“Those people on the Stalwart. Aren’t there seventy of them? They’re all missing. The whole crew. And here I’m worried about my cousin as if he’s the only one.”

He smiled, gently. “How can caring be selfish?”

She started to answer. Hesitated, as if reconsidering. Then nodded.

“I did an online search after we spoke on the phone,” she said. “You saved that little boy last summer...went into that park after him alone. I read an article about it.”

His head dipped and rose. “I was just doing my job. That’s all.”

Clara smiled a little.

“I knew you’d say that. You said the same thing to the reporters,” she replied. Then paused a beat. “Agent, you thanked me a minute ago. But I want to thank you for listening to me. For coming out here. It means a lot.”

Musil stood there in silence. He didn’t know what to say. Her words had made him feel awkward.

“I’ll be in touch,” he replied finally.

As he drove away from the house a few minutes later, he glanced in the rearview mirror to see Clara still out front.

It occurred to him that she looked very sad.

The Terminal

Every so often, Ki Marton found himself thinking back to a pandemic lockdown fad called the Walk-In Naked Challenge. The name said it all. Someone would walk in on his or her partner stark naked while said partner was working from home, record the reaction and slap it up on social media. Maybe the best video won a prize. Probably not. He didn’t recall. Months of being stuck between four walls had left everybody bored and depressed and primed for cheap thrills. Strange days, indeed, to quote Jim Morrison.

Be that as it may, Ki was sure the challenge wouldn’t have turned out well for him. He’d been too compassionate to victimize countless unwary, languishing strangers with a glimpse of his bare, scrawny, plucked-chicken physique. Things had been hard enough for everybody. Why up their misery? Besides, Mark had been a very reserved person. He wouldn’t have appreciated the stunt one bit. Ditto for Ki’s old bosses at the FBI.