“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Hazard said into the pillow. Then he threw the pillow aside, sat up, and looked around the room. “Fuck.”
He got out of bed. He went to the dresser. When he pulled out the bottom drawer, he said, “Fuck,” again.
All of his clothes were gone. Well, all the pants anyway. His jeans, his khakis, his dress pants. Gone. In their place, Somers had left a single pair of tan chinos.
Hazard held them up. The fabric was some sort of blended material, soft and slightly stretchy. Hopping on one foot, he pulled one leg on. Then the other leg. He dragged them up. They fit. Hazard lifted the flannel shirt to inspect how the pants looked on him. Decent. Actually, better than decent. And they felt good too.
He grabbed socks and sneakers, and as he dressed, he tried to figure out what to do. Staying at the house wasn’t an option; Somers would resort to the nuclear option and have some sort of birthday-themed home invasion. And Hazard refused to give his fiancé the satisfaction of playing this ridiculous—albeit, somewhat interesting—game. And he would not have his birthday breakfast at Big Biscuit wearing that godawful button while strangers sang to him.
So, Hazard decided, he would have to cheat.
He opened his phone, opened the Find My Friends app, and clicked Somers’s name. The map showed a red pin, and the red pin was at their house. Hazard grinned. He had expected something like this: an elaborate web of clues, leading Hazard out into the city so that Somers could set up the brunch in the comfort of their home. Somers had probably left the back door unlocked, driven around the block, and sneaked back into the house. Now Hazard just had to find him.
Heeling off the sneakers, Hazard padded through the house, doing his best to avoid the floorboards that creaked. He opened door after door, checking rooms in sudden, silent bursts, hoping to catch Somers unaware. But room after room was empty.
After searching the first floor, Hazard crept back upstairs. Their bedroom. The hall bathroom. The office. Outside Evie’s door, he paused, listened, and heard nothing. He threw open the door and charged in. No Somers, just the usual disarray of dolls and dress-up clothes and toys.
Except today, three things were different: a piece of paper, with a vertical arrow drawn on it, was taped to the front of Evie’s dresser; when Hazard followed the arrow up to the top of the dresser, he saw a phone that he recognized as Somers’s; and next to the phone was a camera.
Hazard’s phone began to ring.
“A burner phone and call forwarding” he snapped when he answered the call. “Very clever. How long have you been planning this?”
“A year. Exactly. Since your last birthday didn’t really go the way I’d hoped.”
“God damn it, John.”
“I’m very disappointed in you.”
“Where are you?”
“You tried to cheat.”
“The movie theater. The parking garage. I already figured out your shitty poem.”
Somers tsked. “I told you to send me a picture when you got there.”
“Just give me the next clue.”
“Ree, sweetheart, I’m realizing that you might not want to play this game.”
“Big fucking surprise.”
“I’m realizing that you might need to be motivated.”
“No, what I need is for my boyfriend to let me have one day of the year when I can—”
“So, here’s a little motivation: I’m going to start setting a timer for each little mystery. And for each mystery you don’t solve before the time runs out, I’m going to eat one of these mini quiches. And when I run out of mini quiches, I’m going to start in on these things called micro fudge cakes, which I haven’t tried before but look really, really good.”
“On your fucking life, John. Those are my birthday quiches. Those are my fudge bites.”
“You’ve got ten minutes, Ree. And I didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”
“You are a monster,” Hazard shouted into the phone as he ran to the garage.
The call disconnected, but he was pretty sure Somers was laughing again.
III
APRIL 24
WEDNESDAY
8:01 AM
WAHREDUA WAS A SMALL TOWN, and Hazard made it to the movie theater’s parking garage in eight minutes. He hadn’t checked the time until he’d been in the Odyssey, speeding across town, and he didn’t know exactly when Somers had started the countdown. The minivan rocked over speedbumps as he went up two levels, and he parked in the same stall they had used for the impromptu make-out session. The garage was completely empty, thank God, and he got out of the minivan and snapped a picture on his phone, which he then sent to Somers.
Good job, was the reply.
Fuck you.
You’re a great detective. I knew I chose the right person when I hired you.
You are going to regret this. You are going to regret this very much.
A series of laugh-crying emojis came through.
Hazard sent back several knives. Fire. And, for good measure, a skull.
The thief’s first demand was that I send him a picture of sunset and sunrise, but he wants them both in the same picture. He gave me another deadline; fifteen minutes.
Hazard didn’t bother responding. The spring morning was chilly, and he hugged himself as he bounced in place, thinking. Sunrise and sunset in the same photograph? Maybe at certain latitudes. Certain times of year. The Arctic Circle, maybe? At the summer solstice? Fifteen minutes wasn’t going to be enough time. The next best option would be to digitally manipulate an image so that it showed sunset and sunrise at the same time. Hazard wasn’t exactly a tech wizard, but he thought he could copy and paste two images onto the same document. And Somers hadn’t specified anything about the quality of the image. But with the drive back to the house—or to his office—he’d lose most of the fifteen minutes just driving. He didn’t think the remaining time would be enough for him to start up the computer, find
