The Yellow Scarf

You read the messages from the stairwell three times before you fall asleep on Sabeen's couch again, and when you wake at noon they're still the first thing in your head. Not the words, exactly. The feeling of them. Like someone had put a coat around your shoulders through the screen.

Sabeen catches you smiling at the ceiling. "Oh no. The lamp."

"Shut up."

"I'm just saying, if the lamp turns out to be sixty-three and lives with his mother in Naperville, I'm going to be very supportive."

"He's not sixty-three." You don't know that. You don't know anything. You know he likes cherry pie, he hates the Bears' offensive line, and he says you're allowed to be scared like it's a law he personally passed.

At two o'clock the front desk at Fulton Audio calls up to Studio B. "Package for Ava Sadowski. No return address. It's soft."

"Soft?"

"Like a pillow, kind of? Want me to bring it up?"

"I'll come down."

You're halfway across the office when Xavier steps out of the Fishbowl and into your path. You almost walk into his chest. He's in the blazer again, glasses pushed up into his hair, and there's a crease between his eyebrows that you're starting to recognize as his resting face.

"Where's the package?" he asks.

"How do you know about the package?"

"I asked the front desk to tell me about anything addressed to you without a return address. It's on my list. It was in the email Ilona sent everyone on Monday." A beat. "You didn't read the email."

"I was busy being doxxed."

His mouth does something that on anyone else you'd call a wince. "Fair. Don't open it."

"It's my package."

"It's your package. I'm asking you not to open it with your hands." He holds up a pair of blue nitrile gloves like a magician producing a dove. "And I'm asking if I can be there when you do."

You stare at the gloves. He waits. Actually waits, the gloves held out, not moving toward the elevator, not moving toward you.

"Fine," you say. "You can be there."

The box is small, brown, taped neatly. Your name is printed on a label in a plain font. In the mailroom, with the door closed and Sabeen hovering, you put on the gloves, which are too big, and slit the tape.

Inside, folded into a perfect square, is a yellow scarf.

Your yellow scarf. The silk one from the thrift store on Milwaukee with the tiny embroidered lemons, the one you lost in July at the listener meetup in the park. You'd posted about it. If anyone finds a lemon scarf, it's my lucky one, please return to the lost and found of my heart.

Someone found it.

It smells like laundry soap. Not yours.

Under it is a card, typed. I kept it safe for you. I keep everything safe for you.

You make a sound you don't recognize. Sabeen says your name. Xavier says nothing at all, but he moves, just a little, so that his shoulder is between you and the door.

"Put it down," he says quietly. "Back in the box. You don't have to look at it anymore."

You put it down. Your hands are shaking inside the gloves.

He takes out his phone, and for one wild second you think he's going to post about it, or call Ilona, or do some impressive thing with a laptop. Instead he dials and says, "Cleo. It's Eckhart. I've got a physical item for the Sadowski matter. Yeah. No, nobody's touched it but her, gloved. I'll bag it."

Detective Cleo Neves arrives at four, a calm woman around forty with her braids pinned up and reading glasses on a cord around her neck. She looks at the scarf, the card, the label. She looks at you like she's seen a hundred of you and still minds about every one.

"Here's the honest version," she says, sitting across from you in the Fishbowl, while Xavier leans in the corner with his arms crossed. "Illinois has a stalking law and a cyberstalking law. They're decent laws. What they need is a pattern, which we're building, and a person, which we don't have. A photo of a door isn't a crime. An address post is ugly and against every platform's rules and right on the line legally. This," she nods at the evidence bag, "is your property coming back to you with a creepy note. Together, they start to look like a course of conduct. But I need a name before I can do anything with it."

"So we wait for him to do something worse."

"We wait for him to make a mistake." Her eyes slide to Xavier. "And we don't do anything that would get evidence thrown out. Right, Eckhart?"

"By the book," Xavier says. "Always."

"He sent me a preservation packet a little after midnight on Tuesday," Neves tells you. "Every post, every link, every timestamp, before I'd even had coffee. You've got good people around you, Ms. Sadowski."

You look at Xavier. He's looking at the floor.

"That was GHOSTLIGHT," you say. "Not him. One of my mods sent it."

Neves pauses for a fraction of a second. "Right," she says. "I get a lot of packets."

Ilona catches you in the hall before you leave. "I heard about the scarf." Her red mouth is sympathetic and her eyes are doing math. "Downloads are up four hundred percent since Monday. People are worried about you. People care."

"Ilona."

"I'm only saying, sweetheart, that when this is over, there's a story here. Your story. Think about it."

"I'm thinking about throwing up."

"Think about both," she says, and sweeps away.

That night Sabeen falls asleep halfway through a cooking show and you lie in the blue glow of the TV and open the Porch. GHOSTLIGHT is already there.

heard about the scarf. are you ok?

how did you hear?

the mod channel. you told the mods to watch for anyone who mentioned it.

That's true. You did. You type, i'm not ok. he touched it. he washed it. he kept it for two months. i keep thinking about him folding it.

A long pause. Longer than any pause he's ever left.

Ava. i want to ask you something and you can say no and nothing changes. i'll still be here. i'll still take down every post.

Your heart picks up.

ask.

i want to meet you. in person. not because i want anything from you. because you're scared of a man with no face, and i think it might help to see that the person on your side has one.

You stare at the words until they blur.

where?

the nighthawk. 2 a.m. tomorrow. back booth. bring your friend, have her wait in the car with the engine running, tell her to come in if you text one word. and if you don't like what you see, walk out. i'll understand. i'll still be here.