“I’m glad,” I said honestly.
“Me too.”
There was a quiet moment on the line, the comfortable kind that only comes after something important has been settled.
“Since things are back to normal,” I said, “how would you and Beau feel about coming over tonight?”
“For wine or interrogation?” she asked, teasingly.
“Both,” I said. “We can go over everything we know so far about the robberies. Just like old times.”
“It hasn’t even been that long.”
“Feels like it has.”
“We’ll be there,” Amy confirmed.
After we hung up, I closed the blog post and stared at the screen for a moment.
Someone who believed in protecting what mattered.
The idea was still there, hovering just out of reach. And I had every intention of grabbing hold of it.
“So,”Amy said, swirling the wine in her glass, “You think it’s a prepper.”
Beau sat squashed beside her in the oversized chair, one arm stretched along the back behind her shoulders. They weren’t making a show of it, but there was an ease between them that hadn’t been there for a couple of weeks They looked happier now than ever before.
“Not necessarily a die-hard prepper,” I said. “Not someone stockpiling canned goods in a bunker. More along the lines of someone who believes in backups. Redundancy.”
“Like Vera,” Beau said.
“How many banks does she have boxes at?” Amy asked, rubbing Mo’s back with her foot, where he lay sprawled at her feet.
Beau tilted his head in thought. “Four or five, I’m not quite sure.”
“How long has she been recording in the notebooks?” Ian asked.
Beau shrugged.
Amy looked at me. “I don’t know. Do you?”
“I haven’t a clue, but it must be a long time if she has that many notebooks.”
“She doesn’t store all her notebooks in safety deposit boxes only the ones that she feels are important,” Beau clarified.
“Could something in her notebooks be important to someone?” Amy asked. “Something that someone doesn’t want known?”
“That would have to be a big something,” Ian said, “for someone to rob not one but three banks to find it.”
“Vera is cautious, a protector of her notebooks, not a prepper in any sense of the word,” Beau said. “We should consider who in Willow Lake plans ahead, prepares.”
“That depends on how deep you’re willing to define prepared,” I said. “Lots of people want emergency kits. Storm supplies. Backup generators. That’s normal preparedness and in most cases last-minute preparedness.”
“They’re not the type we’re looking for?” Ian asked.
I shook my head. “It’s more like someone who wants to keep all their ducks neatly lined up in a row.”
“Why don’t we start with people in town who have asked you about prepping?” Amy suggested.
