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Liam riffled through the stack of envelopes, prepared to toss junk mail before he even left the store. As he pulled one pale yellow envelope from the stack, Liam’s fingers trembled.

Quinn had a UPS box, an alternate address. The three digits in the box number were an inverted arrangement of the same three in Liam’s number. Liam understood his own business reasons for the box he kept in Birch Bend, but why would a schoolteacher pay for a box? He flipped the envelope over and inspected the seal, which was firm and flat. Liam glanced up at the clerk busy behind the counter with a customer and three stacked boxes to ship.

He ought to give her the envelope. Liam knew that. He didn’t need to add another form of theft to the list of crimes he might be accused of.

But what if the contents of the yellow envelope contained a clue to Quinn’s whereabouts?

“Christopher, have you been good?” A young woman knelt in front of the boy and looked at Lauren. “I hope he wasn’t bothering you.”

“I would say it was the other way around,” Lauren said. Christopher was a quiet child. He didn’t smile much, either. Lauren met the weary eye of his mother.

“I’m sorry if I took a long time in there. I just. . .had a lot of questions.” The young woman, who Lauren was sure was a good years younger than she was, took Christopher’s hand. “Come on, sweetie. Mommy needs to see someone else.”

He stood up and tolerated his mother’s motions to straighten his shirt. Lauren winked at him, and then she looked at the clock and at the clipboard in her lap, making sure she had the correct page of notes in front of her before knocking on the director’s door. She approached the door and raised her hand.

The sound of the young mother’s shuffle tugged on Lauren’s gaze, but the clipboard weighed heavy in her grip and the health fair heavy in her mind. She blinked and turned back to the director’s office, but her knuckles refused to make contact with the door. Lauren looked again at the mother whose shoulders drooped as she stroked the back of her son’s head.

Inch by inch, Ethan by turn held his breath and deliberately exhaled. The branch he slid out on thinned. Finally he saw the glass in the window reflecting the beams angled from the ground.

Ethan couldn’t get it open with one hand. He counted to three under his breath before releasing his security grip and leaning his weight into pushing the window up with both hands.

Its resistance felt like it hadn’t been open since the last time Ethan made this climb.

Ethan closed the window behind him and leaned against the wall to wait for his heart to stop pounding. He turned on his phone light and gave his eyes time to adjust before finding his way across the attic, down the stairs, and into the upstairs hall. There he paused long enough to send a text message.

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