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The sound cuts through the silent house sharp as a wrench dropped on concrete.

Laurel pants into my mouth. “Someone has terrible timing.”

“Don’t answer it.” I want to preserve this, don’t want the world to intrude.

“But what if it’s about Maggie?”

I reach for her phone and hand it to her. She glances at the screen, then frowns.

“It’s Ashby. I’d better answer it.”

My chest tightens instantly.

Laurel answers, breath still shaky. “Hello?”

I watch her expression shift while she listens.

“What?” she says. “When?”

She looks at me then.

“He’s found a PI,” she says, covering the phone slightly. “Someone who might know something about Maggie.”

Everything inside me goes still.

I take the phone when Laurel holds it out. “Ash.”

“Briggs.” Ashby’s voice comes calm and clipped through the speaker, which usually means his brain’s moving at a dangerous speed. “I got a call from a private investigator in Seattle. She’s a former cop. Bear’s contact.”

Bear.

’Course it was Bear.

“What’s she got?” I ask.

“Not much yet. But she thinks Maggie may have been spotted outside Everett two weeks ago, near a motel off the highway.”

“We need to meet,” I say, stepping back enough to gently lower Laurel to the floor, where she straightens her clothing while listening.

“Figured we would. Mile Marker. Soon as you can.”

The line goes dead.

Laurel looks at me, looking for reassurance. “You think this could mean something?”

“Could,” I say honestly, rearranging my clothing for the outside world before kissing her nose and smoothing her mussed hair.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her, “but we finally got something with teeth.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Laurel

Briggs pulls into a parking space beside The Mile Marker while rain turns the highway into silver ribbons beyond the lot. I stare at the long, low building, my stomach in knots.

“You okay?” Briggs asks, killing the engine.