Out of the Cold by Norah McClintock Page B

didn’t want to get involved with anyone else, even if he turned out to be a whole lot nicer than I had originally thought. I told myself that Nick was the one for me—Nick, who had left town without a word to anyone. A wave of anger washed over me. I blocked both Ben and Nick out of my mind and turned my attention to the two books.

CHAPTER NINE
    B
    oth of the battered paperbacks that had been in Mr. Duffy’s pockets when he died were written by Charles Dickens. One was
Great Expectations
. The other was
Hard Times
. I flipped through them. A business card was tucked in the pages of the first book—from one of the best hotels in the city. I held it up so Ben could see it.
    â€œHe must have picked it up somewhere,” Ben said. “Probably used it as a bookmark.”
    I held the front and back covers of each book and shook them gently. A slip of paper fell out of
Hard Times
. I picked it up and looked at it.
    â€œAnything useful?” Ben said.
    â€œIt’s a receipt.” I studied the faint ink. “From a thrift store.” In fact, it was from one of the shops that Morgan had visited earlier that morning. “But I can’t tell what he bought—it only says ‘clothing’ and the price. And the date. About two months ago.”
    â€œIn other words, not useful,” Ben said.
    I turned the receipt over. Someone had written what appeared to be a phone number on the other side, followed by the letter
F
.
    â€œWould you recognize Mr. Duffy’s handwriting if you saw it?” I said.
    Ben shook his head. I looked at the phone number again. It had been written in pencil and had faded, but it was still legible. The numbers were formed in a thin, elegant hand.
    â€œDoesn’t look like a man’s handwriting,” I said. “And it sure doesn’t look like the handwriting you’d expect from a homeless person.”
    â€œA homeless person who likes tea and Charles Dickens and daffodils?” Ben said.
    He had a point. I had thought of Mr. Duffy as just a crazy old man who stole cookies and shoved people when he got mad, a man who was nothing besides what you saw. But he had come from somewhere. And he must have started out like everyone else: young and with the potential to become almost anything. It was possible that he had spent his whole life on the street, but it didn’t seem likely. There just had to be a way to find out more about him. I looked down at the faded receipt. Then I dug into my bag, pulled out my cell phone, and started to punch in numbers.
    â€œWho are you calling?” Ben said.
    A phone rang somewhere at the other end of the line. It rang again and again until someone finally picked up.
    â€œHello?” A man’s voice.
    â€œHello,” I said. “Who am I talking to?”
    â€œWho do you
want
to talk to?” the man said. He sounded annoyed.
    â€œIs Morgan there?”
    Ben gave me a funny look. “Morgan is at Billy’s house,” he said.
    Instead of telling me that I had the wrong number, the man at the other end of the line called out, “Is there a Morgan here?” The number on the back of the receipt didn’t belong to a private residence. I must have called some kind of public place. The man came back on the line. “You’re out of luck,” he said. “There’s no one here named Morgan.”
    â€œUm, where is here, exactly?” I said.
    â€œLook, sweetheart, you made the call. I just picked up the phone. Your friend isn’t here, and a dryer just opened up. If I don’t grab it, someone else will and I’ll have to go home with wet undies, you know what I’m saying?”
    Dryer? Wet undies?
    â€œMorgan left me a message,” I said. “She wanted me to bring her some fabric softener, but she didn’t give me the name of the place or the address.”
    I heard the man shout, “Touch that dryer and you die!”
    â€œHello?