A Simmering Suspicion

The door buzzed again, this time with a staccato insistence that announced the arrival of their final guest. A chorus of “ELIJAH!” rang out as Oliver rose to greet their friend.

“Hey E, report go okay?” Oliver asked as Elijah stepped inside, shrugging off his jacket with the careful precision of someone who owned exactly three good jackets and treated each of them accordingly.

“Hey Ollie, hey gang,” he replied, his eyes scanning the room with the quick, appraising glance that was pure Elijah—assessing the mood, the wine situation, the odds of getting a seat that wasn’t a milk crate, all in about two seconds. “Report went fine. Just a lot of reference checking. It’s not hard work, just tedious.” He held up a bottle of wine. “Am I too late to contribute?”

Elijah was tall and thin, with hip glasses and well-manicured hair that gave him a distinctly more put-together vibe than the rest of the crew. He was the only one who looked like he had come from an actual office and not a co-working space or a kitchen. Even on a Sunday, his shirt was pressed. Emma had once asked him if he ironed on weekends, and he’d responded with such a long silence that she’d never brought it up again.

Jasper, sprawled in one of the rickety folding chairs with one leg kicked out into the narrow walkway, greeted him with a mischievous grin, his teeth stained purple from the wine. “Mate, keep the bottle for yourself. You’re going to need to catch up.”

“Hi Elijah, ignore Jasper,” Emma called from the kitchen—the railroad apartment was small enough that “from the kitchen” and “from the living room” were more of a suggestion than a distance. She was leaning against the tiny strip of counter that passed for an island, a glass of wine in hand. “I’ve got a plate in the oven for you, and there’s a clean glass on the counter. Grab the milk crate.”

“Emma, I don’t need—”

“Sit.” She was already pulling his plate from the oven—roasted root vegetables with herbed brown butter, the parsnips and carrots still sizzling, their edges crisped up in a way she hadn’t intended but actually preferred.

Elijah settled onto the milk crate, his long legs folding at an angle that looked uncomfortable but which he seemed unbothered by. Emma watched him take inventory the way he always did — the empty wine bottles on the coffee table, Noah nursing the end of his own controversial selection, Olivia with her shoes off and her feet tucked under her on the loveseat, Oliver beside her looking slightly flushed from the wine. She could see him register it: the energy in the room was different from their usual Sunday wind-down, a buzz underneath the banter, a collective lean-forward. He’d missed something, and he clearly knew it.

His brow furrowed slightly, a sign that the analytical wheels in his mind were already turning. “Alright, so what did I miss?” he asked, taking a big bite of the roasted vegetables. He raised his eyebrows—it was good, and he wasn’t someone who bothered with compliments he didn’t mean. “The crew seems to be really into something.”

“So,” Jasper started, sitting up straighter, eager to dominate the narrative.

“No!” Emma, Noah, and Olivia shouted in unison. “Oliver, mind doing the honors?” Emma added.

There was a logic to the choice, even if Oliver didn’t appreciate it. He was the most concise person in the room, the most likely to get through the story without embellishment or a thirty-second tangent about Russian aliens. He was also the least likely to volunteer, which was exactly why they asked him.

Oliver, looking slightly pained to be the center of attention, cleared his throat. “Uh, sure.” He sat up a bit, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose—a nervous habit Olivia had once tried to cure by buying him glasses that fit, which he’d worn for exactly one day before going back to the old ones. “Ems’s a little disappointed in dinner—not because it’s bad or anything, it’s amazing like always—she just wanted to make something a little different.”

“Get to the point!” interrupted Jasper, smirking.

“That’s rich coming from you,” Olivia snapped back, her patience with Jasper wearing thin after two hours of his energy.

“Anyway,” Oliver pressed on, finding his footing, “Ems made this butternut squash soup with a hot sauce from a guy at the farmer’s market—a vendor named Hank. You have to try it.” He glanced at Emma. “There’s still some in the pot, right?”

“Warming on the stove,” she said. She was already ladling a bowl for Elijah, and she’d opened his bottle while plating his food—whatever it was, it was already better than Noah’s. She hadn’t even smelled it properly yet, just started drinking.

“Ems, are you going to share that, or…?” Jasper called out, craning his neck toward the kitchen.

“In a minute,” she said, taking another sip. Her voice had gone a bit soft around the edges.

“Right,” Oliver continued, picking up the thread with the relief of someone nearing the end of an unwanted speech. “So the hot sauce is amazing—you’ll taste it—but the guy who makes it has vanished. Gave up his stalls at both markets, phone goes to voicemail, no explanation. A neighboring vendor gave Emma his last bottle and said he told her to keep it ‘just in case.’ Whatever that means.”

Elijah took a spoonful of the soup. He paused. Took another. “This is exceptional,” he said—and from Elijah, that was practically a standing ovation.

“The sauce, right?” Emma said. “Four generations of his family in that bottle. Heirloom peppers from Virginia.”

“So while we were eating, Liv texted a boutique owner that she thought might’ve carried the hot sauce,” Oliver continued. “They carry some of her candles, so they’re on texting terms. Anyway, he responded like twenty minutes ago and said that he used to have some of the hot sauce on his shelves, but last week, the guy showed up and took all of his inventory back. The boutique owner didn’t outright say it, but we all read Liv’s texts, and it sounds like he thinks something is going on.”

“Marcus said he was jittery,” Olivia added, leaning forward. “Those were his words. Jittery. And Marcus doesn’t exaggerate—if anything, he understates things. When he says someone looked like they were running from something, that means they were practically out the door before they finished the conversation.”

The room was quiet for a moment—the kind of quiet that happens when a group of friends collectively realizes they’ve crossed some invisible line between idle speculation and genuine concern.

Elijah, the only sober person in the room, looked at their expectant faces. He took another bite of the roasted vegetables, chewed thoughtfully, and set down his fork. “And so you all have been doing what? Drinking wine and speculating about this stranger’s life?”

“He’s not a stranger!” Jasper responded indignantly.

“Well, actually, he very much is, because the only thing we know is his first name,” Noah corrected, ever the pedant.

“Elijah, listen, he’s this super personable guy,” Emma said, leaning forward against the counter. “He’s always chatting up everyone at the farmer’s market. It’s all just kind of weird.”

Elijah looked at her for a moment—really looked, with that calm, assessing gaze that made her feel both seen and slightly exposed. He was the only one in the group who never looked at his phone when someone was talking to him. It was either flattering or unnerving, depending on the conversation.

Oliver, looking to conclude his narration duties, jumped back in. “To be honest, we’d been making up theories about what happened, and we figured you could be the judge when you got here, ‘cause, ya know, you’ve had a few less glasses of wine.”

Elijah let out a short laugh. “Ha, good lord. Okay. The crew truly never disappoints,” he agreed with a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “So I assume Liv has a plan?”

“Pour the man a glass of his own wine first,” Noah said, gesturing at Emma.

Emma rolled her eyes but grabbed a glass and brought the bottle over, filling one for Elijah and topping off the others. Elijah took a sip and nodded—quiet approval, the highest compliment in his vocabulary.

Olivia beamed. “You know me too well.”

“Since high school,” Elijah said, reaching for a deviled egg. “Some things never change.”

“Why would you assume that?” Olivia responded, ignoring his jab with practiced ease. Their friendship predated everyone else in the room—they’d known each other in the Philadelphia suburbs as teenagers, lost touch through college, and reconnected three years ago when Olivia spotted him at The Coffee Hole on Bedford Ave and nearly spilled her latte on him in excitement. “Okay, so what I was thinking was that we could all draw a number and then pitch you our theory in order, and then you can choose which one you like best.”

“Like best? Any points for believability?” Elijah asked, taking a long sip—noticeably more relaxed now that he had a glass of something drinkable.

“Absolutely not!” interjected Jasper.

Olivia shrugged. “I mean, believable? Yeah, a little bit, otherwise who knows what Jasper is going to do. But also, we’re just having fun.”

“So you already have the numbers written on bits of paper in a hat, right?” Elijah asked, a knowing look on his face. Olivia reached behind a cushion and produced a baseball cap, the numbers already folded and tucked inside. “Liv, you’re the most predictable, unpredictable person. Alright, let’s play this insane game.”