Save her.

One day, out of the blue, that enigmatic idea took root in my mind and refused to leave. With each passing day it burrowed deeper into my psyche, displacing every other thought along the way, until only it remained. A singular imperative that consumed my life. Work became impossible and I lost my appetite. When I managed to find sleep, I dreamed only of her. The same vivid dream every night. A dream unlike any I’d ever had before.

She works in a coffee shop, but I don’t merely see her there. I sense her. I hear the distinctive resonance of her voice and her subtle regional accent. I see her long, wavy brown hair, parted down the middle, that falls to the small of her back, and the glint of hooped earrings. I smell the caramel notes of a latte on her breath and the lingering scent of nicotine on her fingertips. I feel the frayed ends of white threads where her jeans split at the knees, and the softness of her layered shirts.

The coffee shop is rendered in detail that’s equally sharp. Plank floors, worn to bare wood in front of the counter from years of shuffling snow boots. Beans churning and sliding against the inside of a roaster drum. The crackle of wood burning in the fireplace. Stacked demitasse cups chattering on top of the espresso machine.

She tilts a stainless steel pitcher of cold whole milk underneath the hissing steam wand. Her weak smile is forced, plastered on for the sake of her customers. Although her motions are practiced, her hands shake and her body quivers. The shiver of primal fear. Impending doom has cast its shadow over her. She’s in grave peril. Death stalks her. Its ominous presence creeps ever closer. A dark, sinister figure moving stealthily through a pitch black room. Reaching out its clawed hand for her. For me. For everyone. She drops the pitcher and screams, and I wake up in a sweat with those two words echoing in my mind.

Save her.

The number appeared shortly thereafter. A precise, thirteen-digit sequence. 4740271164707. First on my cell phone. Random calls and text messages at all hours of the day and night. Always from the same Saskatchewanian phone number and extension. Returning the call resulted in an out-of-service message, so I blocked the number.

After that, I saw it everywhere I looked. It was the account number on a prepaid Visa debit card I saw at the drug store, the UPC on of a pack of socks I purchased, the tracking number on a package delivered to my home, the serial number on the back of the POS system at the gas station, and the transaction identifier for an online payment. The number appeared on random signs as I made my way through town. I heard it on the radio in my car. I found it printed in the newspaper. I saw it on billboards. The same damned number every time. Hidden in plain sight.

My sanity ebbed away.

Save her. 4740271164707.

What was the connection? There had to be one. I sat hunched over my laptop to study the number. I twisted it. I manipulated it. I tied it into knots. I factored its primes. I analyzed the frequency of its digits. I investigated whether it was the result of a specific encoding or hashing algorithm. I considered the number of digits. Thirteen. An odd number. A prime number. A Fibonacci number. The sum of two squares. Was any of that relevant?

I searched for it online and cross-referenced it against a multitude of databases. Patent numbers, historical dates, ISBNs, serial numbers, IP addresses, financial data, anything I could think of. I converted it into other formats and numerical bases and applied the same searches and convolutions to them.

Could it be a cypher? If so, what kind? Substitutional? Positional? Transpositional? Algorithmic? Was there a key text? A book? I checked against multiple versions of the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, the Vedas, and the Sutras. When that yielded no results, I checked against other famous works by Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Homer, Hugo, Plato, Dickens, and Bronte, to no avail.

The number wouldn’t segment evenly, but I tried anyway. Groups of six, five, four, three, and two digits. Always with an odd remainder. It was all nonsense. In desperation, I searched not just the groupings but also portions thereof. When I entered 47 40 27 into the search engine, the top results quickened my pulse.

GPS Coordinates.

Latitude and Longitude Finder.

Discover Coordinates.

Enter Latitude and Longitude.

Find Address.

Latitude ranges from zero to ninety degrees, longitude from zero to one-eighty, and minutes and seconds from zero to sixty. I examined the full number again, 4740271164707, then broke it into two segments. 474027 and 1164707. There it was.

I typed 47 40 27 116 47 07 into the map’s search bar. Nothing showed on the screen except a red pin, until I zoomed out. A remote location in the desolate frontiers of eastern Mongolia, near the Chinese border. No civilization for miles in any direction. Certainly no coffee shops. Was it just another dead end? Then, an intuition. I changed the latitude from E to W and searched again. This time, the pin rested atop a business in a city center. North West Coffee Company. My heart thundered in my chest. Zooming out, the map revealed a small city nestled in the northern Rockies that I’d never heard of before. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

I clicked on the coffee shop’s business listing and scrolled their photos. It was the very same place I’d dreamed about, down to the smallest detail. Dozens of images flew by. Chalk boards scrawled with menu items and prices, crispy pastries glistening with icing, cups of dark-brown, espresso-based drinks topped with delicate latte art, and steaming coffee beans in a roaster’s cooling tray. A photograph of a smiling young barista standing in front of a three-group espresso machine brought me to a halt. I zoomed in on her nametag. Shelby.

My god, it was her. I reached out to touch the screen. Her hair was different. Shorter and streaked through with blue highlights, but there was no doubt. She was the girl from my dreams. She was real.

The imperative became a compulsion. I booked the next available flight to Spokane. A one-way nonstop. I carried onboard with me only a backpack containing a change of clothes, a few toiletries, and my laptop. I brought my passport too, just in case. From the airport, I drove a rented sedan forty miles east to the coffee shop, where I sat in the parking lot outside.

What would I do? What would I say? Hi, Shelby. I saw you in my dreams. You’re in danger and we need to get out of here. No way. She’ll think I’m a psycho. She’ll tell someone to call the police, and maybe she should. It sounded insane. What if there was something wrong with me? I needed to get the hell out of there.

I put my finger on the ignition button, prepared to leave, when a wave of fear washed over me. Several years ago, while hiking the Grand Canyon, I stepped a little too close to the edge of the path. The sandstone crumbled and gave way under my foot. I started to fall. My friend barely managed to grab hold of my pack in time to keep from going over. I remembered looking straight down the canyon wall, a sheer two hundred foot drop, and I felt mortal fear unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

That’s what I felt sitting in the car. The certainty of impending death. It left me huddled in the driver’s seat, quaking with terror like a child as a giant hand clamped down on the back of my neck and squeezed. Whatever was coming was almost here. I couldn’t leave. There was no time.

Save her.

Stepping from of the car, I realized how unprepared I was for northern Idaho in the middle of winter. Freezing winds blasted across the icy lake and buffeted me, chilling my face and numbing my lips. I hurried across the parking lot, careful to avoid patches of black ice, and made my way up the rock-salted wheelchair ramp to the coffee shop’s main entrance. The moment I threw open the door and stepped inside, I was struck by a powerful sense of déjà vu. The sights, sounds, and smells. At once foreign and recognizable. I’d never been to Idaho, let alone ever stepped foot inside that coffee shop before, yet the place was as familiar to me as my own house. As if I’d been getting my coffee there for years.

I hugged my arms for warmth and moved my eyes immediately to the counter but I didn’t see her. The shop was half empty. A few patrons, mostly seniors and middle-age women, took advantage of the late afternoon lull to camp out at small tables, seated quietly behind their laptops, or to lounge in chairs with their noses buried in their phones. I went to the counter where an effervescent blonde girl named Katelyn stood waiting with her hands resting on the counter.

She greeted me with a welcoming, “Hi, there!” then tilted her head. “Wow, aren’t you cold?”

“Is Shelby working today?”

Her smile faltered. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Is she here?”

The crash of breaking dishes made me jump and spin around. There she stood near the back patio door, a plastic bussing tray full of shattered cups and saucers lying at her feet. The heavyset girl wore a pair of high-waisted mom jeans and a loose-fitting North West Coffee t-shirt, layered over a knitted wool thermal. Hoop earrings dangled from her lobes. Just like in my dreams.

“No.” She covered her mouth and gasped, eyes widening, dark eyebrows lifting in disbelief. She shook her head and teared up. “No, no, no, this can’t be real. You can’t be real.”

“Shelby!” I went to her and held her by the shoulders. “It’s real, and we need to go. Now.”

“What’s going on, Shelby?” Katelyn asked with alarm.

Several other baristas, all of them girls in their late teens and early twenties, edged closer to the counter. Two men wearing black bib aprons strode quickly from the roasting area at the rear of the shop. One was much older than the other, his shoulder-length, graying hair tied back in a short ponytail. The younger one was a clean-cut kid in his early to mid-twenties. The coffeeshop patrons had all stopped what they were doing to gawk at us. Shelby hid her face in her hands and shook her head vehemently.

“No, this can’t be happening,” she cried.

“Shelby, listen to me!” I said in a panicked voice, shaking her. “We are out of time! It’s almost here!”

“You alright, Shelby?” the older man inquired, eyeing me with suspicion. “Who is this man?”

“Please, Shelby,” I implored, “we have to go!”

Determined that I was a threat, the young man leaped to her aid. “Hey, let go of her!” he yelled, grabbing my arm.

Turning quickly, I shoved him hard in the chest. He stumbled backwards and tipped over a small empty table, tripping and landing on top of it with a crash. Patrons jumped to their feet.

“Allie, call 911!” the older man shouted to one of the girls behind the counter. He sized me up, gauging his chances of taking me on by himself.

The words blared in my head. Save her! Save her! Save her!

“Shelby!” I shouted, taking her hand. “We have to go! Now!”

She offered scant resistance when I pulled her along with me to the front door, but as soon as we stepped outside she stopped resisting and ran across the parking lot with me at top speed, fleeing from the same unseen danger. Several people followed us out, including the two men who now raced after us. I unlocked the car and pointed to the passenger side.

“Hurry, get in!”

We dropped into our seats and pulled the doors shut just as her two male co-workers arrived. The older one managed to get her door open before I could lock it, and he yanked her out of the seat by her arm.

“It’s okay, Shelby, I’ve got you!” he said.

“No, Tom!” she screamed, struggling to break free of his grip. “Let go!”

The younger man took hold of her other arm, and the two dragged Shelby back toward the coffee shop, even as she crouched and dug in her heels and pulled against them to get away. I rushed around the back of the car and threw my shoulder into Tom, slamming him up against the bed of a salt-crusted pickup truck, then quickly turned and shoved the kid away.

“Let her go!” I shouted. Both men pulled up short, Tom with a flabbergasted expression on his face.

“Shelby, what the hell is going on?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“Get in the car!” I yelled, pointing to the open passenger-side door. “There’s no time for this!”

While the two men looked on, Shelby climbed back into her seat and pulled the door shut. I started the car and threw it into reverse. The young kid jumped out of the way to avoid getting run over, then trotted alongside the car with his hand on Shelby’s window as I gunned it out of the parking lot. I watched him recede in the rearview mirror with his hands held up, shouting after us.

“Shelby!”

After a few twists and turns, I noticed signs for I-90 and followed them to the eastbound onramp. I had no idea where I was going, or even what we were running from, but for the first time in days, the voice in my head was still. When the adrenaline finally wore off, I relaxed my grip on the wheel. I fell in line behind a semi, set the cruise control and following distance, and finally relaxed into my seat.

Shelby sat quietly, staring straight ahead with vacant eyes, ignoring the incessant vibrations and chimes of her phone’s urgent notifications. In frustration, she turned it off.

“What’s going on?” she asked in a low voice.

“I don’t know.”

“Why were you in my dreams?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s about to happen to us?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

We travelled in silence for a while before she asked, “Where are we going?”

I turned to look at her. “I don’t know, Shelby. I just don’t know.”

We followed the frozen north shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene for a time, until the highway carried us into the dense, pine-covered mountains of Coeur d’Alene National Forest. I turned on the radio. Finding nothing but country, talk radio, and Christian stations, I turned it off again. After an hour of silent driving, I spotted an exit sign for Mullen, a tiny alpine town near the Montana border. Shelby perked up in her seat when I exited onto the offramp.

“Why are we stopping? Where are we?”

“Nowhere. We need to talk.”

The tiny Olde Town Café had only two booths, and we settled into one of them. The waitress came from behind the counter to take our orders, then poured us two cups of stale coffee that smelled like charred rubber and pencil shavings from a filthy glass carafe. Neither of us touched our mugs.

I studied the girl seated across from me. She had a cute round face full of youthful femininity. I recalled the picture of her standing at the espresso machine that I’d seen online. Such an endearing, photogenic smile, standing in stark contrast to the pensive grimace she now wore. Her round cheeks were tinged with pink from the cold outside. She was agitated, her attention on the sugar packet dangling from her fingers that she was nervously flicking back and forth. Occasionally, she looked up, or glanced at the diner counter where the bored waitress sat, reading something on her phone and paying us no mind.

“What’s your name?” she finally asked.

“I’m Neil. Neil Swanson.”

She repeated my name under her breath, flicking the little sugar packet back and forth.

“When did the dreams start for you?” I asked, gathering up her full attention.

“About a week ago,” she said, bobbing her head up and down as if grooving to the unheard rhythm of her internal thoughts. “What about you?”

“The same. Every night, the same dream.”

“Were they about me?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Yeah. You’re standing behind the espresso machine at the coffee shop and you look exactly like you do right now, right down to those earrings. You’re shaking with fear because something’s after you. Then you scream and I wake up.”

She stared at me and shook her head. “Fuck.”

“What about you?”

She cleared her throat and lifted her eyebrows, her gaze drifting back to the sugar packet. “Well ... you’re standing at the register, pretty much exactly where you were when I came in, and you look...” She lifted her eyes to mine. “What the hell is going on, Neil?”

“Finish.”

Shelby waved her hand at me, then returned her attention to the packet and sighed. “Exactly the way you do right now. I saw that weird ring on your finger and everything.”

I turned over my hand and made a fist, rubbing my thumb over the chunky gold ring on my right ring finger.

“Every ... little ... fucking...,” she flung the packet across the table, “ ... detail.” Still needing to fidget, she picked up her napkin and tore little pieces off of it, dropping them into her coffee. She laughed to herself. “I even knew what you’d smell like. Sandalwood.”

“You smoke, don’t you?” I asked.

Her eyes shot to mine. “How did you-?” she started to ask, but she didn’t need to finish the question. She knew exactly how I knew. “My parents don’t know.”

I lifted my eyebrow. Parents? “How old are you?”

“Why?” she asked with an impertinent lift of her chin. “How old are you?”

“Not that it matters, but I’m forty-three. Now, answer the question.”

“If it doesn’t matter, then why’d you ask?”

“Fuck’s sake,” I muttered, pushing my mug further away. I spread out my hands in front of me and kept my voice low. “Because, if you’re a kid then I’m in deep fucking shit right now. That’s why.”

She managed to roll her eyes and cast them down in the same movement. “Oh ... right,” she said, sounding embarrassed. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“How old, Shelby?”

“Eighteen.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank god. I didn’t know much about the law, but I’d listened to enough true crime podcasts to know that transporting a minor across state lines was a Federal offense. The last thing I needed right now was the FBI hunting for us.

“Do you still live at home with your folks?” I asked and she nodded. “College?”

She furrowed her brow and shook her head. “High school.”

“High school,” I repeated, shaking my head. “Great.”

“I graduate in May,” she rushed to say, sounding defensive.

Christ almighty. Even if she was technically an adult, she was still a school-aged teenager. Once her parents found out that a strange man came into her work and disappeared with her, they’d have every cop in the state out looking for her.

“You need to call them and tell them you’re okay,” I said.

Remembering her phone, Shelby pulled it from her pocket and turned it back on. Notifications chimed for nearly thirty seconds.

“Holy shit,” she said under her breath as she scrolled her messages. “Everyone’s looking for me.”

“No shit. Call them.”

She looked up. “What should I tell them?”

“I didn’t know. Tell them you’re okay.”

“What if they ask me where I am?”

Shit. I wiped my face with both hands. Although the voice in my head telling me to save Shelby remained quiet during our short road trip, the boding dread I’d felt earlier travelled with me all the way to the diner, and grew stronger with each passing moment. Something was coming and it was coming fast. We didn’t have much time.

“Tell them I’m your boyfriend.”

Shelby recoiled in disgust. “Ew, gross.”

I tossed up my hand and scoffed. “Fine. You have a better idea?”

It turned out, she didn’t.

“Shelby!” I heard her anxious mother shout from the other side of the call, her fearful voice tinny and shrill through the phone’s tiny speaker. “Oh, thank god! Are you alright? What happened?”

“I’m fine, mom.”

“Fine? Tom called. He said a crazy man walked into the store and attacked everyone, and then forced you into his car! We’ve been trying to reach you for hours!”

Shelby forced a laugh. “Oh my god, he’s such a drama queen! I’m fine, mom. For real. It was nothing.”

I heard a second voice, this one masculine. Shelby’s father, I assumed. “Quiet!” her mom chided. “I’m trying to talk to her. Ugh, fine. Shelby, honey, where are you?”

“Out, mom. I’ll be back later.”

“Out? Out where? Who was that man?”

“No one.”

“Bullshit!” the man shouted, his voice now loud and clear. Shelby’s mom must have put the phone on speaker. “Who the hell is he, Shel?”

Shelby looked at me with an anxious expression. “I just told you, dad. He’s nobody.”

“Shelby Cooper Evans, you better tell me who that man is and you better tell me right this second, or so help me god I’m going to ground you for a month! Do you hear me?”

“Shelby,” her mother interjected, lowering her voice. “Your father called the police!”

“Dad!”

“You bet your ass I did, so you better tell me who the fuck that man is right now, young lady, before the police find him first!”

“Dad, you can’t do that!”

“The hell I can’t!”

“Stop screaming at her, Hunter!” her mom shouted, trying to calm him down.

Shelby straightened in her seat. “I’m an adult now, dad. I’m old enough to see whoever I want.”

No sound came from the other end of the line for a very long time. Long enough that worry lines formed on Shelby’s forehead and she bit her lip. Then her parents’ overlapping voices exploded from the tiny speaker. Shelby moved the phone away from her ear.

“Seeing? What do you mean, seeing? Don’t tell me you’re dating that criminal? How old is he? I swear to god, Shel, if that man lays one fucking hand on you!”

“Hang up the phone,” I told her.

“Who is that?” her dad asked. “Is that him? Put him on the goddamned phone, right now!”

“Hang up.”

Shelby held the phone straight out in front of her lips and spoke as quickly as she could. “Gotta go, dad. Love you, mom. Call you later, okay? Promise. Love you. Bye.”

“Shelby, no! Wait!”

With a frantic swipe, she ended the call and dropped the phone face down on the table like it was on fire. Shaken by the call, she rested her elbows on the table and covered her face, breathing heavily.

“Oh my god, I’m in so much trouble,” she said in a shaky voice, then collapsed back into the cushioned banquette.

“Forget about that,” I said, pushing the phone closer to her. “You need to call the police right now and tell them you weren’t kidnapped.”

“You want me to call the cops? Are you crazy?”

“Damn it, Shelby, there’s probably an APB out for us right now. A hundred dollars says that kid got my license plate number when we were driving away. You’re an adult. Just call them and tell them your dad overreacted. They’ll call off the search.”

She must not have been an adult for very long, because the concept seemed foreign to her. Just as she picked up her phone, it rang. She checked the screen to see who it was and sent the caller straight to voicemail.

“Should I call 911?” she asked.

“No, definitely not. Look up the their non-emergency number and call that.”

After a short internet search, and two more declined phone calls from her parents, Shelby found the correct number and dialed it. She locked eyes with me, and I watched her anxiety level ratchet up each time the phone rang. I took a deep, calming breath and encouraged her to do the same.

“Relax,” I said. “Remember, you’re an adult. You can go anywhere in the world you want with whoever you want. You don’t have to tell them where you are or who you’re with.”

A woman answered the phone. “City of Coeur d’Alene Police Department non-emergency hotline. Are you in need of emergency assistance?”

“What? No.”

“Thank you. How may I direct your call?”

“Um, hi,” she said lamely.

“Ma’am, how can I assist you today?”

“Yeah, well, my dad said he called you guys and told you I was kidnapped or something. I’m not really sure.”

“Do you need me to connect you with police emergency dispatch?” the woman asked, her sudden concern evident in the tone of her voice.

“No!” Shelby shouted, then got her voice under control and managed a little laugh. “I mean, no. It wasn’t anything like that. I wasn’t kidnapped.” She took a deep breath. “My dad’s just being an asshole.”

The woman relaxed. “Can I please have your name, ma’am.”

“Shelby Evans.”

“Alright, and what’s your father’s name?”

“Hunter Evans.”

“Alright, Ms. Evans. Is there anyone else there with you right now?”

I waved my hands in front of my chest and mouthed, “No!”

“Uh-uh. Just me and my friend.”

I bugged out my eyes. Really?

“And what’s your friend’s name?”

After a long pause, Shelby asked, “W-why do you need his name?”

“Your friend’s a man?”

I threw my hands in the air and mouthed, “What the fuck?”

“No, I mean, yeah. I mean, you know, why does it matter?”

I heard the woman’s exasperated sigh from across the table. “Ma’am, please hold.”

I grabbed Shelby’s wrist and pulled her phone closer so that I could mute it. “Jesus Christ, Shelby. What the fuck?”

“I’m sorry!” she whined. “I get nervous talking to the cops.”

I let go of her. “I told you, just relax, okay? All you have to do is identify yourself and tell them you’re an adult making her own decisions. If they ask you any other questions, tell them it’s none of their business. Got it?”

She nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

“You’re not going to get in any trouble. Neither of us did anything wrong. We haven’t broken any laws. Right?”

“We haven’t?”

“No!” I said a little too loudly, then lowered my voice. “No, we haven’t. We’re just two people having a cup of coffee. If your parents don’t like it, tough shit.”

She smiled a little and nodded her head. After a long wait, a different woman came on the line. I reminded Shelby to unmute her phone.

“Detective Nichols, CDAPD.”

“Hi.”

“Hi, is this Shelby?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Hi, Shelby. Are you alright?”

“What? Yeah, totally!”

“Okay, Shelby. Are you free to speak with me right now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, is there any reason at all why you wouldn’t be able to answer my questions at this time?”

Shelby looked at me, unsure about how to respond. I nodded and indicated for her to just answer truthfully.

“Yeah, I mean no. Everything’s cool. Why, what’s up?”

“Are you in a public place right now? Someplace safe?”

Shelby looked around and said, “I mean, yeah. I’m sitting in a diner, drinking the world’s shittiest cup of coffee, if that’s what you mean.”

I noticed the waitress lift her head at that comment, but I shook my head and waved dismissively. The detective on the other end of the line coughed out a laugh.

“I see. Is there anything you’d like to tell me about what happened today?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, Shelby. Your parents and coworkers are very concerned about you right now. They said a man came into your work this afternoon acting strangely. He got violent with some of your coworkers and then dragged you out to his car. When your boss tried to intervene, the man attacked him and then yelled at you to get in the car and took off with you inside.”

“What? No! That’s not what happened at all!”

“Alright then, why don’t you tell me what happened, Shelby. Who was that man?”

When I shook my head, Shelby said, “He’s not anyone. I mean, it doesn’t matter who he is, because he didn’t attack me or anyone else.”

“Shelby, I have a dozen eyewitnesses that say he did.”

“Well, they’re lying. Look, this guy came in and Taylor just grabbed his arm for no reason, so the guy pushed him off. Then we went out to his car, and Tom and Taylor totally grabbed me and tried to drag me away. The guy was just protecting me.”

Detective Nichols didn’t respond for a long while. Finally she asked, “Is he there with you now? Would it be alright if I spoke with him?”

Shelby paused, then held out the phone to me with a questioning look. I took it from her and inhaled a deep breath.

“Hello?”

“Hello, sir. This is Detective Nichols with the City of Coeur d’Alene Police Department. Who am I speaking with?”

“Neil.”

“Neil what?”

“Just Neil is fine.”

“Is it alright if I get your last name, Neil, so I know who I’m talking to?”

“How can I help you, Detective Nichols?”

She sighed. “Well, I’d like for you to come down to the station and answer a few questions, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“About what?”

“I think you know, Neil. About what happened this afternoon.”

“Shelby just told you what happened.”

“Well, I’d like to get your side of the story.”

“Fine. I went inside and some kid attacked me for no reason. I pushed him away and then me and Shelby tried to leave. The same kid and some older guy followed us to my car and broke into it to attack Shelby. I pushed them off of her and then we left.”

“I have witnesses who swear that you attacked them first.”

I muted the phone. “Shelby, do they have any security cameras at that coffee shop?”

“Yeah, why?”

I unmuted the phone. “Shelby says that the coffee shop has security cameras. Check the footage if you don’t believe me.”