Renee seemed to drift around looking for small things to do while waiting for Glen to take Sherman, as if she were keeping an eye on things so Glen didn’t have to. Perhaps looking for anything that Sherman might have messed with so they would have an excuse to call the sheriff instead of taking him to town, even if the sheriff would be too busy with the disaster. You didn’t simply let a criminal go, especially if you had a cage that you could lock him in.

Sherman put on his backpack and rain gear. It had dried over the evening and dust drifted down onto the carpet.

Renee came over and pushed him back onto the tile by the door.

“Please don’t get the carpet any dirtier than it already is. Isn’t it enough that you tracked mud onto it with your shoes?”

Sherman clenched his jaw. Just a few more minutes around her and he’d be on his way somewhere. Not back to town, even though that’s where Glen thought he was headed.

“If you’d be kind enough to get me my pad, I can stay here,” he said.

Renee looked over at the table.

Glen was standing there looking at the pad.

Sherman could imagine the display as it charged. The lines marching across the screen. Surely Glen had seen that before.

Then it dawned on him. The top of the screen showed the local network connections that it could use. Glen would see that it was on the wifi. The fact that it had a network connection at all would tell him that Sherman had been messing around. If Glen had noticed it earlier, he hadn’t said anything.

“Please let me have the pad. It’s the only way I can communicate with….”

He stopped himself. No need to mention Gramps or bring attention to his family.

“It’s the only way I’ll be able to find out where my family is in the refugee camps,” he said.

“There will be people there who can help you do that,” Glen said. “I’m curious why it shows network access when we don’t have a network running.”

Sherman felt his pulse pick up. The ball was rolling and he wasn’t sure how to stop it.

“I thought you were just looking for a place to get out of the rain and mud for the night?”

“I was,” he said. “But I thought there might be a network I could use to send my parents an email letting them know I was okay.”

“We don’t run a network when we aren’t using it. What else did you find while looking for the router?”

“Nothing,” Sherman said. He hadn’t seen anything else other than the papers that had fallen off the desk. Those could be passed off as disturbed when the monster climbed through the window.

“I figured out where the router must be and turned it on. Nothing else.”

Renee shrugged her shoulders. “I haven’t found anything missing or out of place.”

That confirmed Sherman’s earlier suspicions about what she was doing. He felt some relief. They might miss some of the food later, but that would be after he was gone.

Glen unplugged the pad and gave it to Sherman.

“We need to go. I’m about to fall asleep, and you don’t want me doing that while you’re in the truck.”

Of course, they would take a truck. This was out in the country, and they surely didn’t want Smitty inside a car that they would have to clean later.

That would make it easier for him to get away with Smitty if the chance came. He wouldn’t have to worry about opening two doors if Smitty could just jump out the back.

While Sherman and Glen went out the front to the truck, Renee went onto the deck and opened the gate for Smitty.

Smitty came running around the house.

Glen lowered the tailgate to let Smitty into the truck bed. Once in, he closed the tailgate and walked to the driver’s side.

The doors were unlocked, so Sherman climbed into the truck and put his seatbelt on.

Glen took the keys from the overhead shade.

Sherman kicked himself inside for not thinking about taking the truck. He probably would have regretted it later if he got caught with a stolen truck, but it would have helped him and Smitty get a lot farther down the road. He hadn’t known at the time though where he would need to go. If he had taken the truck, he would never have seen the diagrams. He’d never have an idea of where to look next for his family.