He was silent, but his eyes never left Bismarck.

“I think my dog’s getting tired of waiting,” Teo said. “He’s a little short on patience.”

“I had a key,” Jonah said. “Kim sent it to me. But it didn’t work.”

My conversations with Wendy had been so short that I’d never mentioned changing all the locks. Nor had it been important enough to tell her, not with everything else going on.

I summed up. “So you were supposed to go inside, open the safe and take something out? Why? What?”

“That’s Kim’s business.”

“No, it’s mine, unless you’d prefer the cops.”

He backed up, but a snarling Bismarck followed. I could almost read the dog’s thoughts—and I was sure he had them. Biz was like a little kid begging for an ice cream cone.

Jonah came to a halt, holding up his hands, although that would never have stopped Bismarck. “Nothing was against the law. She asked me to do this. It’s her house! She told me to send her everything inside except the money. She told me there was cash in the safe, and I could have it all as a thank you, as long as I sent her the other stuff. When she got it, she was going to send me a little more.”

Teo mimicked Jonah’s voice exactly, as if he was trying it on for size. “Nothing was against the law. She asked me to do this.”

As always, I was impressed at his abilities. “Kim sounds remarkably generous. All that for using a house key, opening a safe you already know the combination to and mailing her whatever you found, minus the cash. How did she know you wouldn’t just keep everything else?”

“Kim knows I wouldn’t do that to her.”

For the first time I heard warmth in Jonah’s voice. He’d nearly stumbled over “her.”

“You like her, don’t you?” I didn’t expect an answer. “Maybe more than like.”

“Where were you going to send everything?” Teo asked.

“Someplace north of here.”

I was pretty sure I knew even more. “Cross City?”

He looked surprised. “So?”

Risk-Free Remailer seemed to be doing a booming business. I plowed on. “Jonah, that’s your name, right? Jonah Greer? Since you never got inside, you couldn’t send anything to Kim in...Cross City. What does she say about that? Is she still waiting?”

While I didn’t think Jonah was the brightest star in the Milky Way, he had proved he wasn’t stupid. He could see that Teo and Bismarck weren’t kidding.

“I don’t know,” he said. And he looked like he meant it.

“How come? You haven’t told her?”

“No.”

“Her phone’s not working, right?”

He shrugged, which meant yes.

“Hasn’t she tried to call you?”

“She might have.”

“What does that mean?” Teo asked.

“I got a couple of calls from a blocked number. Maybe it’s her. I don’t know.”

“But you didn’t answer?”

He almost looked sheepish, and I understood why. “You don’t want to tell her you failed, do you? Nobody likes failing somebody who means something to them. Plus Kim has a temper. She wouldn’t be happy. So you were hoping you could find a way to be successful after all.”