Page 52 of Omega’s Fold

“Caleb.”

“He told me. If you call that he doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Has he said that? Or are you guessing?”

The pause this time is longer. Long enough that I think perhaps he has set the phone down and gone for Wyatt after all, but the silence has the wrong quality. He is still there. He is on the other end of the line and he is thinking about what to say.

“He hasn’t said anything,” Caleb says, finally. “About any of it. He hasn’t said one word about you since you left. Do you know how bad that is?”

That’s not fair. “Come on, Caleb. Wyatt barely says a word to anyone.”

“Yeah, he does. He does when he trusts them.”

Ouch.

“Caleb, please. I just need to talk to him.”

“No.”

He hangs up.

I sit with the receiver in my hand for a second longer than I need to and then I put it back on the cradle.

I close the laptop, and sit at my desk staring at the piece of paper with Wyatt’s phone number on it. Then I pick it up, crumple it up into a ball and throw it at the trash basket.

I miss and have to go pick it up which does not improve my mood.

The Bureau office is on the seventh floor of a government building four blocks from work. I walk it on the Friday lunch break with my coat collar up against a wind off the river.

The receptionist takes my name, then tells me to take a seat.

I am called through after eleven minutes.

David Sun is different in person than he was on the phone. He is shorter and older than I expected, and far politer.

“Mr. Duffield. Please. Have a seat.”

I sit.

“Thank you for coming in. I appreciate it isn’t always convenient.”

“It’s fine.”

He has a folder open in front of him already. He turns a page.

“So,” he says. “You completed the cohabitation order. Day fourteen. Departure logged at five forty-two a.m.”

“Yes.”

“And you have not returned to the property since.”

“No.”

“And Mr. Briggs has not contacted you to extend or renew the matching process.”

I think of Caleb on the phone three nights ago.

“No.”