Part 2Early October, 2018, nearly six months before I was assigned to cover the smiley face mystery, I stood under a canopy of gold and green leaves, up against the trunk of a maple tree outside my building. The car that had been sent to pick me up was supposed to arrive any minute. My apartment complex was nothing special. It was relatively new, modern, but somehow cookie cutter and bland. Light brick and glass on the outside, every room in my unit was beige, floor to ceiling.
“Good morning, Mr. Storm.” Not only fast but above and beyond, the driver, who’d pulled his black SUV right up to the curb, was at the back door on the driver’s side before I could grab my bag and get there myself.
“Morning. Call me Nero.” The last hurrah, perhaps, for sixty degrees and mugginess at eight in the m
