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“What’s going on?” Theo asked from the doorway.
“We’re supposed to see if anything’s missing,” Auggie said.
The weight of Theo’s silence told Auggie that he’d been asking something else, but Auggie put his head down and started looking.
By the time John-Henry joined them, Auggie knew at least one more thing was missing.
“My external hard drive.” He pointed to a spot behind the desk, where the mare’s nest of cables from the docking station kept company with dust bunnies and what looked suspiciously like—but couldn’t be, because Auggie was so careful—Doritos crumbs.
John-Henry squatted to examine the spot Auggie had indicated. He nodded and asked, “Do you know the make and model?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll need you to provide that, plus the information for the laptop.”
“What are we supposed to do now?” Theo asked, his voice hard and flat.
John-Henry held up a finger and excused himself. They saw him through the window, conferring with his two officers again. Nickels was writing something down. When he returned, he said, “Let’s move into another room. Is there anything from the office you want to take with you? I’d like to close it off until they can process it.”
Auggie looked at Theo. Theo shook his head.
In the living room, they sat again, but this time Theo and Auggie took the sofa, and John-Henry an armchair. Back straight, hands on knees. This wasn’t the guy who watched the Cardinals with Theo and asked Auggie to toss him another Coke. Auggie could hear himself repeating the thought, could hear himself caught in it. But it was like watching something ghost along behind this John-Henry, an impression of movement that followed him when he turned his head. My life, Auggie thought. My old life. He wanted to giggle. The bad old days. And they’re back, and that John-Henry is back, and that Theo will be back too.
“This person,” Theo said, “they didn’t show up on any of the other cameras.”
John-Henry nodded.
“If you get a print, you can find them, right?”
“Maybe. A print would be helpful.”
“It looked like they were wearing gloves.”
John-Henry nodded again.
“This wasn’t a random break-in,” Auggie said. He hadn’t put the thoughts together, hadn’t strung them out into syllables like that, until right then. “Was it?”
“What do you mean?” Theo asked.
But John-Henry only gave Auggie a considering look.
“In the office—my watch is still on the desk, and there’s a Bose speaker on the bookshelf. I bet if I check the top drawer, there’ll still be loose cash—I toss it in there sometimes when I get home and go straight to work.”
“I think there are reasons,” John-Henry said, “to believe that someone was looking for something in particular.”
“What?” Theo looked from Auggie to John-Henry. “His laptop? His hard drive? What do they want? I mean, no offense, Auggie, but it’s not like you’ve got military secrets on there.”
“Who would be interested in stealing those materials?” John-Henry asked.
A laugh escaped Auggie. “Nobody. You’re talking about a competitor, is that it? Like, a rival or something? Nobody. I’m good at what I do, but I’m not doing anything that a bunch of other agencies aren’t also doing. Nobody—and I’m not exaggerating—would come all the way out to the middle of nowhere to steal a few TikTok stitches and the outline for a hard seltzer campaign.”
“Keep thinking about it,” John-Henry said. “It might be someone local. A kid who cuts the grass—”
“I cut the grass,” Theo said.
“—someone who cleans the house, maybe neighbor kids.”
“You saw that video. That wasn’t a neighbor kid. And a cleaning lady doesn’t dress in all black, sneak in through a window, and steal Auggie’s laptop and hard drive.”
