Bridget kept going deeper and deeper down Reddit holes. As she traced discussion threads that started at the level of trivia and then descended into minutiae, she was reminded why she normally avoided it. She was ready to stop when she stumbled over an obscure thread about something called the Haldon Cam. An icy finger traced her spine. Some people claimed that via the cam they had watched Bob type chapters.

It couldn’t be real, could it? It didn’t sound like many other people believed it. She kept scrolling through the replies. Toward the bottom of the thread, she saw something that froze her blood. A screenshot.

She squinted at the tiny image. Blurry, shot from overhead, it showed an older man in a half squat, his thumbs tucked in his armpits. His head was tilted down, so most of his face wasn’t visible, just his thinning shaggy hair and a scruffy beard.

She enlarged the image. It did sort of look like him, if he’d stopped shaving and getting his hair cut. But the real Bob was rounder. And why would he ever squat like that? He certainly wasn’t writing.

And if Bridget only half-believed it was Bob, the police never would. She went back to Bob’s original email and read it again. And again. And again.

Hello Bridget—

You’ll be glad to know I’ve turned my attention back to the manuscript and am making good progress. Have you had a chance to ask your parents about working for me full-time over the summer? Please tell Anna and Graham how much I’ll need your help if I’m to finish.

As we discussed earlier, I’m adding a new character. So please look for all instances of:

“Jade Tarnno.”

And then flag each spot with:

“Add Ken Pipem.”

Suddenly it clicked.

Her parents weren’t named Anna and Graham, but Bob hadn’t made a mistake. He’d made a clue.

Anna and Graham. Anna Graham. Anagram.

Bob had been trying to tell her his email was really an anagram.

That still didn’t solve the puzzle. His email had almost two hundred words. There must be thousands of potential combinations of words from those original dozens. It was like handing someone a tureen of alphabet soup and telling them Romeo and Juliet was in there if they just put all the letters in the right order.

On her next read through, Bridget zeroed in on the colons and the quotes. Bob never used colons like that. It seemed clunky. And the quotes were extraneous. Even though she hadn’t previously articulated it to herself, the odd punctuation was part of the reason something had felt wrong. Could Jade Tarnno and add Ken Pipem be anagrams?

She started to write down the letters, then thought of an easier way. From the hall closet, she retrieved the worn Scrabble box.