blame. The messages after the car. I have kept them in order, time stamped, each one filed away as though precision could make them less ugly.

Ginnie sends them to Morales. Caleb steps onto the porch to check the cameras. Butterscotch presses his warm body against my shin and sighs.

When I stand to get water, Rasmus shifts as if to help.

"Don't," I say automatically.

He freezes.

I close my eyes. "Sorry. Your pain level?"

"Four."

"You're sweating."

He gives me a faint smile. "You notice everything."

"Sit down, Rasmus."

This time, he does.

His hand slips briefly to his lower back as he lowers himself into the chair. The movement is careful. Too careful.

I fill a glass at the sink, listening to Ginnie explain the evidence chain to Detective Morales. Outside, the ocean keeps moving against the shore.

When I turn back, Rasmus is watching me.

There is no flirtation in his face. No easy smile.

Only worry.

And somehow, that feels far more dangerous.