“No. Just walking.” He spun a finger in a circle. “Helps me think.”

Jenn nodded noncommittally.

Gibson hesitated and then asked, “Actually, can I ask you a question? On your board . . . why is there a question mark between WR8TH and Tom B.?”

“A theory circulated that Tom B. and WR8TH were one and the same.”

“If he was local, then why did she go to Pennsylvania to meet him?”

“We don’t know for a fact that she met him in Pennsylvania. That’s just another assumption. Maybe he took her in Pamsrest and Pennsylvania was just on his way home.”

“What do you think?”

“It’s plausible. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to ask him to his face.”

“What are you still doing here anyway? It’s late.”

“Working.”

“At three in the morning? I don’t need a babysitter.”

“I have paperwork to catch up on.”

“All right,” he said, conceding defeat. “Well, you know where to find me.”

“Yes. I do.”

She stepped back, moving to close the office door.

“Where did you serve?” he asked.

She stopped, her eyes narrowed. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

She shut the door on him, and Gibson stood there staring at it, chuckling to himself in disbelief. Okay, well, that was . . . Actually, he didn’t know what to call that. There was a hard edge to Jenn Charles that he didn’t understand. Probably for the best if this job only took a few days. He went back to work.

On Monday morning, when the staff began to arrive, Gibson was standing in the conference room, staring at the picture of Suzanne pinned to the board. Abe had ordered a cot to be set up in the conference room. Gibson used it to stack printouts. Someone had been dispatched to buy him a change of clothes, but the bag sat untouched alongside the cot. Food was delivered, and Gibson wolfed it down while he worked. He was on the hunt again, and every day brought him closer.

At first, Gibson became an object of much speculation among the staff. Evidently, no one outside of Abe’s inner circle knew why he was there, and that piqued their interest. But by Tuesday afternoon, curiosities had waned—watching someone work at a computer ranked top five among dullest activities in the world. Periodically, Mike Rilling would stick his head in the door to ask if he needed anything. And whenever Hendricks came in to get a file, he would glower at Gibson. Jenn Charles became his most regular visitor, passing by once an hour like a guard walking a post.