Darren’s office was empty, though the lights were on. He stepped into the bull pen, and all of the desks were empty, though the computer screens all glared with light. Bill’s chair was pushed away from his desk, as if he’d left in a hurry; its back hung up on the front rim of Maggie’s desk. “Huh,” Evan murmured. All of their cars were in the lot, and he hadn’t seen anyone up on the dock. No ships were in this morning, though a couple were due, he knew. He looked out the back window to the dock and confirmed that nobody was in sight. The pier extended out into the water without a single tie-up so far today. It was a beckoning finger into the ocean that remained unanswered. “Huh,” Evan said again, and went to his desk to turn on his computer, which was obvious in its off-ness. He was late again. And this time, he had apparently missed something big. I’m going to hear about this, I bet. As the Windows 95 logo lit up the screen, he noticed a handwritten note on a Post-it dangling from his monitor.
