FOX 24 US
It’s an international phone number I don’t recognize. A +61 in front of it. The country code is familiar to me. I had a client who had a vacation home in Kiama, a beachside town just outside of Sydney. She’d had a +61 code.
Sydney. Australia.
I click on the text.
Check your pocket.
My breath lands in my throat and I quickly reply to the text.
Who is this?
But I get an automated reply, coming up fast and final: The person you’re trying to reach is not accepting messages.
Check your pocket. I head inside, walking at a fast clip straight to my bedroom, and over to the closet. I pull out the dress I was wearing yesterday, reaching into the pockets. There’s nothing inside either of them. What else had I been wearing? I walk into my office to find my leather motorcycle jacket draped over the small bench by my desk.
I reach into the first pocket, nothing there. And I start to feel relief. This is probably a crank, or a scam. Just a wrong number.
Then I reach into the other pocket and feel something hard and small.
A flash drive.
My heartbeat quickens, my skin heating up. My first question to myself isn’t: What is this?
My first question to myself also contains the start of an answer:
Why did Owen need me to have this?
The doorbell rings, startling me. I walk back out onto the balcony and look down over the railing’s edge, down to the sidewalk below. A repairman stands at my front door, wearing a SoCalGas uniform. He is burly and large, his thick muscles pushing out over the short shirtsleeves.
I call down to him. “Can I help you?”
He squints up at me, blocks his eyes from the sun.
“Sorry to trouble you, miss. We have reports of a gas leak from your neighbors. The Waldmans?”
