Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“Hey.”
I look up. Raven hovers in the doorway, one arm crossed over her belly. “Find anything?”
“Just a handwritten list.” I point to it. “It was lodged in the track of a desk drawer. Strange really. Written in block letters. It could have been there for a while. Who had this room before Belinda?”
“I don’t know. We’d have to ask Vinnie. And he may not know as he was in Europe for seventeen years. If I had to guess, I’d say it was Savannah’s.” She gestures toward the note. “I don’t have gloves.”
I nod.
Raven points to the printer. “The note,” she says, like it tastes wrong in her mouth.
I nod. Belinda’s laptop sits closed on the desk, a sheet of piano scales tucked under it. I lift the lid with the edge of my fingernail. The login screen blooms—her name, that goofy Mozart sunflower icon she chose, a password field blinking.
“I’m surprised the officers didn’t look more closely at this,” Raven says.
“Because they aren’t taking this seriously,” I say dryly.
She hovers over me as I slide my gloved fingers over the keyboard.
“Anything?”
We both look up at Vinnie standing in the doorway.
“Just a note lodged in one of the desk drawers.” I point. “Who had this room—more specifically, this furniture—before Belinda?”
“Hell if I know. I wasn’t here.”
I nod again. “I’m going to try to get into her computer.”
“The cops should be the ones doing that,” he says.
“Yeah, they should, but they didn’t even try.” I glance at the password window. Then, carefully, because these damned gloves make it difficult. I type in Mozart.
“Too obvious,” Vinnie says.
“Maybe.” I try Debussy. No dice. Chopin. Nope. I add her birth year to each. The laptop rejects each one.
I glance at the wallpaper photo—a snapshot of her with me. She’s holding out her orange fingertips from cheeseballs. “She’d pick something she loves. Or someone.”
“Try ‘Bach,’” Raven says. “She’s been on a cello suites kick.”
“Belinda thinks Bach is a ‘sad genius grandpa.’” But I try it anyway.
Nothing.
I type cheeseballs on impulse.
Wrong.
Then VinnieGallo.
Nope.
“Raven?” I try it. Wrong again.
After several more composers and musical terms fail, I type Daniela.
The desktop opens.
Raven’s hand flies to her mouth. “Oh, honey.”
I don’t let myself feel it. Not yet. I sit. “I’m in. I’ll be careful.”
Raven edges closer. “The detective really would’ve done this if we’d asked.”
“They would have,” I say, navigating to System Settings > Printers. “But we can’t even get an Amber Alert. She’s technically a runaway for a few more hours.” I click Print Queue. “And I am not giving the clock a head start.”
The job history populates—sheet music titles, a geography worksheet, a sloppy short story about a heroic golden retriever saving a ballerina from a volcano. My throat tightens. I scroll. Until—
Document (1 page) with no title, stamped with the time.
I point to the log. “Whoever printed the note did it about an hour before I found it. Which means someone was in here, at this desk, while you were in your room.”
Raven’s color drains. “We were ten yards away.”
“Or Belinda herself printed it,” Vinnie says. “Then left.”
“She didn’t.” I shake my head. “This is an adult’s cadence pretending to be a kid. And the timing is too well placed.”
Vinnie’s already tapping his phone, jumping feeds, calling up door sensors, cross-checking. “Nobody crosses a threshold without tripping something,” he says, more to himself than to us. “Unless they were let in. Or they never left to begin with.”
A quiet, mean little thought settles in my gut. I minimize the print queue and open Belinda’s browser. The history is long, childish, everyday.
How to grow strawberries in pots,
Debussy Clair de Lune
Dogs that don’t shed
What happens when you swallow gum?
But then, more recent—
Declan McAllister news
Declan McAllister daughter
What is racketeering?
What does extradited mean?
Raven makes a soft, wounded sound. “We promised we’d wait,” she whispers. “We told her the truth would be there when she was ready. She’d already been through so much at his hands.”
“She’s been ready,” I say. “Curiosity doesn’t wait for birthdays.”
A lot of the links are glossy profiles—philanthropy photos, golf tournament coverage, Declan smiling with a senator. The whitewashed story. She never made it past the first page of search results.
“I’ll talk to her about how to vet sources,” Raven says, and then flinches at her own words. “God. I’m talking like she’s in the next room and this is a fucking homework assignment.”
“She was looking for answers.” I keep scrolling. The URL bar suggests a site I don’t recognize—SpeakSecure.chat. My pulse kicks. I click.
A sign-in loads with two fields and a padlock icon. I open a second tab. A peer-to-peer messaging portal marketed to activists and journalists. Not quite the dark web, but not kid stuff either. “Belinda, who taught you this?” I murmur.
Raven leans in. “Is that…safe?”
“Safer than most,” I say. “But it takes intent to find.” I check the browser’s saved passwords. None for this site. I return to the tab and try the username field. It autofills.