“What?”
“In my cases, two odd events that happen in proximity to each other are always related.Alwaysand without fail.”
“Yes, but your cases are fictional, and there are no coincidences in fiction. This is the real world.”
Duke put his hand to his chin as he often did when thinking deeply about a case.
“Duke?”
“Tell me what your grandfather said when he left. Every single word.”
“Actually…he didn’t say anything to me directly. He left a goodbye note.”
“Do you have that note?”
Good question. Recycling came every two weeks in Fort Meriwether. I went to the blue wastepaper basket and dug through the invoices and magazines and scrap paper.
I found it near the bottom, the note written on an index card.
“Here it is,” I said, and read the note aloud to Duke.
Dear Raindrop,
I’m afraid I need to leave on a top secret mission.
I’ll be incommunicado, but I’ll think of you every second of every minute and I’ll be watching the clock until I can come home again.
Love Always,
Pops
“His handwriting?” Duke asked.
“Definitely. And only he calls me Raindrop.”
Duke nodded, and I knew he was committing all this information to his prodigious memory.
“Where did you find the note?”
“He left it propped up on the reading table against the lamp,” I said, pointing to the brass reading lamp. “That’s always where he leaves notes for me to find.”
“Was anything out of place? Any signs of a struggle?”
My stomach dropped at this line of questioning. Did Duke think my grandfather had been kidnapped?
“Nothing like that. Everything was normal. And he does go on missions sometimes. He gets up at five in the morning most days, so he’s often gone before I get up, and he leaves me notes like this. Should I be scared, Duke? Because I am.”
“Not yet,” he said, which didn’t comfort me as much as I would’ve liked. “Has he ever been gone this long before?”
“Not quite this long. It’s been”—I counted in my head—“eight days. Which I guess isn’t a long time. Is it? Is eight days a long time to be gone when you’re eighty years old?”
I was trying to talk myself out of terror, but it wasn’t working.
“You said you gave up looking for the secret message in the book?”
“I did. Years ago.”
Duke mulled this over a moment.
