Priya wrote the word grandson on a pad and held it up. Mara asked his name and where he worked. Willa said Nathan Fenwick, twenty-three, a delivery driver for a hardware store. She had called him twice since throwing the brick, with no response.
“You cannot protect him by staying hidden,” Mara said.
Willa began to cry silently. Then she said, “The pictures didn’t come from me. I don’t know how to send them. I thought you were the one sending them to yourself.”
“Why would I?”
“Because you were supposed to have kept them safe.”
Before Mara could respond, the line disconnected.
Priya poured tea into two chipped mugs. “What does that mean?”
“I have no idea.”
But as Mara spoke, she remembered the library tablet, the one with its protective orange case and the badly cracked corner. Children used it to photograph their displays and upload pictures to the shared folder. Two weeks earlier a teenager had returned it after borrowing it for an outdoor storytelling competition. Mara had asked him to place it in the charging cabinet. She had not checked afterward.
“Who borrowed the tablet last?” Priya asked.
“A boy who helped with the fox-costume workshop.”
“At Arcadia Rooms?”
Mara shook her head. “At the library. The children were building characters from recycled fabric. Arcadia sponsored some art supplies.”
Priya’s expression changed. She knew the workshop. It was where several teenagers had practiced photographing handmade sets, including the lime-green raincoat. “The Arcadia people came twice,” she recalled. “They offered to lend us lights. One of them made everyone sign permission forms for photographs. The librarian told him we didn’t need his forms.”
“Did you see the man?”
“Tall, dark hair, glasses. He carried a narrow equipment case. He wasn’t rude. That was what made him difficult to argue with.”
Mara sent Holt a message summarizing the call. Then she called the library’s director, Alma Ward, who answered sleepily and immediately became alert at the mention of the tablet.
“We put it in the lost-property cupboard,” Alma said. “The charging cable was missing.”
“Can you check it?”
“I can come in early.”
“No,” Mara said. “Please call the officer I’m texting you. Don’t go alone.”
Priya set down her mug. “You think they’re using our children’s photographs as part of some game?”
“I think someone made a story about a missing boy,” Mara said. “And now there’s a real boy I can’t find.”
Chapter Five: The Room Behind the Room
At seven the next morning, Holt called to report that Nathan Fenwick had been located. He was safe and furious, having switched off his phone while driving an overnight route through an area with poor reception. He had no idea anyone had photographed him outside work.
