Laurie felt something very, very unfortunate happening in the pit of her stomach. “Well, my—a guy I know brought it in for me. I’m looking at the report right now. It’s on your letterhead, dated yesterday.”
“It says Wesson and Truitt on the top? Blue lettering?”
Did he think she couldn’t read? “Yes, of course.”
“Ma’am, I have to tell you, I’m stumped. If you can, go back to your friend and double check that what he gave you is our document, and that he didn’t maybe put together his own report referencing ours? Have him give you the original.”
“I’m sure it’s the original.” She was not sure it was the original. She cleared her throat. “I’m going to check and get back to you.” After she hung up, Laurie sat on the couch, staring at the report. Letterhead at the top looked right, the same logo that showed on their website. The phone number was different, though, from the one she’d just called. Not unusual—lots of places have more than one number. She dialed the number on the report, but the phone just rang and rang.
Something is wrong, but I don’t know what. Something is wrong. What’s wrong? Am I confused? She had that feeling that you get when you’re searching the parking lot and you’re briefly certain that your car has been stolen, until you turn around and it’s there. Her car was going to be there in this case, she was sure of it. It was just, there was something confusing, what was it? She had been looking the report up and down for close to a minute when her eyes fell on the tiny, tiny footer type at the very bottom of the page. The address was listed as 1234 Bluebird Way. And under that, there was a space for a motto, a little spot where you’d expect to see “Est. 1905” or “Best plumbers for the money” or something.
On this piece of paper, at the very bottom, under the fake-sounding address, it said, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.”
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no.
* * *
—
Laurie normally loved going to Camden; it was touristy down by the water, but there were sprawling houses not far away that she had admired when she was little, dream houses with acres of space spread out around them. And a couple of blocks from the road, there was a small building with a sign outside that was divided in two: the left side said SEA SPRAY ANTIQUES, and the right side said SAVE THE BEST. There was only one door. Laurie parked her car and went up onto the stoop to peek inside. It was neat and quaint, with long shelves full of dishes and clocks and lamps and vases, full but not cramped. She stepped inside, and a bell rang.
She didn’t see Matt, but a woman with short dark hair and a Captain America T-shirt was sitting behind a counter in the back. She called out a greeting at the sound of the bell, and Laurie acknowledged her with a smile and a weak wave. She walked up a row of clocks, touching their bases even though the sign said DO NOT TOUCH, watching the row progress from small bedside models to tall living-room fixtures that probably had to be wound by hand. At the end of the row, she saw that there was a desk in the corner opposite where Captain America was, with two chairs out in front of it and one behind it. There was no one there, just a computer, an old-school yellow rotary phone, and a display of business cards. She went over and took one, and it was identical to the one Matt had brought to her when he came to Dot’s house. There were two phone numbers listed. One had the words “business hours” next to it, and one—the one he’d called her from a few times that he’d said was his cell—said “anytime.”
Laurie hid behind a row of shelves of twee figurines. She took out her cellphone and dialed the “business hours” number. The phone rang over at Captain America’s station, and Laurie hung up after one ring, before the woman could even pick it up. The yellow phone was silent. Laurie pulled the Wesson & Truitt invoice out of her purse and dialed the number printed at the top. The one that she already knew was not the number for Wesson & Truitt.
The yellow phone trilled.
It rang and it rang, and Captain America paid no attention to it. Laurie let it ring for almost a full minute before she hung up. Then she ambled over to Captain America. “Boy, somebody had a lot of time to spend waiting for you to answer.”
“Yeah,” Captain America said, rolling her eyes. “My boss doesn’t answer that phone. It’s for decoration and spam calls. The only guy in the world with a rotary burner phone, right?”
Laurie could barely breathe. Fake number. Dummy template language on the document he’d given her, which the people who supposedly printed it swore wasn’t theirs.