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I’m good at waiting when I have to be.

Bad at it when I don’t.

This is both.

Pike clicks his tongue. “She’s quiet.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“No, I mean quiet quiet. Not normal adult woman with privacy settings quiet. There are gaps.”

“Explain.”

“She had accounts. Deleted most. Not recently. Over years. Old photos pulled. Tags removed. Friends list cut down. Search visibility locked. Phone number not attached to much. No current employer I can confirm. No property. No vehicle in her name that I can see.”

“Cash life?”

“Maybe. Or someone else handles things.” Pike keeps typing.

“Can you confirm whether there’s actually a police report filed on her?”

Pike glances over his shoulder. “You think the boyfriend lied?”

“I think people say a lot of things when they want problems to sound handled. What about the boyfriend, Tom White?”

Pike turns back to the screen. “Now, there’s a man with a footprint.”

“Dirty?”

“Messy.” He types. “Too many betting apps. Old deleted profiles. Angry comments on local news pages. Couple of forum posts about men’s rights nonsense.”

“Of course.”

“Employment spotty. Worked construction. Then sales. Then some warehouse logistics. Currently… unclear.”

“Debt?”

“Likely. Ashby would know better.”

I roll my eyes, knowing I can’t avoid what I really need to do—go to see Laurel Sterling myself.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Laurel

By the time Lucy finally falls asleep, I'm no longer a person. I'm a cautionary tale in leggings. The kind of woman parenting forums whisper about in locked threads titled, She means well, but should someone check on the child?

Bedtime took one hour and forty-seven minutes. Not that I was counting.

I was absolutely counting.

There was a bath negotiation, a pajama crisis, a toothbrush standoff, and a devastating argument about whether Foxy could sleep under the blanket or on top of the blanket. Bun, apparently, has seniority. Foxy’s new and needs to ‘learn the rules’.”

I didn't know toys operated under a hierarchy, but Lucy was very firm on the matter.

Now the house is silent, except for the old pipes ticking in the walls and the wind dragging branches against the siding. I stand in the hallway outside Lucy’s room for longer than necessary, listening to her breathe.

That seems normal.