Bug spray.
Citronella candles.
Extra folding chairs.
Outdoor extension cords.
I thought about the Garden Center, the surge of customers who come in every spring buying the same things they swore they’d remember.
Preparedness wasn’t dramatic. It was steady.
Mo shifted and thumped his tail once against the floor, as if in agreement.
My phone rang just as I was finishing a section on storing citronella candles properly.
Sherman.
I answered and leaned back in my chair. “Tell me.”
“I did a little more digging,” he said without preamble. “And I think you’ll want to hear this.”
“Go on.”
Mo lifted his head at the eagerness in my tone.
“I mapped the locations of the banks that were hit,” Sherman continued. “Not just the ones you mentioned, but every similar safety deposit box robbery in the last three months.”
That got my full attention.
“And?” I asked.
“They fall within a specific radius,” he said. “A tight one.”
“How tight?”
“Roughly fifty miles. Give or take.”
I reached for a notepad and began sketching as he spoke.
“They aren’t spreading outward,” he added. “They aren’t escalating into neighboring counties. They’re contained.”
“Contained how?” I asked.
“As if someone is operating from a fixed center point.”
I stopped writing.
“Where’s the center?”
There was the briefest pause.
“Willow Lake,” he said.
The word seemed to settle in the room.
“That can’t be a coincidence,” I murmured.
“I don’t believe in that many coincidences,” Sherman replied. “Especially not when the pattern is this clean.”
