He was deliberately going somewhere else.
I followed him across town for approximately twenty minutes.
Eventually, he pulled into a parking area outside a modest brick building.
There was nothing remarkable about the place.
No expensive hotel.
No private residence.
No mysterious apartment.
Just a quiet building I had never paid attention to before.
He got out carrying his laptop and disappeared through the entrance.
I parked across the street.
Several minutes passed.
Then the doors opened again.
Eliam emerged beside an elderly man.
I leaned forward.
My breath caught.
“Frank?”
Frank had been our neighbor when Eliam and I bought our first home.
He and his wife, Marian, had been wonderful people.
They collected packages for neighbors.
Remembered birthdays.
And somehow always knew when the neighborhood recycling schedule changed.
Marian had passed away two years earlier.
Not long afterward, Frank sold their house and moved nearer to his grandson.
