So Sweet a Changeling: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 6)

Chapter Thirty-Four: Rachel, Sunday

"It's her, isn't it?" she said, looking at Al. "The one you met at the library."

Al nodded dumbly. "She mentions meeting me in person. Why slip a note in our take-out, though? How did she even do it?"

"The most obvious explanation is that she did it in the process of delivering our food," Lauren said. She looked at Joe. "Did a woman deliver it?"

Joe shook his head. "It was a guy."

"Okay, maybe she paid the guy to let her slip the note in. It's interesting that Emma found it." Lauren looked at Emma and smiled. "You specifically asked for salmon, didn't you."

Emma nodded. "It's really good. The sauce is sweet and salty at the same time."

"It is, isn't it." She looked at the others and said, "It's almost like whoever left this note knew Emma would be the one to find it."

"If she was close enough to leave a note, though," Joe said, "why not knock on our door and introduce herself?"

Al shook his head. "Because she'd be on our turf. Did you see how she invited us to her house? She probably feels safer there. No, this way, with a note, was her way of saying hello to all of us, and I bet all this cloak and dagger stuff is also part of her 'game.'" He said the last with air quotes.

Logan unconsciously drew Emma closer to him. "Is this woman spying on us or something? Is she a stalker?"

Al said, "If she is, she's never expressed any interest in you kids. It seems like she's concentrating her efforts on the five of us, for some reason we don't know, and I'm not even sure she means us harm." He looked to Tej and said, "Odd that she doesn't mention you."

Tej smiled at him in a way that made Rachel feel territorial. Al only hadn't slept with her yet because she'd never expressed interest in him, and Rachel hoped she wasn't changing her mind; two other women in his life were enough.

Tej said, "I don't think it's odd at all. You guys are the original five. If this woman wrote a chalk message for you in 1979, which means she knew who you were and was observing you then, she would have only seen the five of you. I'm a stranger to her."

"Count yourself lucky, then," Al said with a soft smile that made Rachel clench her jaw. "But if she's observing us now, she knows we have kids, so she must know you at least exist." 

"She mentions Zio, Dad," Naomi said after she and Emma read it together. "Is she spying on him too? And what is she talking about with the door?"

Rachel knew very well what she was talking about, and it made a tingle run down her spine, remembering Johnny's story of the vestry door that had brought him to another Queensborough, a place where Al had been, too, if Johnny could be believed. Now Rachel wondered if Sadie T. Diamond had been there too, maybe hiding behind a building, watching them from a distance, watching them see the chalk drawings and taking the pictures. How else would she know, otherwise?

Joe took the easy route by saying, "I don't know anything about a door, but she must be spying on your zio as well, why, I don't know."

"Who's Danny?" Emma asked. "And why's he your reward, Dad?"

"I think he might have been the guy I was talking to last night," Rachel said. "He's a boy we used to know when we used to live in Queensborough."

"Was he in any of the pictures we saw at Grammy's house?"

"Actually... no," Al said regretfully. "We never knew him long enough to take any pictures of him. He moved away before we did."

Rachel grinned at her husband for saying that last part, because it was true in both cases, whether he was swept up in the foster care system in 1979 or moved away with his mother in 1971. It didn't necessitate him having to explain how Danny was here when he couldn't possibly be.