Page 163 of Stop and Seek
Theo licked his lips. “Can I help you?”
“Do ya have somewhere we can talk? Private.”
Thatwasn’t ominous at all.
The back room had coffee. Old coffee. The kind that looked more like burnt soup than anything drinkable. Theo had made it when he got in, then forgot about it entirely—too busy pretending to be a functioning human.
He poured the sludge into three chipped cups. Paused.
“Do you two want sugar? Or cream? All we have is the powdered kind,” he said, hands shaking. Gripping the mug tighter didn’t help.
There was nothing to be nervous about.Thinkingabout doing something bad didn’t amount todoingit.
Michael stayed standing, but Glenn took the seat across from him—calm, professional, his hands folded like this was routine.
Because for them, it probably was.
Theo’s palms were damp against his khakis. He rubbed them, slow, trying to scrub away the nerves bubbling under his skin.
Michael leaned across the table. “Sit down, Theo.”
Theo forced himself into the seat. His eyes met Glenn’s. Not unkind, but heavy. The same look ofI can’t remember what sleep isthat Theo saw in the mirror most mornings.
“We need to talk to you about William Jaeger,” Glenn said. “You were the last known person he contacted.”
Theo’s throat went dry. He nodded once.
“Can you tell us what he said?”
His tongue sat too thick—a brick in his mouth. “He’s been asking me to meet him for weeks. Said he needed closure.”
“And did you?”
Theo hesitated, then nodded again. “I showed up, yeah. He didn’t.”
Because he was already dead.
Because Noah had caved his skull in with a fuckingpicture frameand impaled glass into his brain.
Glenn jotted something down in his notebook. “Did he seem afraid? Nervous? Did he say anything that might suggest someone else was involved, or that he thought he was in danger?”
“No.” Theo shook his head. “He sounded desperate, I guess. Is he missing?”
That was the right question, wasn’t it? If he didn’t ask something, it would be even more obvious.
Michael dropped into the seat next to Glenn. “We think it’s a lil worse than that.”
Theo stared down at the old table. Coffee stains, the corner peeling like dead skin. The hum of the fluorescent lights overhead was louder now. It screamed into his skull, threatening ashut-down levelmigraine.
“We’re looking into all possible suspects,” Glenn added. “You’re not in any kind of trouble. But if there’s anything you remember, something he might’ve said, anyone he mentioned, now’s the time.”
“I haven’t talked to Jag—William a lot since we broke up. I don’t know what’s going on with him.”
Technicallytrue. He just happened to know Jagger was buried six-feet-under somewhere.
Michael nodded, slowly. “Sometimes people reach out right before things get bad, y’know? Tryin’ to fix parts of themselves. Or drag someone else into their disaster.”
Theo didn’t answer.
