He stifled another burp. Last night, to make sure Derrick never found the two earlier drafts of the note he’d worked on, he’d carried them both to bed.

And then in the darkness Bob had slowly torn off bits of paper, put them into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

BRIDGET

Not Completely Following

Sitting at the dining room table, Bridget rubbed her eyes and read Bob’s email for the millionth time. She took another sip of coffee. Maybe the reason she couldn’t follow it was because she was too tired. It felt like she’d been awake all night, coming to terms with the reality of what her relationship with Ajay was. Practical. Transactional. She had read him books. In return, he’d provided her with lunch and a pair of socks. Anything more than that had been just in her pathetic imagination.

When she’d finally dragged herself out of her twisted sheets, Bob’s message was waiting in her email inbox. It was a relief to think of something else. The first sentence made sense. Bob was working on Eyes of the Forest again. That was good. She lifted another spoonful of Wheaties to her mouth. And he wanted her to work for him full-time over the summer. That was great. The money could go into her college fund.

At least it would be great if Bob meant it. If he was mentally competent when he’d written it. Because before the part about her working for him came the sentence about how she should talk to her parents about it.

Bob knew her mom was dead. They had talked about it a few times. Once he had said something about understanding how big a hole someone could leave in your life. How could he have forgotten something so major?

Not to mention that her mom’s name had been Vivian, not Anna. Just like her dad was named Jim, not Graham.

Setting that strangeness aside for a moment, Bridget moved on to the rest of the note. Bob hadn’t said anything to her before about adding a new character. The names Jade Tarnno and Ken Pipem meant nothing to her. But then the world of Swords and Shadows was far more real to Bob than this one. What was an oblique mention from her point of view might have amounted to whole paragraphs or even chapters in his, stories that were only in his head and not yet on paper.

As she took her last bite of cereal, Bridget opened up her database and did a quick search. First for Jade Tarnno. Then just for Jade. She found some mentions of the color jade, but not the person.