I called Kent but got his voicemail. Did anyone use voicemail anymore? I hung up, paced the floor awhile, closed the blinds, and peered out between them. When I got his recorded message the second time, I took a chance. “Kent, it’s me. I know it’s after hours, but if you have a second, I could use your opinion on something.”
But my voice must have given me away because the answer came in a text—Sending cavalry—and then with a buzz from the front door. I buzzed him in and waited for the knock.
“Kent, you didn’t have to—” The sheriff filled up the doorway.
I was sick to see him. To see him so often. To see him so near, and here, here in the place that belonged only to me and Joshua. He was supposed to be on the other side of a desk, and now he stood next to me, looking down at the unfolded paper resting on the table where I did my work, where I ate my food, where my son did his homework. Eight at night, and I could smell his shaving cream. I went to the window and opened it to let a little air in. He watched.
The panicked call now seemed like a mistake. I wasn’t taking my own advice. I was still standing here, still planted in this spot when I should have the moving boxes out.
The sheriff took his time with the letter. All I wanted to do was crumple the thing and fling it away.
“What does it mean to you, Anna?”
My disgust rose. Why did he take this very minute to call me by that name? Just now, when I was feeling closed in? I’d given the sheriff credit for being able to read people, but now I questioned that skill.
“I don’t know.”
He was watching me closely. Of course he was. He was always watching, always studying everyone else for detail, for weakness. He was just like the rest of them, always wanting to know, to know, to know. They were like children, with their unending questions, like cats, with their maneuvers to be under my feet, to trip me up.
“Let me tell you why I think that’s bullshit.”
I whipped to face him. “Excuse me?”
“I said, I think it’s bull that this letter doesn’t mean anything to you.” Keller pulled out the chair Joshua had been spinning in not so long ago and sat on its edge with his elbows on his knees. He gestured for me to join him.
Invited to sit in my own home. I edged around the table and took my customary chair. The laptop had been put away; the rest of my in-box had been sifted, the trash emptied, studied, replaced. Between us now, at last, was the table. Let him try to take charge when he’s sitting on the receiving end of my desk. I clasped my hands and leaned over the table.
He smiled. “Good. Here’s why I think this means something to you that it doesn’t to me. It’s simple really.” He held the paper up with both hands, pinching the edges of the top corners so it hung over his shoulder. “See that?”
I’d seen it. I’d seen enough.
“Look at it. What does it say? Just—what does it actually say?”
I glared at him, then at the note. Large black letters printed wide across the page, as large as the paper allowed. “It says,” I said, my voice sounding choked to my own ears. “It says ‘I know about you.’”
“No, did you hear yourself? What it says is: I know about you,” he said. “No emphasis, no underlines. Just straight. Four words, that’s it.” His voice was low and calming. I thought of the people who were supposed to be able to make animals easy with the tone of their voices. I didn’t want to be soothed. I’d never told him how much I could read into four little words. He had no idea. Skin the fucking bastard. Four words was all you needed. “It hardly means a thing,” he said, “without having you here to read it to me.”
He put the note on the table, printed side down and far from me. An offering. Maybe he could read people a little bit.
“Here’s what I think,” he said. “That’s a sentence that could frighten just about anybody. Everybody has a little something they don’t want out.” I raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. “Sure. Sure I do. Everyone has something they like to think is hidden. You could know someone really well, for years even, and still not know everything about them.” He sat back, seemed to go somewhere else for a second. “And if everyone’s got a secret, then what’s the most general stab-in-the-dark threat I can make? To say ‘I know you,’ when you have no idea who I am at all? That’s something none of us wants to get in the mail. Most people don’t even know themselves. They don’t like the idea that someone else does.”
The thing hadn’t come in the mail, though. It had sneaked into the building and then into our apartment, in disguise. I hadn’t mentioned the Sweetheart Lake magazine.
“Of course this sort of threat would be more keenly felt by someone who was . . .”
“Hiding something?” I said.
“I was going to say someone who was private,” he said. “But yes, for someone who had a real secret, I’m sure a message like this would be a big deal, like the world was closing in. In fact, it might seem like the anvil she’s been waiting to fall out of the sky and onto her head.”
“Is that some sort of children’s story reference? A cartoon? What?”
“I assure you I’m taking this matter seriously,” he said.
“You seem to think I’m either overreacting or predicting doom and overreacting. Is this how you investigate every crime around here—”
“Where’s the crime? There’s no crime I can see,” he said. “Have you considered that this is some sort of joke? You know better than I do what these things look like.”
“I’m suddenly feeling very sorry for Bo Ransey when he had to call you for help.”
That stopped him. We both rose from our seats.
“Ms. Winger, are you sure these are the words you want to spend your breath on?” The volume was up. We were back to formality. It was Ms. Winger again, the desk between us in every way.
“You know, when you’re right, you are on the mark, Sheriff.” I met his volume. “These are not the words I want to spend my breath on. The words I want to say are—”
Down the hall, Joshua’s door flew open. “Mom?” He rushed down the hall, stopped. His eyes shifted from me to the sheriff and back. “What’s going on?”
I felt a crushing weight of weariness fall onto my shoulders.
If someone knew? It was so unlikely, and yet, why not? I’d been so careful, but it was never careful enough. In the age of two-second internet searches, why couldn’t someone track me down to the spot where I stood? A new name, thanks to Kent. No property, no utility bills, no credit cards. Don’t get arrested, don’t be a hero, don’t get quoted on the news. It was easy to stay invisible: don’t get a life.