NNWM08: Mortal Coils (I)

MORTAL COILS

I

Drag

Calico Darby slid out of the tow truck and nearly tripped over herself in the process. The driver of the truck muttered: "Careful," and snorted with amusement. Cal thanked him and shouldered her briefcase, then walked into the lobby of the auto repair shop.

"Hello," a man behind the counter said. He seemed friendly enough--friendlier than the tow truck driver, at least.

"Hi, my car broke down. My name's Calico Darby."

The man checked something behind the desk and nodded. "Yep, got'cha down right here. Do you need a rental car?"

"No, I have a ride, thank you. How long until you have an estimate?" Cal asked. She brushed a piece of hair out of her face.

"We're slow right now. Maybe twenty minutes."

Cal smiled and thanked the man, whose name tag read: "Randy Adams / Manager." Cal situated herself in one of the chairs and took out her cell phone. She called Noah and asked if she could pick her up at the shop, and he obligingly agreed.

Cal tapped her feet nervously while she waited. A young mechanic came in from the garage and started talking to the manager. Cal tilted her head, enraptured by the familiarity of his face. His nametag read "Row," and Cal couldn't put her finger on it. She was still new to the town that knew everyone, so even a familiar-looking stranger should have been no surprise.

The manager said: "Miss, if you'd like an honest opinion..."

Rising from her seat, Cal went up to the counter and said: "Please."

"Don't put any more money in this car."

Calico Darby tapped her fingernail on the counter. "How much is the estimate?" she asked.

"Eight hundred dollars. You need a new transmission."

Calico thought about it. She smiled. "I'll take the transmission. Consider it one of many donations to your store."

"You sure? I mean it--your car is a bonafide piece of crap."

"It has sentimental value," Calico Darby said vaguely.

Randy Adams shrugged. "You can pick it up tomorrow, Miss Darby."

Calico thanked the manager and turned to leave, nearly plowing into the young mechanic she noticed earlier. "Oh! Excuse me!" she stammered. The mechanic arched a brow at her, and they both spent a moment in a dead stare.

Wordlessly, Calico left the auto repair shop. It was a bitterly cold day in early October, and the chill hurt the skin on her face. A black sedan pulled into the parking lot seconds after the shop door closed behind her. Calico waved at the driver and got in the passenger seat.

"Perfect timing, eh, Cal?" the driver asked. He was a handsome man in his early twenties with neat, dark hair and perfect teeth.

"Thanks, Noah," Cal replied. "Sorry about this."

"I can take you to the grocery later, if you need to go," Noah offered, glancing away from the road momentarily to gauge her reaction.

"Absolutely not, I'm completely fine until tomorrow," Cal assured him.

Noah fell silent. The drive to the office was only ten minutes.

At Calico's desk, she was met by Grant Hal, co-manager of the IT department. "'Morning!"

Cal's knuckles turned white as she gripped her coffee mug. "Good morning," she said cheerily.

Grant half-sat on the edge of her desk and began talking about what he made for breakfast. This was his launching pad for conversations of similar disinterest, such as the previous night's news cast, political candidates, and popular culture trivia . Grant Hal followed Calico to a co-worker's desk as Cal reset a series of compromised network passwords. He talked to her while she fixed a jammed printer.

It was 10 o'clock in the morning. "Hey, should we take a break?" Grant Hal asked.

"Sure. I'm going to use the restroom." Cal strode off toward the women's restroom without looking back. She locked the door behind her. She stared at herself in the mirror, adjusted her glasses, then pushed her dark red hair behind her ears. The bathroom was in perfect order and it smelled like artificial lemons. It was all the same.

As she left, she nearly ran into Polly Gregory. She was a pretty blonde secretary who was short and wore skirts that matched her height.

"'Morning," Cal said. Polly shrugged some sort of reply and disappeared into the bathroom. Cal's gaze drifted to Noah's cubicle, where he was sitting with his back toward her. His chair was shifting side to side with the movement of his body as he read a report on his monitor. Noah had always been the fidgety type. He became increasingly fidgety whenever Polly approached his desk to hand over files. Cal often noticed that instead of paging him by phone or over the computer for calls, she would walk over to his desk, place her hand on the back of his chair, and lean over. She often wore low-cut shirts, and this often accentuated her sense of fashion. Cal didn't like Polly.

Grant crept up behind Cal and started talking before she noticed he was there. "Hey, it's almost lunch time!"

Cal nearly jumped out of her shoes. She whirled on Grant. "Don't do that!"

"Two more hours!" Grant said, waving his hands.

The workday dragged on. By one o'clock in the afternoon, Grant had moved back to his own desk and opened up some applications on his computer. He seemed more interested in launching pieces of paper into the trashcan with a paperclip catapult than actually working.

Cal drank two more cups of coffee before it was time to leave.


It was only a five-minute drive back to her apartment. Noah let Cal off at the front gate of her building. "Need a lift to pick up your car tomorrow?" Noah asked.

Cal knelt down to speak through the passenger side window. "If you could drop me off after work, that would be great," she said.

"It's a date." Noah smiled.

"It's a plan."

Cal went into her building, the sun setting behind the rustic, Germanic roof. The keypad let her into a small entranceway where two staircases led to two apartments, and she ascended into the left door. Cal unlocked the door and stepped in, overwhelmed with silence. Her roommate was gone.

After setting her briefcase down, Cal shed her blazer and hung it in the closet. She took off her short pumps and placed them in an orderly fashion on her shoe rack on the closet floor. Moments before she changed into her pajamas, there was a knock on the door. Cal tilted her head in bewilderment, then went to see who it was.

"Oh, Miss Fleming," Cal said with the faintest of smiles after answering the door. "How are you?"

"Good, dear. Good." Miss Fleming was holding a casserole dish with tin foil over the top. Her marmalade cat was twisting around her ankles and rubbing its cheeks on her skin. "I made you a quiche."

Cal blinked and forced her smile to grow. "Wonderful. That's very generous of you, Miss Fleming. Here." Cal went to take the dish from her, but somehow Miss Fleming took this as an invitation into the apartment.

Cal stood back as the woman entered, her slippered feet shuffling on the carpet. The cat followed at a quick trot, watching the casserole dish. Margot Fleming was the middle-aged woman in the apartment opposite of Cal's. She wore horn-rimmed glasses that magnified her eerie blue eyes, and her shoulders were slightly hunched. Her dresses were long outdated and she wore shawls and cardigans as if she was twenty years older than she actually was. Her cause was not helped by the fact that she lived with at least three cats, one of which was making itself comfortable on Cal's kitchen floor. Miss Fleming set the casserole dish down on one of the counters and proceeded to remove the tin foil. She found the plates and the silverware and began cutting pieces for her and Cal to eat. Cal watched her in stunned silence, too amazed by the woman's audacity to feel any alarm at her pushiness. Before she knew it, she was sitting with Miss Fleming at the table.

"I wanted to see how you were doing," Miss Fleming said calmly. She gave a small piece of quiche to her cat, which sat under her chair flicking its tail.

"Things are going well," Cal said, trying to decipher what was in the quiche. "My job has been nice."

"Good," Miss Fleming said. She smiled, her eyes remaining wide open and her teeth a mossy yellow. "How long have you been here?"

Cal tilted her had from side to side in thought. "About two months, I suppose."

"Who have you met?"

The liquid calmness of Miss Fleming's words was disarming. Cal didn't question the interrogation. "Noah Briggs has been very kind to me."

"Noah Briggs is a good lad. He is very popular here."

"I noticed. It seems like everyone in town knows each other somehow."

Miss Fleming kept that creepy smile of hers. "It's true."

"I used to have family here--but it was generations ago," Cal remarked. She tried some of the quiche. It wasn't bad, though it could have been warmer. She added some salt from the salt shaker on the table.

"Really?" There was a small inflection in Miss Fleming's otherwise monotonous tone. "How long ago was that?"

"Maybe three or four generations ago," Cal said with a quirk of her brow. "My mother mentioned it to me before I moved here. I don't know much else."

"I see." Miss Fleming reached down and scratched the top of her cat's head. "Three or four generations ago--that's the late nineteenth century, isn't it?"

"I suppose so."

"And this town is still as small and communal as back then." Miss Fleming chuckled, and her voice was not unlike dropped glass on concrete.

Cal hurried and finished the quiche, hoping that it would goad Miss Fleming into leaving. It didn't--at least, not right away.

Miss Fleming picked up her cat and held it in her lap as if it was a baby. "This town has had a long tradition of being a close-knit community. It started with one family, you know."

Cal's teeth started to grind. She was patient to a fault, that was for sure. But she had already sat through a conversation with Grant Hal today, as well as a stay at the auto repair shop. Cal took a long drink of water and willed it to turn into wine.

"The Kimbleys were their name."

"That's my mother's maiden name," Cal commented. She was walking the tight wire between politeness and wanting the conversation to end.

"Very interesting indeed," Miss Fleming said. Her cat was purring loudly. Uncomfortable silence followed until Miss Fleming finally said: "I should be going. Enjoy the rest of the quiche, Calico."

Cal couldn't have been happier to show Miss Fleming and her marmalade cat out. She shut the door and locked it, then whispered aloud: "A quiche?"

Cal made a frozen dinner and ate half of it while watching the evening news. The mayor had built a new estate outside of city limits, and the news anchor listed all of the pumpkin patches in town. Other than that, it was business as usual. A weekly television show that she only marginally liked was on at eight o'clock, so she watched it while doing a few Sudokus. At ten o'clock, she got into her pajamas and went to bed. She read a mainstream thriller novel for twenty minutes before she fell asleep.

The sun rose.

Noah met her at the gate leading onto the sidewalk.

"Good morning," he said with a warm smile.

"Good morning," Cal replied. Noah walked closely alongside her all the way to the office.

Grant Hal discussed an oil barge spill near Antarctica. For lunch, Cal ate a turkey sandwich and a bag of Doritos, and she drank Diet Coke. When work was over, Cal walked with Noah back to his apartment complex to pick up his car.

"What was wrong with your car?" he asked as they pulled out of the parking lot.

"It needed a new transmission."

"And you actually paid for that?"

"Unfortunately, yes. I don't need the car, really, but I certainly don't have the money for a new one, so..."

"Not even for a trade-in?" Noah asked.

"I don't think so," Cal replied.

"My sister's husband's brother--my brother in-law, I guess--might be getting rid of his pick-up truck for cheap."

Cal chuckled. "Do you see me in a pick-up truck?"

Noah had a concealed smile on his face. He was thinking about something else. "No."

Cal got out of the car at the auto repair shop. Noah leaned toward the passenger window and said: "Are you sure you even need a car? I say sell it for what it's worth, and if you need to go anywhere, I can take you."

Waving her hand, Cal dismissed him. "I couldn't burden you with that, Noah. I'll see you tomorrow."

Noah backed out of the lot and Cal went up to the glass door of the shop. They were closing down for the night, and right as she neared the door, the young mechanic named Row was leaving. They nearly ran into each other again.

He gave her a lob-sided smile and held the door for her to go in. The sheepish manager greeted her and rung up her credit card before handing her the keys.

"I hope the car stops giving you trouble," he said. There was an earnestness in his voice that Cal wouldn't have expected from a man who made a living off of broken cars.

"Thanks." Cal smiled.

The sun set early now that it was October. There was an eerie feeling of premature closure all through winter that Cal had never gotten over since she was a child. The world seemed cold and sleepy when it was only 6 o'clock in the evening--it didn't make for a productive attitude. All she wanted to do was go back to her apartment and read.

Cal parallel parked her car in front of her building. The street lamp above her flickered and went out as she stepped onto the sidewalk. A freezing wind picked up and she tugged her coat around her, fumbling to open the gate in the dark. A shadow from a bare tree across the street wove around her like spindly fingers. Treading carefully atop the uneven walkway to the front door, she again had to navigate the dark keypad to unlock the door. When she went for the doorknob, she found that someone hadn't closed the door all the way. Irresponsible.

The steps to her apartment creaked as her shoes sank into the worn carpet. The light had always been dim in the hallway, so fumbling to unlock her door was expected. Finally, she entered her apartment and closed the door behind her. It was dark. Her roommate was still gone. The light switch in the entrance hallway seemed to be broken, as it made a nasty buzzing sound when she flipped it on. She would need to call an electrician.

Calico set her bag down and walked cautiously into the kitchen to find the light switch there. She paused and felt an uncomfortable twitch in her skin, a sort of sensation that seemed to indicate that someone was standing behind her. She looked over her shoulder--she spun around fully, but saw nothing.

The refrigerator made a crashing sound. Cal jumped and pressed her hand to her chest. Just the ice machine. Cal shook her head and opened the fridge to get the carton of soymilk. She got a cup and poured some in, then took a sip.

"Pardon me."

The squeal that came out of her mouth sounded like something out of a B horror film. Cal spun around again and her heart stopped. There was a man standing in the living room. He approached the serving window from the kitchenette, and she backed up until she was pressed against the kitchen counter. Cal reached behind her and found the cutlery block, and she held tightly to one of the knife handles.

The man spread his hands. "This intrusion is most regrettable, Miss Darby, but I simply had to speak with you."

Cal couldn't quite make out his features in the dark, other than his silvery hair and long mustache. His eyes were also a grayish color that almost seemed aglow. "Who are you?" Cal demanded.

"My name is Spencer. Spencer Malthus. And you're Calico Darby."
Cal's heart was pounding so hard that her throat was pulsating. Her vision was blurring with adrenaline flow. "How do you know who I am? What do you want?"

"I wish for you to come with me." His voice was aqueous and calm.

"No." Cal's elbow twitched, fingers still clamped around the knife handle.

Spencer Malthus frowned. His eyes were mournful, bright like dying stars. "I promise not to hurt you."

"Absolutely not," Cal snapped. "You broke into my house."

"It is a trivial matter how I came here. What matters is what I will have to do if you refuse to comply."

Cal shook her head. She was sweating, her eyes taking in the man's every gesture, trying to process his words.

"I am willing to terminate lives for your company, Calico Darby. Are you?"

Cal froze. "What?" The man smiled--she could see his shiny teeth even in the dark.

Spencer Malthus effortlessly swung over the serving window and slid over the counter opposite of her. He stood in the narrow space between the sink and the counter she was pressed against, and while he had advanced, Cal had pulled the knife from its sheath. Blindly, she stabbed at his shoulder, felt a sickening sinking of the blade into flesh, then she fled to the chorus of his screaming.

Cal ran faster than she ever had before, squeezing through her front door and half-running, half-falling down the stairs. She left her apartment building behind her. A tumble on the walkway almost caused her to trip, but she braced herself on the gate and pushed it open. She ran across the street and reached the opposite sidewalk between two parked vans, her progress decidedly stopped by a collision with a passerby.

It was the mechanic. Row.

"Slow down there, Red," he said with a bemused grin. He had his hands steadying her shoulders. His grin morphed into a frown when he saw her face.

"Someone broke into my apartment. I need to call the police," Cal rambled. "Oh, God, I stabbed him!" She was out of breath from her flight, and she was fighting with her consciousness to stay calm.

"Come with me," he said. Cal almost tried to pull out of his grip, but his earnest gaze deterred her. He added: "We'll use the phone in my apartment."

The mechanic led her into the apartment building across the street from her own, and he let Cal use the phone in his kitchen. She reported the incident with the operator, then they waited for the police to arrive. The mechanic's apartment was neat and tidy not unlike hers, but there was a disciplined organization to the place that almost made it cold. It lacked the superfluous furniture of more homey apartments, and yet something about it comforted her.

"I am so sorry about all of this," Cal lamented. She sat down on a recliner in his living room and held her head in her hands.

"You looked like you needed help," he remarked. "Don't worry about it."

Cal shut her eyes. Her mind tried to make sense of the past several minutes. The silver-haired man, the knife, this mechanic--he called her "Red."

"I'm Row Sedgewick, by the way. I put the transmission in your car," he introduced himself.

Cal's jaw dropped. "Rowan Sedgewick? Sedge?"

Row's eyes blinked once before he spoke. "Calico Darby. I thought that was you when I looked over your car. There couldn't be two Calicos in the world. Eh, Red?" He snorted.

"It's been since--before high school." Cal's face was a study of incredulity.

"Junior high," Row said. "We went out."

A hesitant chuckle left Cal's mouth. "This is too much."

"We'll catch up later, Red." He moved into the living room and lowered himself into the couch across from Cal. "What did the guy look like?"

"White hair, white mustache... he was hard to see. He told me his name was Spencer Malthus."

Row rubbed his jaw. "Definitely never heard of him."

Cal straightened. "Are you kidding me? Everyone knows each other in this town!"

"Must have been an outsider. That's tricky."

"Are you saying that because the guy who broke into my house is an outsider, the police won't be able to arrest him?" Cal asked, brow knitted.

Row snorted and shook his head. "It means they'll have to do work. It'll take longer, and until then, this guy can probably get into your apartment. Do you live alone?"

"Yes. Well, right now--my roommate is out of town. I should call her." Cal patted down her person, only to discover that her cell phone was still in her briefcase back in her apartment.

"Wait. You said you stabbed a man?" Row interrupted.

Cal covered her mouth and nodded.

"Way to go!"

"Don't praise me for stabbing someone!" Cal retorted.

"Ah, that's right. You always were little miss Peace Corps in junior high."

"And you were a regular tough guy. I remember."

The sound of a cop car roused them from their seats. They went down to the street to meet the officers, and as Row came out from the two parked vans into the streets, the police officer shouted: "Hold it! Hands in the air!"

Row complied with a heavy sigh. Cal peeked out from between the vans and gasped. Another officer came over to her and asked: "Are you all right?"

The other officer commanded Row to get up against the police car, and Row obeyed.

"Uh, yes," Cal said, dumbfounded. "What are you doing to Row?"

The officer slammed Row's head into the roof of the car. "I asked you a question!" the officer shouted.

"Oh, should he not be a suspect?" the officer who was talking to Cal asked.

"No, he helped me!" Cal cried.

"Hey, Luke! Cut it out! He's clear!"

Luke the police officer looked away from Row, confused. "He's not a suspect, Joe?"

"Not according to the victim."

"Sorry." Luke stepped away from Row, who straightened, wobbled, and held onto his head. Cal meekly came to his side and put her hand on his shoulder.

"That's embarrassing. Well, anyway," Joe the police officer took out his notepad, "you had a break-in, ma'am?" he asked Cal.

"Y-Yes. He was a middle-aged man, I suppose, with silver hair and a big mustache. He told me his name."

Joe arched a brow. "Really?"

"Spencer Malthus." Should I tell them I stabbed him? she asked herself.

"Never heard of him. Doubt he'll be on file." Joe mumbled, enveloped in his notes.

"We're going to cordon your apartment. Do you need anything out of it?" Luke asked.

"Yes. Please," Cal added. Luke beckoned her to follow him while Cal wondered briefly if it was safe. Evidently these officers didn't encounter much crime.

Luke drew out his weapon while Cal unlocked the door and stepped back. Luke pushed the door open, gun ready, and cautiously stepped in. He went for the switch but discovered it didn't work before Cal could tell him, then he huffed and crept further into the apartment. Cal stayed in place and looked around and nearly squealed as the door to the building opened and Joe entered.

He went up the right-most staircase and knocked on Cal's neighbor's door. Cal peeked into her apartment and noted that Luke had already done a search for the suspect and found nothing. He beckoned her inside.

"Gather what you want. You'll have to find another place to stay."

"Shouldn't the forensics team search for clues before I touch anything?" Cal asked.

Luke raised his eyebrows as if the thought hadn't occurred to him. "I guess." He spoke into his walkie talkie: "I need a forensics team at the residence of the break-in."

"I know I just said I shouldn't touch anything, but can I get my phone out of my briefcase?" Cal indicated the bag on the floor by her feet.

"I'll let it slide," Luke said with authority.

"Thanks," Cal murmured. She got her phone out of the front pocket and left, disinclined to stay in such a brilliant officer's presence.

She found Row waiting outside, still holding his head. A trickle of blood was running from the inside of his eye and down the side of his nose. "That looked like it hurt," she commented with a frown.

"Yeah. Assholes." He managed a smile. "Want to stay at my place?"

Cal frowned. "Well..."

"I have a guest bedroom. And I've been told I make excellent instant coffee."

"How can I refuse instant coffee?" Cal asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. "All right." This is so not like me. I should have called Noah.

Joe and Luke came back down as the forensics team swarmed the area. Luke put up caution tape in more places than was necessary, and a detective questioned Cal but didn't seem to know what information he was looking for. Finally, they were allowed to leave.


"Do you want to borrow some clothes to sleep in?" Row asked. He stood by the kitchen sink and was going about putting hydrogen peroxide on his split forehead.

"Nevermind that," Cal insisted. "Are you all right? Why did that cop rough house you?"

"You know: over-excited cops always get a little belligerent. I'm fine." Row's voice was dry. He looked down at his hands, busy preparing a piece of gauze and paper tape. "Do you mind telling me exactly what happened in your apartment?" he asked.

Cal looked down at her feet. "The man said very strange things to me. He... he wanted me to come with him. Then he said if I didn't that--oh, what was it?" Cal squinted. "He might 'terminate' people." Cal blinked and seemed surprise at what she had said, almost as if it had just processed for the first time.

Row had a dark look on his face when she finally looked up again. "I wouldn't worry. No one's been murdered here in five years."

"Five whole years?"

"Yep. Anyway, so do you want clothes or not?"

"I couldn't bother you with that. I'm fine."

Row squinted at her, dubious. Cal looked down at herself and noted she was wearing a blazer, a starchy oxford shirt, and a pencil skirt. "What do you have?" she asked.


It was hard to sleep after having your house broken into and subsequently stabbing the invader. It was even harder when sleeping in your junior high sweetheart's house while wearing his clothes. Cal was in the guest bed staring at the ceiling for a couple of hours before she stood up and crept out of the room. She was startled to find Row sitting on the couch. Across the hall from her room was his room, the door opened and his bed--neatly made--untouched. It was two o'clock in the morning.

He heard her foot creak one of the floorboards. "Can't sleep?"

"No. I'm sorry."

Row chuckled. "You're acting like you did something wrong. Cut it out." He beckoned her into his tiny living room and into the recliner where she had previously sat.

"S--"

"Don't apologize." Row had an edge to his voice.

Cal lowered herself into the recliner and hugged her arms around herself. She was wearing a baggy t-shirt of his with some obscure 70s band name on it as well as a pair of basketball shorts. She felt practically naked. To break the silence, she asked: "Can you not sleep, either?"

"I don't sleep," Row replied. He tossed the magazine that had been sitting on his lap onto the small table in front of the couch. "Hyper-vigilance or PTSD or something."

Cal frowned. "Were you in the army?"

"Yep. Since senior year of high school up until about six months ago. They sent me to Afghanistan."

"How was that?" Cal asked warily.

"Oh, you know. Car bombs and losing two squads. Your buddies spread out over several meters in pieces. Shit like that."

"I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, me too." Row stood up and walked into the kitchenette. Cal watched him and noted the way the muscles under his shirt moved as he went through some cabinets. He returned with a bottle of over the counter pills. "Should help you sleep," he said, and tossed them to her.

Cal caught them and seemed surprised that she succeeded. "Thank you."

"I'll have caught up on the economic crisis and new archeological finds by the time you get up tomorrow. I'll tell you all about them." Row rolled his eyes and indicated the magazines he had stacked next to the couch. "Good night."

Cal wondered if dreams were better than a silent vigil over reality's tales. "Good night."


"You're not going to work, are you?" Row asked, skeptical. He handed Calico a mug of coffee.

"Of course I am. It's too late to call-in, and I certainly couldn't hang around here all day."

"Sure you can."

Cal tilted her head at him, then averted her gaze and chugged down the coffee.

"I should walk you to work."

"Absolutely not. It's not necessary," Cal insisted.

"What if Creepy McDickerson shows up? Then what? You need these guns with you."

Cal almost protested about the use of guns, but Row simply showed her one of his arms and flexed. "You're lame," she mumbled.

They ate breakfast in the living room because Row didn't have a kitchen table. "What did you read last night?" Cal asked.

"The world's screwed and they still haven't found the missing link," Row replied. "Same thing every night."

"Do you miss sleeping?" Cal asked suddenly.

"I miss dreaming. But it's not like you can't do that when you're awake."


Row walked with her out of his double duplex and onto the sidewalk. The two parked vans were gone, and they could clearly see Noah standing at the gate to Calico's apartment building. His shoulders were hunched as he gazed at the caution tape wrapped around various structures like an adolescent vandal's toilet paper rampage. He turned around and saw Row and Cal coming out of Row's duplex, and he turned pale.

Clearly scandalized, Noah looked between the two and his brow lowered as he calculated the circumstances.

"Noah!" Cal called out. "My apartment is a crime scene."

"What?" Noah cried.

"Someone broke in. I'll tell you about it on the way to work." Both Noah's and Cal's cell phones went off simultaneously.

"Wait, what?" Noah demanded again.

"Hold on." Cal checked her phone and saw that she had received an email from hers and Noah's boss. "It says not to come to work today, and there has been a terrible tragedy," she said quietly. "What happened?"

Noah said: "There was an accident, and Grant Hal was killed last night. I came here to tell you."

Cal almost felt sick to her stomach. Row quirked a brow and noted her sudden change in posture. "We need to talk to somebody," he decided. "Let's go." He started walking up the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets.

Cal found herself following him, while Noah lingered behind him. "What the hell is going on?" he whined.

"Just come with us and we'll fill you in!" Cal said over her shoulder.