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“You already made one,” I say, secretly wondering why I’m keeping Laurel and our meeting to myself. Briggs knows a little. He knows the woman I met on the plane has a missing sister. But he doesn’t know for sure it was her.

Ben’s sister.

My stomach churns painfully, and not just because I know he’ll soon work it out, if he hasn’t already.

Ashby’s brow lifts as he looks at me curiously. “Meaning?”

I jerk my chin at the name written right at the top of the page. Laurel Sterling. “You wrote down her name before you had any facts.”

A beat. Then a small, humorless smile. “You’re not wrong.”

I stare at him, unreasonably annoyed.

Briggs looks between us. “You think something’s off?”

Ashby taps the notebook again. “I think there are too many gaps.”

“People go missing all the time, for lots of different reasons,” Briggs points out.

“Not here,” Ashby states.

He’s right. Redwood Run isn’t built for disappearances. People notice when routines change here, when trucks stay parked too long, when somebody stops showing up where they’re expected.

“Police involved?” I ask.

Ashby’s expression tightens slightly, which tells me the answer before he says it. “Supposedly, but the situation’s unclear.”

Briggs mutters something under his breath.

I stare at the notebook another second. “That’s not good.”

“No,” Ashby agrees.

Briggs shifts, tension building in his big frame. I can see it in the way his fingers flex against the table. “Then we don’t wait. We look.”

Ashby nods. “We look.”

My gaze drifts back to the notebook. Laurel Sterling. The name feels different now. Because I know something Ashby doesn’t, that Briggs doesn’t, that I know I should say right now.

Still, I don’t.

Instead, I reach for the notebook and pull it closer. “What do you have on her?”

Ashby turns it toward me fully this time. “Not much yet. Maggie lives with some boyfriend, Tom White, in Everwood. And there’s a daughter.”

Ben had a niece, I recall.

That makes this hit so much harder. So hard I can hardly breathe.

That man was our brother, so this is our issue too, and I silently swear we won’t let this go until we find Maggie.

CHAPTER NINE

Laurel

Weekends are a trap.

That isn't a metaphor. It’s a documented fact I'd be happy to present in spreadsheet form if anyone cared about evidence anymore.