Shallow Imitations

chapter fourteen

The hours of research turned out to be fruitful. It takes us a few days before we actually find an angle to research. Every few hours, we exchange ideas via texting and see if there's anything we can find. The weekend comes and goes with us trying to think of something. Eventually, we figure out that the best thing to do is to find out who's the person who sent the letter. It seems like the easier approach anyway.

Kal was able to find out who is living in Atlas's old house. It's a single woman in her late fifties. She's been living here ever since Atlas's mom moved out. Kal showed me a picture of her that he had found online. She might have been the one to send that letter, though I doubt it. Either way, there has to be some kind of information that we can gather from this. She looks harmless enough, and if we play our cards right, she might let us go into the house for a little while.

There's no definite plan as we don't know what we're looking for, but I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get there. Kal, the Mastermind, probably knows what to look for.

As we drive there, I'm wondering if he's ever done this before. "Maybe I should've done a background check before coming here," I say, turning down the music playing on the radio. It's a new song that I don't recognize.

"On who? The old lady? She doesn't seem like a felon. I know it's always the people you least expect who turn out to be psychopaths, but there's not much to incriminate her," he says. "Her reclusive tendencies are triggering, but so are yours, so I think we're good."

I roll my eyes. "I mean you! For all I know, you could be conspiring with her to lock me in the basement until I go insane."

He shrugs. "Or, maybe you're already insane. For one, you're letting a complete stranger talk you into searching someone's house with no real motive. You may even be the one who sent the letter—"

"Okay. I get it! Just shut up."

"Have you seen that Johnny Depp movie? He plays a writer who starts being harassed by this stranger who claims that he plagiarized his novel. And then he discovers that it was him sabotaging his own life all along."

This actually makes me smile. That's one thing I like about Kal. He can make any twisted situation seem funny. "I probably am sabotaging myself," I say. "Just not like this."

Kal glances at me through the rearview mirror, giving me a warm smile. He doesn't say anything for the rest of the ride. A comfortable silence.

I'm already feeling nervous. I can't tell what this would sound like to her. Two strangers coming into her house asking if they could search for clues to find out if this guy they know is dead or not. I mean, I saw his dead body. I'm pretty sure it was Atlas. El would've known if there was something wrong. And Atlas's mom. This wouldn't have gone by like this. We're not even sure what we're looking for at this point, but there's something going on and I have to know what it is.

I guess what we're trying to search for is the purpose of the message. What does the sender what us to find out? Unless this is all a horrible mistake.

We drive up to the house.

The house is now occupied by a cat lady. I know this because Kal parked his car across the street where we have a full view of a brown-haired woman calling out for Phoebe while rocking three little kittens in her arms. They're meowing restlessly, trying to get back to the ground.

Leaning closer, I peek at his phone. Apparently, there's something more interesting than planning our next crime. "What are you even looking at?"

"Information about our suspect. She works from home as a contract drafter so that she can look after her cats," Kal says. "She has seven and counting. One just got pregnant and she's debating whether or not to sell the kittens once they're born."