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I felt my heart rate kick up.

Me:

Jessamy Darling.

Shell-B:

Should I know who that is?

Me:

No, not necessarily. You might remember the last name if you used to live in Sawtooth, Montana, though.

Shell-B:

How do you know that?

My heart rate started to pick up its pace even more.

I’d messaged this girl on a whim.

None of her stats fit Shelby Adkins, Black’s daughter.

Her age, face, and background kind of did, though.

She had a “missing father figure” in her life—I’d learned that from watching her videos.

She was the right age, and talked about her mother being a private investigator with her and being on the road nearly twenty-four-seven for the first half of her life.

She talked about when she graduated—which was when Shelby would’ve graduated.

Plus, she had Black’s hair and eye color, and she kind of fit the picture that was generated once a year that went out to the county that Black distributed to every law enforcement agency in the states.

Though, until about a year ago according to all the videos that Shelby posted, her mother had helped her color her hair a bleach blonde. That was part of her videos, was her going back to black.

Instead of answering her question, I attached a flyer of Shelby Adkins’s missing person poster.

In it were all the pertinent details.

Shelby Reign Adkins.

Eighteen years old.

Black hair, light-blue eyes.

Father: Black Adkins.

There was a lot more information on that flyer, like the date that she went missing, Shelby’s mother’s name, and where she’d been taken from.

Sadly, she never replied, leaving me wanting.

So I continued the game I was playing.

Then I went to bed, burying my face into the pillow that Black used two nights before until I fell asleep.

Twenty-One

The “A” in my name stands for a lot to deal with.