Kent stands in his doorway, taking in the scene: Aiden and I on his front step, inexplicably drenched, once again.

“If you’re planning on depositing another unconscious person on my couch, I’m not going to be happy,” he warns us.

“Not this time, boss.” Kent tries to glare at me, but it doesn’t quite work - his mouth won’t stay folded down. He’s in a good mood today, I can tell. It’s not like he’s a drag or anything, but Kent usually has between 5 to 10 things to be worried about at once, so to see him relaxed instead of serious is nice. It looks good on him, makes him stand taller. “Don’t suppose you can send Ellen to grab us some towels?” I ask, and Kent shakes his head.

“Ellen is at her friend’s house,” he says, just as the distinct sound of the tap running in the kitchen reaches us.

“Then who’s here?” Aiden asks.

“Kent?” calls a voice. “Do you want any more coffee? Because if not, I’m going to finish the pot!”

“Go for it!” Kent calls back quickly, shoving his glasses further up his nose.

“Is that Gabby?” I ask, and Kent steps back to let us into the house. We pause on the doormat just inside, our clothes still dripping. Kent pops into the guest bathroom and returns with two towels.

“Gabby is here to drop something off for Aiden, a work thing. I invited her to have a coffee and wait until you guys got back.”

“A work thing?” Aiden looks down at his wet clothes. “Oh, shit. Is there some way I can change before she-”

“Aiden! There you are.” Gabby steps out of the kitchen. She’s barefoot; I spot her heels neatly lined up by the door. It’s Sunday, so she’s not in work clothes, but her casual look much resembles them. A pretty navy dress with short sleeves and a square neckline. Her glossy black hair is in a neat plait that reaches down almost to her waist. She draws up short, taking us in. “Okay, what is the deal with you two? Do you just swim around in lakes and rivers waiting to prevent potential disasters?”

“No.” Aiden uses the towel to speedily dry his hair. “No disasters today.”

“Then what happened?” Gabby frowns at us. “Were you two trying to catch a new frog, or…?”

“We had a small issue at the Gho - at my dad’s work shed,” I explain.

“What kind of issue?” she asks, watching Aiden use the towel to remove a piece of waterweed from his hair.

“Problem with the heating,” I respond, and Aiden lets out a very quiet sigh to my left.

“Looks more like a problem with the plumbing,” Gabby says, her eyebrow raised. She has two cups of coffee in her hands, and she extends one to Kent, her golden bangles clicking softly. He moves to take it at once. “You do know that I can tell you two mentirosos are up to something, right?”

“Oh, uh-” I begin stammering, but Gabby holds up a hand.

“Don’t tell me, I don’t even want to know. Just answer me this: it’s not something illegal, is it?”

“Not… that we know of?” I look to Aiden for support.

“Bit of a personal project,” he explains. “Don’t worry, nothing that would show up in the papers under 'employee of Gabrielle Soto embarrasses himself with friend in tow'.”

“Well, your personal life is your personal life.” Gabby takes a sip of her coffee, one immaculate eyebrow still arched. “I wouldn’t normally come over on a Sunday, but I just intended to drop something off for you, Aiden. I have to go out of town for a few days this week. I’m afraid this is the only free moment I had.”

Aiden runs the towel over his forearms and tosses it to me.

“What’ve you got?”

“Mind if we use your dining table, Kent?” Gabby twists to look up at him. Without her heels, she’s almost a foot shorter than him.

“By all means.”

Kent and I trail the two City Hall employees into the dining room.

“What does mentirosos mean?” I whisper, and Kent shrugs.

“I don’t speak Spanish,” he whispers back, as Gabby pops into the kitchen. She returns with another exquisite purse, this one in a deep forest green.

“Gabby, honestly, will you help me pick out my next bag?” I ask, eyeing the elegant leather. “How many of these do you have?”

“Only two, I don’t hold onto much. I actually came into town with only one backpack worth of stuff.”

“What?” I gape at her, then swivel to stare at Aiden, who is biting back a grin. “Are you serious right now?”

“Nope.” Gabby smiles brightly. “Aiden told me it would rile you up if I said that.”

Kent laughs, and I scowl at both of them.

“You jerks.”

“Realistically, I have an issue with chronic overpacking.” Gabby opens up her purse. “You’d think being on the campaign trail would cure me of that, but alas.”

“Finally, someone in this town who understands me,” I answer, throwing an aggrieved look at Aiden. Gabby pulls a huge folder out of her bag and sets it on the table. Aiden reaches for it, and she swats his hand away with her manicured fingers.

“Not that. Hang on.” She extracts a second bursting folder, and then a copy of the City Hall employee handbook. Laminated, the current year’s edition.

“That thing must weigh like 10 pounds,” Kent says, as Gabby adds it to the growing stack. She withdraws two more folders, a spiral-bound presentation book with some very long words on the front, and finally a thinner folder, which she slides across the table to Aiden.

“Your purse is like a clown car,” I sputter, as Aiden flips the folder open. Gabby winks at me and begins tucking everything back into it carefully.

“Are these approvals for the materials I archived last week?” Aiden runs his eyes down the pages, and I move to stand behind him so I can see. Each page has an image, and next to it, rows of boxes filled with coded information I can’t even begin to decipher. I had no idea how complicated Aiden’s actual work was; I guess I assumed he basically spent the day scanning things. I haven’t been giving him enough credit.

“Yes, I approved most of them,” Gabby says briskly. “There are two typos, pages 15 and 46, I think?”

Aiden thumbs over to page 15. A pink Post-it note is stuck to the page, neat handwriting denoting the issue.

“I submitted these at like 5 PM on Friday,” Aiden says, glancing up at Gabby.

“Yep. I wanted to get them done before I left town for my appointment.” She watches him as he sets the folder out flat on the table. “It’s solid work, Aiden. There were only a few actual errors, and I think they all relate to the same thing.”

“Errors?” Aiden frowns down at the papers. “Besides the typos?”

“Yes.” Gabby flips towards one of the last pages and runs a red-painted fingernail over the information there. “These old papers related to the timber industry. You have them marked as complete originals.”

“I thought they were,” Aiden says, his brow furrowing.

“Nope. That super old timber company, Newman & Starr - when they closed, the original versions of their records were given to a timber industry association. Something called the Forest Industries Council. They should be in the archives there. What we have in our files are, I believe, short summaries of those documents, submitted to the city by the company before it folded. So, all of the documents between pages 50 and 70 should be listed as summaries. Don’t worry, it’s a quick fix.”

“These are just summaries of the original documents?” Aiden flips to page 50. “So - there might be more detailed versions of these at this timber association place?”

“Probably, I don’t know. All I need you to do is adjust the codes you filled in at the bottom of those pages, okay?”

“Okay,” Aiden says, but I can tell he’s sunk deep in thought, only half-listening. He glances at me like he’s trying to tell me something. I’m not sure what.

“Well, I’d better be off.” Gabby steps away from the table. “Kent, thank you for your hospitality. I only wish I’d gotten to meet Ellen! She sounds like quite the little force.”

“Oh,” Kent says, “Well-”

“You’ll have to come back,” Aiden jumps in. “You should definitely meet Ellen, Gabby. She’d really like you. Maybe next weekend, when you’re back in town? If you don’t mind me inviting people over on your behalf, Kent.”

“No, no, not at all.” Kent actually sounds flustered, which is new. I try to catch Aiden’s eye, but he’s not looking at me. “Gabby, you’re more than welcome. Ellen really is a handful, though…”

“Ay, it’s no problem.” Gabby smiles brightly. “My little nieces and nephews are the only ones in my family whose company I actually enjoy. I can handle a little nine-year-old. I love kids.”

“Oh, you do?” Kent says, staring at her, fiddling with his coffee cup. “Me, too. I mean, obviously.” He looks from Gabby to me to Aiden and back again. “Well then- yes, you should come over. I’ll cook something.”

“Kent’s a great cook,” Aiden adds.

“Wonderful.” Gabby snaps her purse shut and slips it onto her shoulder.

“Seriously, Gabby, do they make a dude-version of this bag?” I ask, and she smiles.

“A true fashionista is not constricted by what someone else decides is gender-appropriate, Jamie.” She sets a pair of rose-red sunglasses on her nose. “Kent, walk me out?”

“Of course.” Kent sets his mug down on the table too quickly; a little coffee splashes out and pools onto the wooden surface.

“Have a good trip!” Aiden calls, and she gives us an elegant wave before departing. Kent follows after her without looking back at us.

“Why is he being weird?” I ask, when they’re out of earshot. I turn back to face Aiden. “Why are you being weird?”

I keep my eyes trained on his face. His wet shirt is clinging tightly to every line and curve of his body, the hard ridge of his collar bones, the small dips at either corner of his waist. I spent the whole ride over here trying not to look at him too closely.

“I thought these were complete, not just summaries,” he muses, half to himself, his eyes still on the papers.

“It’s one mistake, no big deal.”

Aiden finally looks up at me. He extracts one page from the folder and slides it across the table. I recognize the image printed there. We have a copy of it at the Ghost Office. It’s the incident report from William Clarke’s death, and it falls in the range of page numbers that Gabby mentioned.

“Looks like the Forest Industries Council might have some more information for us,” Aiden says. “You up for a road trip?”

~~~~

“Snacks, check. Aux cable, check. Coffee, we’ll pick up on the way.” I close the trunk of my little blue car with a slam. “Are you sure you’re not going to get in trouble for skipping an entire day of work?”

“Gabby is out of town, and the guy she left in charge has his hands full with all nine thousand things on the to-do list she left him. I told him I had to do this trip for work, he signed the paper without even looking.”

Aiden has his thick black sunglasses on, his shiny brown hair tucked under his backward hat as usual. He leans against the car with his phone in his fingers, looking at the map of our drive. I brush off my hands and join him. Our drive time is listed at the bottom of the screen: 2.5 hours.

“Not too long for a road trip,” I tell him. “I guess we’re lucky this is a state-level organization. If it was national we’d probably be looking at a heftier ride time.”

“Mmm.” Aiden has been a little quiet this morning. I poke him in the ribs, and he looks up at me.

“What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.” He tugs open the passenger’s side door and climbs inside. I get into the driver’s seat, turn on the car, and then wait patiently. The radio, which I forgot to turn off, starts quietly playing a Kesha song. Aiden sighs when he realizes we won’t be moving until he fesses up. He pulls off his sunglasses and tosses them onto the dashboard. “I just - I don’t really like road trips.”

“Uh oh. Don’t tell me you get carsick.”

“It’s not that. I’ve just done enough of them for a lifetime.”

I don’t recall him ever taking one while we were in high school, so I have to assume he’s referring to the eight years he was out of town - a time period about which I still have almost no information. I do know he doesn’t like to talk about it, that it makes him sad.

“I just don’t find road trips that fun. That’s all.”

“Well, you’ve never been on one with me,” I tell him. “They’re always fun. Assuming the car doesn’t break down, which like, keep your fingers crossed.”

“Road trips with you are a party, huh?” Aiden asks. He still looks sad, and the urge to do something silly to cheer him up rushes over me.

“YEAH they are,” I shout, so loudly that he jumps. I seize the volume knob on the radio and crank it all the way to the max - a mistake, as it turns out. I had no idea how powerful my old speakers still are. Kesha’s voice blasts through the car at a volume that makes the entire vehicle seem to leap into the air:

IT’S GOING DOWN, I’M YELLING TIMBERRRR-

I scramble to turn the volume down to a reasonable level, gasping at my own error, and Aiden is staring at me with his hands clasped over his ears, his mouth open in shock. For a moment we stare at each other, as Kesha continues on: Let's make a night you won't remember, I'll be the one you won't forget…

We both dissolve into laughter, and Aiden smacks my shoulder.

“You are such a dumbass.” But the corners of his eyes are crinkled by a smile, which means that my plan sort of worked.

“Hey, though,” I say, putting the car in gear. “Timber is an appropriate song for our road trip to the Forest Industries Council, no?”

“Oh, my god. Shut up.” He retrieves his sunglasses from between his feet, where they fell when the car was nearly exploded by the power of Kesha. He sticks them back on his face, smiling to himself. He catches me watching him and quirks an eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that with the hat and the sunglasses you kind of look the way you did when I picked you up from the airport.”

“Are you referring to the look you later described to me as ‘Geico Caveman Hiking Edition?’”

“Yes. That’s the one. But now your beard is better, and your hair, and I know what’s behind the sunglasses, so.”

“So... you like it now?” Aiden asks, as I reverse us out of Kent’s driveway and onto the street.

“It’s growing on me.”

Aiden’s lips twist into a tiny smile. He looks down at his phone, opens up the map, and sets it into the grippy holder thing stuck to my dashboard. Our path out of town. I still wish that Kasey could have come with us, but I’m not risking taking her anywhere near the city limits again.

“So, what’s our plan?” I ask. “Mugshot first, obviously. But the Forest Ministries- Industry Forest…?”

“Forest Industries Council, or, FIC.”

“The FIC is cool with us going through their old documents?”

“Yeah, about that. It turns out they’re actually not cool with random people going through their old documents. I know you’re not the best liar, but…”

“Oh, no.”

“Yeah. We’re going to have to do a little bit of sneaking around.” He checks his watch. “We’ll change our clothes when we’re closer.”

“Change our clothes?”

“Don’t worry. I have a plan.”