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Jem appeared behind him, a shit-eating grin on his face as he proclaimed, “Hang rods.”
A tic started at the corner of North’s eye.
“Seriously, guys, did you ever think about checking hang rods? You should definitely add that to your list.”
“Mother of Christ—” North began in what Shaw thought of as his murdering tone.
“Maybe we should split up again,” Tean suggested, eyeing North. “Like, really split up. Like Jem and I will go back to—”
“Fivers,” Jem said.
“No—”
North opened his mouth.
“If there’s anything in this house,” Shaw said, “it’s probably in that box of shredded wheat.”
North looked at him.
Jem looked at him.
Tean looked at him.
Shaw glanced over his shoulder in case he’d missed something.
North was the first one to move, stomping through the food debris on the floor to pick up the box of shredded wheat. He turned it upside down and nothing came out, but a look of horror was forming on his face.
“I found it with my—”
“No,” North tried.
“—psychic abilities.”
“Found what?” Tean said.
Jem’s brow furrowed.
“He found it,” North said like someone trying to climb a mountain, “because all the other food in this house is shit and because there’s one box of unsweetened shredded wheat, and that doesn’t make sense.”
Jem let out a tiny laugh. “You should definitely add that to your list.”
“Found what?” Tean asked again.
North shook his head, a man wrestling with something larger than himself. Then he tore the flap at the bottom of the box, where the cardboard overlapped and was glued together.
An SD card fell into his hand.
“It’s just not fair,” North said to no one in particular. And then, “Fuck me.”
“We can talk about it,” Jem said, “but I’d really like you to be nicer to me first.”
14
The next morning, North and Shaw waited with Emery in the Wahredua police station. The room was dark, a concession to the one-way mirror that let them observe the attached interview room. On the other side of the glass, Gideon Moss waited with his lawyer, a severe woman with a helmet-like bob. The air was close and warm and smelled faintly like old, engrained body odor, and North felt like a million bucks.
Part of that, he was sure, had to do with getting ten hours of sleep and catching Shaw in the shower, with enough hot water left to get handsy. The other part was that they had Gid on the hook now, and North could feel it, call it whatever you wanted: electricity, energy, a charge. The investigation had legs again, and they were making progress. Plus he’d had about eight cups of coffee.
After discovering the SD card, they’d taken it to Auggie and Theo, who had been both delighted (Auggie) and grumpy (Theo) at their unannounced and late-ish arrival. Auggie, of course, had immediately found the right adapter and connected the SD card to his laptop. The card held only a single video. It was footage from a security camera, and it showed Gid in one of the jail’s private interview rooms, where he proceeded to have sex with a young woman in inmate scrubs. The video ended once the two separated.
