Chapter 8: The First Thing He Did Not Check

Wylie's POV

I got back to Fairmont at noon on Saturday and sat in my car outside Jo's building for twenty minutes.

Her door had a stranger's name on a strip of tape.

The neighbor in the bathrobe told me through her screen that the apartment had been empty since Tuesday.

"Told her you looked the type," the woman said.

I didn't ask what type.

Back in the car, my training slides sat in a folder on the passenger seat.

One of them had Jo's initials in the corner.

Slide eleven. Case study: The Overconfident Learner.

I had made it six months ago.

I had never thought about how it would look with her face next to it.

At home I stood in the kitchen with a glass of water and did not drink it.

At two o'clock Bailey let herself in with the spare key and a container of soup.

"You look terrible," she said, setting it on the counter. "Sit. I made your mother's chicken one. Did you see her?"

"I saw her."

"And?"

"She says I don't get credit for being right."

Bailey stopped with a spoon halfway out of the drawer.

"She's being dramatic. That's the shock talking. She'll come around."

"She wasn't dramatic," I said. "She said it once, so there would be no confusion."

"Then she learned it," Bailey said warmly. "That's all you wanted."

She was right.

I had wanted her to learn it.

I looked at the soup and felt nothing about it, which was unusual.

Her phone buzzed on the counter.

She glanced at it, smiled, and held it up for me to see.

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