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I might know someone who’s selling. What’s it worth?
ThinBlue
Fuck off! You don’t have shit!
Patriot Warrior
We can raise money. But we’d need proof.
WKWWK
Wayward Son
Caleb waited for a reply. Was ThinBlue a cop? That might be how he got hold of the manuscript. A cop may have taken it from the crime scene. Or maybe he was some scammer. The site had all sorts of people join lately, newcomers to the way of the Shield. But if he was actually some light-fingered cop, then he could well have Dan Murdoch’s manuscript, and if that was the case, Caleb was determined to acquire it, buy it if he had to. Of course, he didn’t have that kind of cash himself, but he knew people who would give it to him. He was one of Primus’s lieutenants… Well, he was sure he would have been if Primus had selected lieutenants. This was his responsibility.
Caleb returned to the screen and began typing—he had found Primus, identified him as Dan Murdoch. He would find ThinBlue as well.
The Lawrence Police Department was, it seemed, particularly busy that evening. It was always the case when it snowed, and people appeared to forget how to drive. An officer took down her details. Theo told him what she’d seen. He asked her if she was reporting a crime of any sort. Theo stuttered. He sighed. “We’ll alert any units in your area to keep an eye out, ma’am, but it could be that this Mr. Winslow found more of your mail that had been mistakenly delivered to him and was trying to return it.”
“Wouldn’t he have come to the front door then?”
“Perhaps he got no reply and thought he’d try the back instead. He really hasn’t done anything aside from leaving a gate open, ma’am.”
Theo put down the phone, irritated. But the officer was right, mortifyingly so. She couldn’t even be sure that the man she saw was Winslow, and footprints would have been long obscured in the current snowfall.
She still couldn’t feel her feet properly. She checked that both doors and the windows were locked and then went upstairs to take a shower. The hot water brought the circulation back to her feet. She got into her warmest flannel pajamas and two pairs of socks before padding downstairs again to make cocoa. She warmed milk on the stove and checked the doors and windows once more. Confirming for herself that they were secure, she finally began to feel warm again, or less cold at least.
She turned off the stovetop and poured the hot milk over generous scoops of cocoa powder, and returned to her notes on the kitchen table. She sipped as she contemplated: her protagonist would need to be dead for the narrative to work, and to explore the idea, she would need to build the world of the dead somehow. She thought about Dan then, or perhaps she’d never stopped thinking about him. Theo was self-aware enough to wonder if this conceit was a way to think about Dan’s death from the safety of story, to allow herself to dream about him, to miss him.
It was only when she heard the knock that she realized that she had been listening for it. Mac’s voice. “Theo, it’s me.”
She tried not to run to the door, and when she did, she told herself that it was because she didn’t want him waiting in the cold.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” he said, shaking the snow off his hair before he stepped inside. It seemed to be blizzarding. He looked at her, smiling faintly at the dachshund-patterned pajamas. “Did I wake you?”
She shook her head. “I got wet and so…” She told him about the footprints, the plaid-jacketed figure across the road, the padlock, and the police.
He didn’t dismiss her alarm, opening the front door again to check the street.
“You think he might still be there?” Theo asked anxiously.
“Probably not—it’s pretty cold, but he approached the house once I’d left. Maybe he was watching the house… You said he was elderly?”
“Not rocking-chair-and-blanket elderly, but definitely retired.” She went through their conversation in her mind. “He has kids in Virginia. Grown-up, I presume.” She made a fresh batch of cocoa. “This doesn’t make sense. He refused when I invited him in—”
Mac rolled up his sleeves and began washing the pot and the mug she’d left in the sink. “You invited him in?”
“I thought he’d walked from number 277 just to return my mail… A cup of tea seemed the least I could do.”
Mac rubbed the shadow on his jaw. “You know, Theo, it could be that whomever is coming into the backyard is not related to Winslow at all. It could be you’ve got a garden variety Peeping Tom on your hands. Who lives next door?”
“On the left—Mrs. Milson. She’s about one hundred and sixty years old. Used to work for the Red Cross. On the right, a bunch of students, I think. They haven’t been there long, and I can’t be certain which of them actually live there. Gus told me to knock on their door if I’m ever in desperate need of beer.”
Mac nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out. In the meantime, I might just call on number 277 tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll come with you?”
He shook his head. “I was just going to make up some plausible excuse… He’d recognize you.”
