Page 43 of The Man Made of Smoke

I stood in front of the desk, conjuring him up behind me again. Concentrating hard. Until, after a moment, I could almost feel him standing there.

Maybe we should both stay calm, I thought.

That might be a good idea.

What happened, Dad?

Because I need to know so I can figure out what to do next.

You know I can’t tell you that.

His voice sounded sad.

In that case, I asked him, Why did you leave me to deal with this? Even if you didn’t want me to help you at the time, you must have known I’d stumble onto it eventually. You left a note, didn’t you? You told me to come. And you knew I’d find the photograph when I did.

And?

You set me off on a path without giving me any kind of direction at all.

Do youreallythink I’d do that, my son?

I closed my eyes. He still sounded sad, as though it hurt that I would imagine him doing such a thing. And I knew that part of the anger I was feeling was because heshouldn’thave left me floundering in the dark—that it wasn’t fair of him to have done so. But until now, it hadn’t occurred to me that he might not have done. That it was possible he had left me something else, and that I might simply be missing what it was.

But what? I thought.

You tell me. Think carefully now.

You kept your investigation from the police, I thought. And so any clue you left behind wouldn’t be obvious to them. It would have to be subtle. Something that only I would understand.

He laughed softly.

You’re clever, aren’t you, my son?

They were the same words I’d imagined him saying before, but thistime there was no sneer to them, no mockery. Not only did it sound like he genuinely meant them, but also as if they had been delivered with a knowing wink.

I opened my eyes.

What had just occurred to me seemed ridiculous. Even so, I reached down and turned my father’s computer on. Because he had left a message for me, hadn’t he?

Notify my son.

The meaning of those words would appear straightforward and obvious to everyone else. There was only me who might think of his voice speaking them out loud, and hear them a little differently.

The password screen appeared on the computer.

I typed Notify and pressed return.

My father’s desktop loaded.

The computer was old, and it took a few seconds for it to settle. Window after window flicked back open, one at a time. The final one was a browser, showing the website my father had left open before closing the machine down.

A wall of text. The title at the top was in a larger font.

THE PIED PIPER

Twelve

August 2001

---