The sheep announced their arrival and she went to feed them. After that she came back, and checked all the connections on her computer towers. Everything was fine, as it always was, but you had to maintain these things. One connection slides just out of place, one fuse goes, and that would be a fifth of her income gone. Some guy in Iowa mining his Bitcoin would have off the drill—metaphorical drill, anyhow.

She sat down at her desk, checked her email. There were more sponsorship offers: Would The Red Door be interested in running banner ads for a festival in Guernsey? Would it like pop-ups for a Bingo app? An energy drink, titled simply ENERGY JUICE, wanted to become the official drink of The Red Door.

She moved all the emails to the trash folder. Not interested.

The site had received an insane amount of attention since the whole McConnell thing. For a news site, all news was good news, even if that did mean a possible—no, probable—killer was on the loose. Did she feel bad for her part in getting that dick out? Sure, of course, absolutely. But she also couldn’t help but reap the benefits of what may have occurred now, could she?

She flicked her mouse, clicking on the site stats. Still going up and up. Every outlet on this big stupid island was reporting about the Standedge Five now, but she was still the original, the OG. You couldn’t pay for that kind of luck.

Her phone started to ring, the tone layering over “Get Off of My Cloud” in a not-displeasing way. It could make for a nice remix even. She looked around herself. She couldn’t see it. She listened, trying to pinpoint it.

It was somewhere in the pile of junk under the record player. She cursed—of course. She bent down and started rummaging through the pile of broken hardware. Until she finally found her phone lighting up with a call. It was Robin.

She picked it up. She hadn’t talked to Robin since that day on the bench. In all reality, she didn’t think she would ever hear from him again. She went to press the green button.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

She looked around. There was someone standing in the doorway. She could only see the figure through the filing shelf. She put the phone in her pocket and walked out from behind the shelf to see a girl, a familiar girl with something shiny in her hand.

“Well, hello there.” The ringing stopped in her pocket. She put up her hands. “Did you knock? I’m pretty sure my front door was locked. Usually that’s a pretty clear indication that...”