Page 17 of The Shadows We Keep

Yanking it free, I shove the triple prongs into the wall and shift the settings to light and hot. Flipping the power to on, I pin down the card with one hand and focus the warm air from the hair dryer onto the card. Slowly but surely, the logo displays again, but it’s not just the logo that reveals itself. It’s a boxy QR code shows too.

Dropping the hairdryer still running into the sink, I sprint into my room and snag my phone off the charger. Making it back to the bathroom, the card is once again all white but for his thick scrawled handwriting in the center.

I apply more heat and pull up my phone’s camera at the same time. Zooming in on the card while I wait for it to recognize the small QR code under the logo in the bottom left corner. I hold my breath, not sure if this is going to work, or if I’m getting my hopes up for nothing.

Seconds tick by.

I zoom out and zoom back in. I manually focus on the area and keep the hot air streaming against the card, not letting it cool for a moment. I’m about to give up when it finally registers on my phone, and I tap on the link.

The website pulls up, but there isn’t much to find. A black page with a white password bar sits in the middle. I check the URL, but it’s just a mix of random letters and numbers. It makes no sense.

God damnit, all of that for nothing.

If only he’d left me a password, but nothing about his messages seems remotely password like. But fuck it, I’ll try anyway. Stabbing away at the keys, they tap quickly as my anxiousness rolls through me when I hit enter. An error page pops up automatically. I slap the counter and sigh in frustration. Clearing out the password bar, it hits me. I’ve got two other cards.

Storming through my apartment, my work bag hangs from the wooden hook in the hallway. Pulling it down, I turn it over and the contents thuds against the wooden floor. I shove it around until that little white card catches my eye and I snag it up.

Tripping over my feet, I seize the lone card from my nightstand and drop back into my bed. Two more cards, two more possible passwords. The card from the bar strikes out. I pull a deep breath in through my nose and type in the last phrase:DID YOU MISS ME?

The screen goes black. Nothing happens for so long that I think it turned off or broke. I hit the power button, but the screen is still backlit. What the heck. Tapping the page repeatedly with no display, I finally give up.

NINE

HARKIN

Sad – Bryce Savage

“I’m sorry, I just can’t do it. Tell her parents I’ve got something important for work going on,” I snipe at my mother. It’s not her fault, she’s just passing along the information. I can’t go back and face everyone, especially not on the anniversary.

My weekend trip was short enough that I didn’t have to worry about running into anyone, but this would be walking straight into the firing squad’s line of sight. Even if half of them believe it wasn’t my fault, that still leaves half of Barton undecided.

“Harkin.” Her tone is sharp, I can imagine the little vein protruding in irritation on her forehead. “How are you ever going to change people’s minds if you just keep running from this? If you just…”

But I’m there to cut off the thought before she can finish it, “No. Just no, Mom. I’m not coming. I won’t be there. And I don’t care what the town thinks of me for moving away. What did they expect me to do, sit around and morn her forever?”

Her small huff is all I get in response before the line goes silent.

My phone whizzes across the room, smacking against the back of my gray leather couch. I pull at the roots of my hair; the pinch of pain releases the pressure building inside.

I’ve tried everything in my power to ignore this week. To brush it off as just another week this month, keeping my mind busy with work or my body focused in the gym. I was so close, but then she called.

A ping from my laptop on the jet-black marble table across the room breaks my internal spiral. Swiping my finger across the scanner, the page displays. My frustration dissipates as she steals my focus. The corner of my mouth pulls up in a smirk. I can’t help it.

She did it, my smart, smart girl.

How disappointing it must have been for her to get the page to go through, only for it to be nothing she could see.

But that’s all I needed to gain access to her phone. A virus programed to release once she entered that passcode into the QR Code website designed just for her. The car service is great for tracking her whereabouts during the work week and monitoring her. But this gives me full location access when she has her phone on her.

Opening the location program on my computer, I watch as the little red dot pings on the map and then zooms in. Switching over to satellite view, I squint in confusion. What is she doing at Evergreens Cemetery?

If only it wasn’t on the other side of town. I’d never make it at this time of day before she left. The cemeteries website is useless; It doesn’t have a directory of its plots, but there might be another option.

A quick google search leads me to a website where people can add information and photos of graves they’ve visited. Mostly, it’s used for historical and ancestry information, but not today. I filter it down to Evergreens, depleting the results by over half. That’s still a lot of information to look over.

Searching specifically for graves with Fitzpatrick included drops it again. There’s a handful of options. Some dating back way too far to be likely. Which leaves me with two—Sean Fitzpatrick or Claire Fitzpatrick. Sean Fitzpatrick, born September 23, 1968, died October 11, 2015. Beloved Brother and Friend: is all the headstone reads, but no mention of a wife or children.

Maybe he’s an uncle?

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