Dusty walked out of the brilliantly lit, fluorescently colorful, downtown Apple Store with three brand new working phones—all still updating from the cloud—and a receipt for the over two thousand dollars it had cost to acquire them. The Apple rep had been very sympathetic: ‘Ouch! Been getting lots of water-damaged units lately, but I haven’t seen three at a time before. Really sorry, dude.’ Dusty had given him everyone’s user names and passwords without bothering to correct the guy’s misapprehension. So much simpler that way.

Dusty’s education grant, student loan, and job at the still-closed campus library weren’t quite going to cover his seven-hundred-dollar share of this bill, of course, but Thom and Anna would doubtless help him out—as they had done in so many other ways these past seven years. Their decision to adopt a grown young man had been largely about supplying him, for the first time in his life, with both ‘real family,’ and sufficient resources to do whatever he chose to, not just whatever survival required; changes he still had trouble wrapping his head around—even now. His gratitude to them—for this and so much else—was boundless, if still tinged at moments like this one with irrational shame. The irrational, he’d come to understand, was immune to rational critique. One didn’t ‘fix it.’ At best, one just found some better place to keep it—smarter strategies for managing ‘old voices’ that would likely never stop piping up for reasons beyond his grasp. Those voices had been…increasingly loud today, of course.

As he left the mall and stepped onto the city center’s crowded evening streets, Dusty wondered for the hundredth time where Colleen was now. What was she thinking—feeling—doing? What might ‘they’ be doing to her? When was he going to hear from them, and what would they do when he told them he had no way of ‘trading’ what they wanted for her? Questions he could not set down for more than minutes at a time, though there was neither point nor comfort in any of the masochistic answers his mind continued to invent. Desperate for any distraction, however unpleasant, he pulled his new phone from the hip pocket where he’d put it, sure his voicemail would be updated by now, even if his apps and photos weren’t yet. He knew that nothing there was likely to bring him comfort, but he wasn’t clueless enough to expect, or even want that now. Just…any illusion of forward motion would do.

Only two new messages had been left since his previous phone had stopped working; both fairly recent, and neither from Colleen’s captors—to his mingled disappointment and relief. The first was from Shelly, the second from Robert. Clearly, the police had finally managed to reach them. Dusty didn’t listen to either one, feeling unready for what he might hear there. But he knew he had to call them—as much as he dreaded it. He meant to marry their daughter. They should know he had sufficient spine to face the music, to own whatever part of this might belong to him. He’d tucked the bag containing Thom and Anna’s phones under one arm, and was about to make the call when he realized that a crowded street was no place to have this conversation. It would have to wait until he got back to the nearby high-rise hotel where he, Thom and Anna were sharing a room for the night. A few more minutes to imagine what he could possibly say to them—or how to say it.

Twice in one month—their daughter’s life endangered. What must they be going through? Would they blame him? Was he to blame? Matt had been his friend—and arguably his most terrible mistake. How much of Colleen’s current ordeal had ridden in on Dusty’s karma?

He shook his head, certain he knew what Colleen would have said about that. She’d already said it, just a couple weeks ago: ‘That’s my husband you’re beating up, jackass.’

His mind veered from the memory, looking—anywhere—for some safer topic.

The detective had seemed a surprisingly decent guy—though Dusty was no idiot. ‘The boyfriend’ was always suspect number one in things like this—even without a prior arrest record. And the man’s job, after all, had been to make Dusty like him, trust him, let down his guard. Dusty hadn’t missed Schafer’s attempts to lure him into soft-pedaling his past—as if that were possible… Still, Dusty hoped that at least some of the detective’s apparent receptiveness had not just been feigned.

What had Dusty most unsettled, really, was Schafer’s revelation about Anna’s father. Something of a mind-blower. Dusty was still parsing all the ways that it had rearranged—was still rearranging—his whole sense of her. Their conversation, when she’d joined him in the hallway during Thom’s interview, had been… Well, they’d never had a more awkward exchange.

‘So…what did he tell you?’ she had asked almost immediately upon sitting down beside him. ‘About my father.’

‘Camlynn Penitentiary?’ Dusty had replied, still not quite able to believe it. ‘Drug running, conspiracy and racketeering charges?’

She had nodded, her face filled with a weird mixture of shame and defiance.

‘You told me he left. When you were twelve,’ Dusty had pressed. ‘You told us both that.’

‘He did—for the penitentiary. Betrayed everything I…everything. Completely. He’s been dead to me ever since. …Why talk about the dead?’

Because you’re so passionate about honesty? Dusty had thought, but not quite dared to say. Because you’ve spent years teaching me to take no refuge in excuses; no denial, minimizing, whitewash or revision? Unflinching self-disclosure—‘owning it?’ What he’d said aloud was, ‘How weird is that—to think your dad was selling my dad drugs?’

She had actually flinched, as if from a blow, filling Dusty with immediate remorse. But then she’d just rolled her eyes, and said, ‘My father didn’t sell anything to yours. He worked for people who manufactured opioids and smuggled them to people who sold them to people who sold them to the people who might have sold them to your father, I suppose—if he’d been into opioids, which he wasn’t, as I recall. There was never any connection there. Not to you—or to anything in my life either, ever since. It’s been…literally years since I’ve given him so much as a single thought.’

It was the most—in fact, the only—really defensive thing he could recall ever hearing her say. And it had made him feel so uncomfortable—almost frightened—that he’d dropped the subject then and there. They’d talked about his own time with the detective after that, and what Schaffer might be asking Thom.

But the exchange kept resurfacing in Dusty’s mind, dragging weird, unwanted questions after it. Anna had always seemed like…some kind of natural archetype to Dusty, born fully dressed and on her horse—all a single piece: strength, virtue and integrity to the core. Now, suddenly…all that seemed to teeter. How could such a thing have had ‘no connection’ to her life ‘ever since?’ Was this how she’d ended up working for nonprofits on the Avenue? Was it…why she’d chosen to adopt him? To compensate for her father’s betrayal somehow? He had no way of knowing, and still couldn’t really accept the possibility. She seemed—still—too much herself. But…the idea had never been there to reject before, at all, and he still had no idea what to make of it—if anything. Maybe she was right—and it meant nothing in the end.

Glancing at the display window of a drugstore he was passing, Dusty realized that a few toiletries would be useful, and stepped inside. As he wandered through the aisles past other shoppers, looking for toothbrushes, toothpaste, and some antiperspirant, Dusty happened to see a man enter the shop who seemed familiar somehow. A second later, Dusty realized where from. It was the same guy he’d seen pull into the gas station that afternoon—clear across town. A day ago, Dusty would just have shrugged off the coincidence with hardly a second thought; but not now, after Anna and Thom’s story of being followed from their home. Sensing Dusty’s gaze, perhaps, the man gave him a disinterested glance, then strolled lazily behind a wall of tall display stands, as if searching for whatever he’d come in to buy.

Dusty wasn’t having it. He continued down the aisle he was in, and over two more, intending to place himself in the fellow’s path. But when he came far enough around to see the aisles previously hidden behind the tall display, he found only several women of varying ages scanning shelves of cold remedies and feminine hygiene products. A goateed young hipster perused a rack of magazines, but there was no one else. Dusty looked around the store, moving back the way he’d come, peering past a few other obstructions, but still found no trace of him.

The skin on Dusty’s arms and neck prickled as he headed quickly for the exit door, and stepped back outside. He found no sign of the man there either, and started up the street, wanting only to get back to Thom and Anna as quickly as possible; warn them that they were likely still being followed. He looked back again to see if anyone had trailed him from the drugstore, but it didn’t seem so. He hurried on, keeping to the widest, most well lit streets until Harmony Heights Hotel rose before him, two blocks ahead. Just before entering, he glanced back one more time, but still found himself alone.

Passing straight through the lobby, comforted slightly by the certainty of security cameras all around him now, Dusty rode the elevator to the eleventh floor, and trotted to their room.

Thom and Anna glanced up from whatever they were watching on the television as he keyed himself inside.

“Hi,” Thom said, standing as Anna lifted the remote to kill the TV. “Did you get them?”

“Here you go.” Dusty handed the bag to Thom as he headed for the sliding glass door to their deck. “Sorry about the bill. As we feared, they were beyond repair, and well past warranty.” He slid the door open, and went to look down at the street and roundabout outside the lobby entrance. He still saw no one there, though anyone could have entered while he’d been in the elevator. Dusty went back inside to find Thom and Anna staring at him, obviously aware that something was wrong.

“I’ve got voicemails from Robert and Shelly,” Dusty said, wondering belatedly whether to alarm them further with the rest. “I should call them back. Can one of you call the substation, and tell them we have phones again?”

“Sure,” said Thom, still gazing at him oddly.

“What’s the matter?” Anna asked.

Well…this ship had clearly sailed. “When you call, see if they’ll put you through to Schaffer, and tell him I was just followed into a drugstore by the same guy who pulled in behind me at the gas station this afternoon, half a mile from Colleen’s place. His face may be on the same surveillance cameras that caught me there.”

“Oh, great,” Thom murmured as Anna bowed her head and closed her eyes. “Did you…do anything?”

“You mean, confront him?” Dusty shrugged. “I thought about it, but he ducked behind a big display and disappeared.”

“Disappeared how?” Anna asked.

“I walked around to talk to him, but when I got there he was gone. I don’t see how he could have left the store without my seeing, but he was nowhere inside anymore.”

“Are you…sure it was the same guy?” Thom asked, visibly unnerved.

“I’m as paranoid as any of us by now,” said Dusty, “but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t wrong.” He shrugged again. “I kept an eye out the rest of the way here. Didn’t see anybody following.” He glanced back at the sliding door. “I’ll phone Colleen’s folks out there, so we don’t end up talking over each other.”

“Do you want company?” Anna asked. “We could put it on Speaker,” she hunched her shoulders, “talk to them together, if you’d like.”

Dusty offered her a gallows smile. “Thanks, but this one’s my job, I think. And extra voices may just…complicate things.”

She nodded, offering him a sad but approving smile. “Good luck.”

He nodded, turned, slid the door open, and went out to lean against the railing, where he still saw no one lurking below. After turning his phone on, he went to Robert’s voicemail and pressed the callback button, continuing to scan the street as it began to ring.

“Well, thank god,” Robert growled by way of greeting. “Where the hell have you guys been?”

“Sorry, Robert. Our phones all stopped working this afternoon. …At once. We’ve just now gotten replacements.” This elicited only silence. “Do you want to…put Shelly on?”

“She’s gone to get some sleep,” Robert said. “I’d…rather not disturb her, unless you think I should. Not sure it would be helpful. Tell me what’s going on, Dusty.”

“What have the police already told you?” Dusty asked, not wanting to waste time duplicating information.

“That Colleen appears to have been kidnapped,” Robert said, his voice rough with suppressed emotion. “They asked us if we’d heard from her, or anyone else, and what we might know about someone named Matthew Rhymer—an old acquaintance of yours, I gather?”

Dusty nodded sadly. “Yes. Someone I haven’t seen in years.” He knew the truth was vital now. All of it, right up front. It would only go worse for everyone if it seemed later like he’d been evasive now. “We parted company seven years ago on…very bad terms.” He bit down, and outlined his history with Matt as concisely but fully as possible—unsure how much of that Colleen might or might not already have told them at some point—then moved on to the mysterious letters three weeks ago, and the emails, and finally, the events of that afternoon.

Robert listened in such unbroken silence that Dusty finally checked the screen to make sure they were still connected, just as Robert said, “So, you’ve all known about this for weeks? The whole time we were there. And said not a word to us?” The barely bridled rage beneath his too-quiet voice made Dusty want to cringe, hang up and flee.

“Robert…We weren’t trying to hide anything. We just…had no idea… I know how stupid this sounds now. I’ve just spent an hour explaining all this to a detective, and believe me, I feel like an idiot, but until this afternoon, we had no idea…that this meant anything worth mentioning. We just—”

“You both got threatening letters, from stalkers who talked in dire terms about finding someone you once tried to shoot,” Robert cut in fiercely, “and you didn’t think that mattered enough to mention? To us, or anyone? I’ve gotta tell you, Dusty, that Shelly’s feeling pretty angry—lied to—by all of you. First the whole flood thing, and now—”

“I know! I know,” Dusty broke in, “and I don’t blame her—either of you. But, please, give me a minute to explain, okay?”

“Fine. …Explain.” Robert wasn’t the shouting type. His voice was still dreadfully quiet. But the heat beneath his future father-in-law’s ‘restraint’ was all too palpable.

“First,” said Dusty, wishing he’d let Anna join this call after all, longing to just let her take over now and…do what she did so well in ugly situations, “those letters arrived one day before the flood. And then, so much happened, so fast… By the time we saw you…all that had wiped everything else out of our heads. I wasn’t… I wasn’t even…”

“I remember how you were,” said Robert, perhaps a bit less fiercely, “and why. I’m…not forgetting that.”

“So, yes, the stuff from Matt seemed crazy,” Dusty continued. “And the way they were delivered…We all talked about calling the police at first. I was more freaked out than anyone. But the letters made no actual threats—to anyone. Not to any of us, at least, or anyone else identifiable. Someone was just trying to find a guy I hadn’t seen or heard from in seven years—to help some woman who’d been put on trial for who knew what. But the guy who handed me that letter swore he meant me no harm and I’d never see him again. And when Matt suddenly showed up in Anna’s email, it was just to say how much he cared about us, and just wanted us to stay out of it. He didn’t seem to mean us any harm either—the opposite, if anything. Anna didn’t see why the police would care, Robert! Crazy letters from people who all said they meant us no harm? What would they have done about that? Even Thom thought there was no reason to be worried, and he’s actually been kidnapped!”

“Thom?!” Robert barked. “Today?!”

“No!” Dusty said. “No, sorry, I mean years ago. It’s…kind of how he met us all. He was my roommate in the hospital after he’d been thrown out of a van by whoever—”

“Good god!” Robert interrupted. “Do we know anything about you people? You’re like some…one-family crime wave over there! What else have you just never thought to—”

“Hindsight makes everything so much clearer, doesn’t it?” Dusty cut in, suddenly losing patience as well, with—all of this. “Do we know every uncomfortable little detail of your lives for the last ten years? Have you ever stopped to wonder what seemingly irrelevant oddness or misstep from the past two decades you haven’t thought to drag up and explain to us yet, Robert?” Dusty fell abruptly silent, mortified by what he’d just done. “I’m sorry. I should never have…That was completely inappropriate, but…I love her too, Robert. More than life. I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent yet. I have no idea what you and Shelly must be going through—for the second time in three weeks. I get that, and I can’t blame you for being…horrified at all of this. And I can see how it must look from there. But…this is killing me too. I feel…so helpless.” Dusty had to stop again, struggling to hold his own grief at bay. Robert said nothing either. “I never saw this coming,” Dusty pled at last. “I never imagined it. There was one day to figure out those letters, then the flood, then the hospital, and we’ve never heard from Matt or any of these other people again…until today. We weren’t trying to hide anything from you guys—now or last time. We were just trying to keep up with what was happening. And this one… We just thought…it had nothing really to do with us. Whatever it was, we thought it had passed us by…that it was over. Now, I have no idea what’s happening either, and there’s nothing I can do…”

He heard Robert heave a sigh, and waited, having run completely out of words at last.

“I’m sorry too,” said Robert, sounding more exhausted than angry now. “I shouldn’t have…I’ll explain all this to Shelly…when she wakes up. I…have not forgotten what you did. How much you care about Colleen. I didn’t mean to…accuse you—any of you—of anything. We’re just…”

“I know,” said Dusty. “You have nothing to apologize to me for. …Are you coming out…again?”

“Yes, I think so. The officer who called us stressed that there’d be nothing we could do at this point, but…I think Shelly…both of us…I think we need to be there. To speak with someone in person. We need to understand, somehow, better than we can from here.”

“We’re at a hotel tonight,” said Dusty. “It’s not clear whether the house is…completely safe for us.”

“Jesus,” Robert sighed. “So…you said all your phones stopped working at once? After she was taken?”

“Yes. We think it’s something they did. The security cameras in the garage where I found her car stopped working too—right when she was being taken. There’s more we should discuss, but it might be easier to do in person. When do you think you’ll be getting here?”

“I’m not sure yet. Tomorrow sometime. We’ll call when we know. In the meantime—”

Dusty’s phone began to vibrate as the screen lit up with another incoming call; a number he didn’t recognize, but from the local area code.

“Hey, Robert, I’m getting another call from someone. I better take it. It could be… I’ll call you right back.”

“Please do! Goodbye.” He hung up as Dusty reached to touch the screen.

“Hello?” Dusty said, fearing—and hoping—that he was about to speak with ‘them.’

“Mr. Clarke?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Schaffer. We’ve had a development. I need your help.”

“Anything. What’s happened?”

“Those files you gave us this afternoon—from Rhymer. Can you resend them, please?”

“Right now?”

“Yes. Now, please,” he said impatiently.

“Okay…” Mystified, Dusty put the phone on Speaker and went to open his email. “What’s going on?”

“Have you got them yet?” asked Schaffer.

“New phone; my email’s taking a minute to load. …Have you heard from them?”

There was a pause before Schaffer replied. “In a manner of speaking, I think we have. Got those files yet?”

“Email’s opening now,” said Dusty, wondering why the fuck Schaffer wouldn’t just tell him what was happening. “I’m scrolling back. Just a minute. No, wait; I’ll just search Matt’s…huh. Okay, I’m scrolling still…” Dusty reached the relevant dates, and rolled through them, without seeing Matt’s emails. Any of them. “Hey, Detective…” he said quietly, “I’m…not finding them. Maybe my new phone hasn’t—”

“Well, shit!” Schaffer snapped.

“My phone may not have finished updating from the cloud,” said Dusty.

“I doubt that’s the problem,” Schaffer said wearily. “Sometime in the past half hour, all those files have disappeared from our server—here at the station. An isolated, internal server. And apparently from the city’s email servers too. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“Well…is that even possible?”

“It shouldn’t be.”

“Then…what’s…”

“I don’t know what you folks have stumbled into,” Schaffer said, “but you’ve got our attention now. All the way up the line. We will get back to you, but for now, I’d avoid going anywhere or doing anything routine for a while. Your call, of course. Just a suggestion. But until we know something more, stay together and be careful.”

“Understood,” said Dusty. But he didn’t understand. Anything at all, and before he could think of what more to ask, Schaffer had hung up.