It was a text sent through an anonymous web app to the new private number I’d bought three days earlier.

Brent had dug up the number somewhere in my work email signatures.

He didn’t ask about the electricity or the food spoiling in the kitchen freezer.

He didn’t ask about Margaret’s health or the autumn property tax bill coming up.

He wanted ninety-five dollars sent to a payment app by five o’clock that evening.

He wrote that ninety-five dollars was exactly what it would cost to get the high-speed fiber connection back on the living room router.

He said he needed the internet working so he could upload his work history to job sites downtown.