"No," Daniel said. "Nothing specific. Thanks, Detective."
He hung up and sat in his driveway, engine off, staring at Frank's house. Frank's truck was gone. The porch was empty. The climbing belt still hung by the door.
Daniel got out, walked to his own front door, and stopped. There was an envelope taped to it. Plain white, his name written in block capitals.
Inside was a single sheet of paper, also in block capitals:
"THEY'RE COMING TONIGHT. 11 PM. THE VAN. DON'T CALL THE POLICE β THEY'RE LISTENING. β F"
Daniel read it three times. Then he looked at Frank's empty driveway, and at the street, quiet in the afternoon sun, and he felt the ground tilt under him again.
Because there were two possibilities, and they branched like a fork in a road, and he had to choose.
Possibility one: Frank was exactly who he claimed to be β a retired lineman who'd stumbled onto a criminal operation and was trying to stop it. The note was a warning. Tonight, the crew was coming back β maybe to replace the rigs, maybe for worse β and Frank wanted Daniel ready.
Possibility two: Frank was part of it. Had always been part of it. The cut lines, the perfect story, the eleven days of "collection" β all of it was Frank's operation, and Daniel had been played from the first morning. The note was bait. Tonight wasn't a warning. It was an invitation to walk into something.
Daniel folded the note and put it in his pocket.
He had until eleven to decide which Frank Delaney was real.
8
Daniel spent the afternoon preparing for both possibilities.
He called Detective Alvarez back and told her about the note. She was quiet for a long moment.
"Don't engage," she said finally. "If a van shows up at eleven, you call 911 and you stay inside. We're putting a unit on your street tonight anyway β the FBI wants eyes on those poles. But Mr. Mercer β" she hesitated. "Frank Delaney is not a suspect in this investigation."
"Is he a witness?"
"He's a cooperating witness. There's a difference, and it matters."
"Can you tell me β" Daniel stopped. "Never mind."
He hung up and kept preparing. He charged his phone. He put Emma's number on speed dial β she was fine, she was safe at college, but he needed to know he could reach her. He took the baseball bat from the hall closet and put it by the front door, feeling ridiculous and not caring.
At six, Frank's truck pulled into his driveway. Daniel watched from his window as Frank got out, went inside, and didn't come out. No wave. No nod. The porch light stayed off.
At seven, Daniel ate leftover pasta standing at the kitchen counter, tasting nothing.
At eight, he called Emma. "Hey, Dad," she said, bright. "Everything okay? You called yesterday morning and you sounded weird, and now you're calling again β"
"Everything's fine. I just β" He stopped. What could he say? Your neighbor might be a criminal, or he might be a hero, and tonight I'm going to find out which? "I just wanted to hear your voice. How are your midterms?"
They talked for twenty minutes. She told him about her roommate's terrible cooking, about a professor who wore the same sweater every day, about a boy β "just a friend, Dad, don't make a face," though he wasn't making a face, she couldn't see him. He memorized the sound of her laugh. When they hung up, he sat in the dark kitchen and felt, for the first time since his wife died, the full weight of how alone he was in this house.
At nine, he turned off all his lights and sat in the living room with the bat across his knees, watching the street through the blinds.
At ten, Frank's porch light came on. Frank emerged, carrying something long and canvas-wrapped β his climbing belt, Daniel realized, and a coil of rope. Frank walked to the pole behind Daniel's house β the pole where the rig had been β and stood looking up at it for a long moment. Then he started climbing.
Daniel was out the front door before he'd made a conscious decision, bat in hand. "Frank!"
Frank stopped, fifteen feet up, and looked down. "Get back inside, Daniel."
"What are you doing?"
"What I should've done three weeks ago." Frank kept climbing. "They're coming at eleven to put new rigs up. I'm going to be waiting on this pole when they do."
"Are you insane? Get down. The police have a unit on the street tonight."
"They have a unit three blocks over, sitting in a parking lot. I checked." Frank reached the crossarm and straddled it, casual as a man sitting on a park bench. "I've been up poles in worse situations than this, Daniel. Go inside. Lock the door. If anything happens, you call 911."