Free The Short Drop by Matthew FitzSimmons Page B

thought never entered his mind. He needed to be near the work when inspiration struck. Besides, there was nothing waiting at home apart from a restless bed. Sleep was out of the question. Bear lurked behind his eyelids, patient and hopeful. Her smile jolted him awake and hurried him back to his keyboard.
    The only meaningful breaks he took were his nightly video calls to Ellie. Once she was tucked in, Gibson would read to her until she got sleepy. They were halfway through Charlotte’s Web , and Ellie was anxious about Wilbur. She loved stories with the same intensity as Suzanne. It was an obvious connection, but somehow he’d never made it before now. That he read to both of them. Well, he could forgive himself for not thinking like that. It was safer that way. But now he couldn’t not see it, no matter how hard he worked to keep the two girls separate in his mind.
    He had worked long into the night that first Sunday. Mike Rilling offered his assistance and set up a workstation for him, but Gibson politely and firmly threw him out of the conference room. He needed to be alone to think. Charles and Hendricks had been none too pleased to be shut out, but Abe got it and laid down the law.
    Around three a.m. that first night, he’d hit a snag and taken a break, making a looping circuit around the empty corridors of ACG. He thought more clearly when he walked, and after a few laps, an answer began to present itself. He was on the way back to the conference room when he’d noticed a light on under an office door that had been dark the last time around. He’d stopped to listen at the door when it opened sharply. He stood eye to eye with Jenn Charles, who in her heels might have an inch on him. She’d taken off her suit jacket, but not her gun—the new office casual.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Sorry,” he said, taking a step backward. “Didn’t think anyone was here. Thought you were a burglar.”
    “Do you need something?”
    “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