I wake in darkness so suffocating, I could be inside a coffin. Dizzy seconds pass. I steady my breathing and try to remember where I am. I feel drunk, drugged, confused. A shaded window’s outline glows in some sort of distance, a faint rectangle of light. Then, with the fierceness of a bad memory, it all comes to me.
London. I’m in London. Gladstone Park.
I’m hungry. God, I am so hungry.
I turn in the bed and look over at the clock, which reads just after 8:00 p.m. Eight? I’ve been asleep for hours.
I sit up, place my feet on the floor. Blood drains from my head, and for a second, I think I’m going to topple. I could easily go back to sleep, but I fight it off. I don’t want that. I want to get up. I need to get up.
In the bathroom, I splash lukewarm water on my face, pull my hair back and tie it up, brush my teeth. Life begins filling me again.
Grab my bag, double-checking it for my laptop, wallet, phone. Shoes on. In the small lobby, I ask the same desk clerk the closest place for a bite, and at this point, I don’t even think I’d protest against fast food. Thankfully, he directs me to a pub down the street. Quick walk. Inside the pub, I nearly faint from the wonderfully heady aroma of a shepherd’s pie I order. I rarely drink beer, but here I have a pint, and as the last drops slide down my throat, I admonish myself for not drinking it daily. I order another. As the server drops it off, I ask him to remove the dinner knife from the table, telling him I won’t be needing it.
I pull out my laptop, boot it up, and connect to an open Wi-Fi network. There’s an email from Brenda. She tells me things are fine at the Stone Rose and asks again if I’m okay. I tell her what I wrote yesterday. All is good. Just need a few days to deal with some things. Thanks for your understanding. Nothing else. She has no idea I’m thousands of miles away.
No email from Thomas.
Nothing from Richard.
Most notably, nothing from Mr. Interested since his ominous text. I have a constant sense of his breath on the back of my neck.
I check the online news back in Manchester, and there’s no mention of a body being found in the White Mountains. I search Boston news sites, and there’s nothing about a missing drug dealer, though that might not even be newsworthy. But it’s not relief I feel. It’s more like anxiety, because I know what we’ve done doesn’t just go away forever. Nothing just goes away forever, much less a murder.
I open a blank Word document and start typing.
The book is postmarked London. Dad’s handwriting on the inscription, which tells me not to trust anyone. Is he telling me not to trust Mr. Interested? Did he even know him? Or is it all just a forgery?
Why does he call himself Mr. Interested? Because he’s interested in every aspect of my life?
I think about this for a moment, staring at the name. Say it aloud. “Mr. Interested.” There’s something familiar about the lettering, the sounds, the cadence. Then a thought hits me, and I switch over to my web browser. I Google anagram and find a site where I can type any word or words, and it will spit out all other possible word combinations based on those letters.
I type:
Mister Tender
Hundreds of results, but only one that isn’t nonsense. It’s the first result on the list.
Mr. Interested
I sit up straighter and stare at the screen. This feels like a meaningful moment, but I don’t quite grasp the significance.
It’s an anagram. Okay, I get it. Clever. One minor mystery solved. But does that really tell me anything? Is he telling me he is Mister Tender? If so, what the hell does that even mean?
Back to my writing.
What I know about him:
He’s older. Starks called him “fancy.” British accent. FIfty or sixty.
Assume he lives near me, but the book was sent from London—does he travel back and forth? He watches me, but hard to say how often. He’s been at my house, maybe even inside it. At least knows what the inside looks like. Says he’s been watching me for a long time. Somehow even knows about Jimmy and me and the night in Boston. Was able to track Freddy Starks.
He can draw like Dad. Maybe even mimic his hand-writing.
He has access to guns.
Tech savvy? Maybe. Enough to run a message board, which probably isn’t hard. He knows I’m in England. Is he tracking my phone somehow?
I stop, knowing I could write myself into circles. Really, there’s only one immediate question, and it’s the last thing I type on the page before shutting down the laptop.
Where do I go next?
I already know the answer, even if I haven’t fully admitted it to myself. It’s why I chose to stay in this neighborhood. Maybe it’s the real reason I came to England.
There’s a sip of beer left, and I swallow it. For a brief moment, I consider actually ordering another, but instead I pay my bill and provide an answer to my one immediate question.
I walk outside and head deep into Gladstone Park.