20. Harper
HARPER
Ginger talks the entire walk from the classroom to the pickup line, which isn’t unusual, except today the subject is a boy named Theo who just moved here from somewhere with actual mountains.
“He’s the new kid,” she informs me, buckling herself in with more enthusiasm than the task usually gets. “He sits next to me now. Ms. Alvarez moved the seats.”
“Is he nice?”
“He’s funny. He can wiggle his ears without touching them. Nobody else in our whole class can do that.”
“That’s a rare skill.”
“I know.” She says it with total conviction, like she’s personally vetted the entire school for ear-wiggling talent and found only one qualified candidate. “We’re going to sit together at lunch tomorrow too. He likes dragons. Not as much as me, but a normal amount.”
I smile, pulling out of the pickup line, half listening to a detailed account of Theo’s opinions on dragons versus dinosaurs, when I notice him.
A man standing at the far end of the pickup lane, not near any car, not greeting any child, just standing with his hands in his pockets, watching the flow of kids and parents with an attention that doesn’t match anyone waiting for a ride.
He’s not dressed for the school run: dark jacket, nothing casual about him, and he doesn’t check his phone the way everyone else waiting around does. He just watches.
I clock his face as best I can in the few seconds I have driving past, mid-thirties maybe, unremarkable except for how still he stands compared to everyone shuffling around him.
By the time I’ve turned out of the lot, I’ve mostly convinced myself it’s nothing. A parent running late, a driver waiting for someone who works at the school, a hundred boring explanations that don’t require the small knot forming in my stomach.
I decide to swing by the club on the way home, an excuse more than a necessity. Viktor left his charger at the house this morning, and I’ve got it in my bag, though if I’m honest with myself I mostly just want to see him before the day’s fully over.
Ginger’s been asking for Marisol all week, so I drop her there for a couple hours instead of taking her straight home, an easy excuse to give myself a little time before I have to decide whether the man at the fence is actually worth mentioning to anyone.
The club looks different in daylight, less mysterious, more like an actual business with actual employees doing inventory and restocking a bar that won’t open for hours yet.
Crates of liquor line the hallway, a woman with a clipboard counting bottles against a manifest, calling out numbers to someone I can’t see.
One of the dancers, maybe, or a bartender, nods at me on his way past carrying a box of glassware, easy and familiar, like I’ve become a fixture here too, not just Viktor’s.
A woman near the entrance nods at me as she recognizes me, and I realize she probably does; more people here know my face than I know theirs.
Someone’s arguing quietly near the DJ booth about a sound system that isn’t working right, and a delivery truck idles out back, its driver waiting on a signature from someone I assume is a manager.
It’s ordinary in a way I don’t usually get to see, this place stripped of its nighttime performance, just a business running through its daylight machinery like any other business does.
Dimitri’s in the office doorway when I walk in, on the phone, gesturing at someone across the room with the particular efficiency of a man running several things simultaneously.
He catches my eye, holds up one finger, and I wait while he finishes something about a delivery schedule and a supplier whose name I don’t recognize.
“Harper.” He ends the call and actually smiles at me, something that still feels like an accomplishment given how guarded he was toward me those first weeks. “Viktor’s in the back. You didn’t have to come all this way for a charger.”
“I know. I wanted the excuse.”
“Fair enough.” He studies me for a second, his expression turning more assessing. “Everything okay? You look a little rattled.”
I almost tell him about the man at the school. Something stops me, some instinct that this is Viktor’s information first, and I just shake my head instead. “Long day. Ginger’s got a new best friend who can wiggle his ears. It’s been a whole ordeal.”
Dimitri laughs, real and easy, and points me toward the back office, and I find Viktor at his desk, sleeves rolled up, going through something on his laptop with the same focus Dimitri had on the phone.
He looks up when I knock on the doorframe, and the focus on his face eases into warmth the moment he sees me.
“You brought my charger.”
“I brought myself. The charger’s just my excuse.”
“I’ll take it.” He stands, comes around the desk, kisses me easily, like this is just an ordinary part of an ordinary day, and for a moment the man at the school fades into something that feels genuinely unimportant.
We talk for a few minutes about nothing, Ginger’s new friend, dinner plans, whether we need to stop for anything on the way home, and I almost don’t mention it at all.
I mention it anyway, once we’re back in my car and he’s leaning against the window telling me he’ll be home by seven.
“There was a man at Ginger’s school today,” I say, keeping my voice casual. “Pickup line. Just standing there, watching everyone. Didn’t seem to be with anyone.”
Viktor goes still in a way that has nothing to do with casual concern. “What did he look like?”
“Dark jacket. Mid-thirties, maybe. I didn’t get a great look… I was just driving past.”
“Did he approach anyone? Say anything?”
“No, he just watched. Why?” The sharpness in his voice is enough to make my own chest tighten. “Viktor, you’re scaring me a little.”
“I’m sorry.” He exhales, visibly working to soften his own reaction. “It’s probably nothing. Schools attract strange loiterers for all sorts of harmless reasons: delivery drivers on break, a relative running late, someone waiting on a ride share.”
“You don’t actually believe that, based on your face right now.”
“I don’t know what to believe yet. That’s the honest answer.” He rubs a hand over his jaw, and for a second his composure slips enough that I see real worry underneath it. “That’s why I need to look into it before I say anything more.”
“That’s not actually reassuring.”
“I know.” He rests a hand on the car door, jaw tight in the way I’ve learned means he’s holding something back. “I’ll have someone look into it. Just to be safe.”
“Look into it how? Viktor, what aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing you need to worry about tonight.” He kisses my forehead gently, a clear attempt to close the conversation rather than continue it. “I promise, the second there’s something real to tell you, I will.”
I want to push harder. I’ve wanted to push harder every single time he’s done this: the courthouse, the car outside the house I only half noticed last week, this. But I also know by now that pushing doesn’t get me anywhere faster, just gets me a longer wait for the same eventual non-answer.
“Okay,” I say instead, though it isn’t, not really. “Seven o’clock. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t be.”
I pick Ginger up from Marisol’s on the way home, and she climbs in already talking, something about a puzzle she and Marisol finished, all one hundred and fifty pieces, and how Marisol let her have popcorn for a snack even though it was almost dinner time.
“That’s a lot of pieces,” I say.
“It took forever. Can we do a smaller one tonight?”
“We’ll see.”
She keeps talking, and I let her, grateful for the noise.