14

Half of me felt safe holed up inside with the blankets tucked to my waist, my laptop warming my crossed legs. The other half longed to walk off my jitters. After a quiet, mid-morning writing session at Pat’s, I started feeling antsy.

It wasn’t because I’d passed the eighteen-hour mark since Johnson had escaped, of course. That had nothing to do with it. And it wasn’t because I still hadn’t heard from Leah. After all, even remote assistants deserved time off.

Still. Without her updates, I felt blind. Blind and cold and a bit stir-crazy in my tiny, Internet-less StayAway room.

But Birchardville didn’t offer outsiders many options for hanging out. I had my room here at Pat’s, the counter at The Olde Birchardville Store, and the cemetery—all of which felt too predictable for comfort. I could walk back up Cobb Hill and take more pictures of the old Roth homestead, but the thought of confronting that creepy, ramshackle building was too much to take. Ditto Birchardville Hill. Fortunately, I'd gotten all the pictures I needed the day I'd walked up there with Reed. I wouldn't need to go back.

At least, not today.

And definitely not alone.

My phone buzzed as a text came through. The ID read Levi Stoltz.

Booth and Reed filled me in. Meet for coffee?

So. I would meet the famous Uncle Levi after all.

But when I stepped outside and tugged the gaudy bobble hat over my head, the person I saw standing at the bottom of the stone steps leaning against a beat up red truck was not Uncle Levi.