“No.” Brian jerked his hand away from Cait and pushed the metal bistro chair back, startling Sierra who had camped herself next to him. “After high school, I lost touch with her. She tried to get rid of me by telling me to go to firefighting school.”
“Get rid of you? Why would she do that?” Cait was getting more and more puzzled with each turn of the conversation. If Brian had truly lost touch with Mrs. Thornton, then how would he know how old the dogs were? How would he know about Glen’s diagnosis?
And most of all, why was he putting flowers at the site of her death?
“Look, can we not talk about her?” Brian placed his laptop on the table and opened it.
“That’s fine, but since you know whose dogs these are, you’d better find a way to contact the owner. If Glen has Asperger’s then he’ll need these two dogs back. Are they therapy dogs?”
“No, they’re just pets.” He stared at the laptop and tapped on the keys, not glancing at her.
Since he was so uncommunicative, Cait picked up the dogs’ leashes and said, “I’m not hungry. I think I’ll take a walk in the town square.”
“Suit yourself,” Brian grumbled, not meeting her eye.
As Cait walked out of the diner, past the large wooden bear statue standing out front, her ears buzzed and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled as a distinct chill made her shudder.
There was something fishy between him and Mrs. Thornton, and she shuddered to think what it might be.
* * *
Brian’s gazefollowed Cait as she made her way across the street to the small town square. She should keep her nose out of his business and stop asking questions.
Of course, it was the waitress’s fault for recognizing him. Yes, he’d gotten Alana her favorite flowers, but there was no reason for Cait to be jealous about it. He had to visit the scene to get closure. To see it for himself and move on to his next step.
Finding Glen and claiming him as his son.
The senator had played daddy long enough, and from what Alana had told him, he and Glen didn’t see eye to eye. No surprise there. Glen was a sensitive child whose inner life was richer than what was outside.
He was a dedicated gamer and preferred playing the role of thief, where stealth and cunning were more important than sheer strength and power.
The last time they chatted, Alana had mentioned something about the senator wanting to send Glen to a military school for troubled teens, but she hadn’t mentioned any names.
Brian searched online, looking for images of Glen and Alana. There were pictures of them walking down the sidewalk in Washington, DC, and other official photos of the family standing around at campaign events.
Glen was paraded around whenever the senator spoke on women’s issues: daycare tax credits, school choice, and equal pay. The fact that Mrs. Thornton was a working mom and a high school teacher gave voters a warm and comfy all-American family feel and raised their trust in the senator.
It must have worked, because even though Alana died shortly before the election, the voters re-elected Senator Thornton for another term. The pictures at the funeral showing him as a grieving widower and devoted father kept his opponent from attacking him in the final days of his campaign.
Brian scrolled through dozens of pictures taken from the fall campaign until he found one of Glen and Alana out walking the dogs. There they were, Melia and Sierra, wearing their light blue kerchiefs. He stared at the background, hoping to get a hint of where they were, but it was an ordinary park with green grass and shrubs in the distance.
The biggest problem was, he had no way of contacting Glen, and if he called the senator, one of his aides would simply take the dogs and that would be that.
Brian scratched his head and tapped his foot, his knee jittering a mile a minute. What was he to do? How could he let Glen know about the dogs?
After the accident, the kid had disappeared online. His email bounced and his social media accounts vanished.
Brian had no choice but to broadcast a message on Twitter. He created a fake account using his video game username, one Glen would know—Wonderman.
He agonized over the tweet, and finally settled for,#SenatorThornton Let the Thief find Sierra in the realm of Melia.
Hopefully, Glen the Thief would find a way into the Realm of Rogues game site, where he and Wonderman the Archer had spent many hours together chatting and fighting like brothers in arms.
