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)
I glance toward the stairs. Daniela’s shadow flickers at the bottom, faint against the hall light. She hasn’t gone to bed. She won’t.
When I find her in the kitchen, she’s sitting at the counter, knees drawn up, phone in one hand, staring at nothing. Her hair’s falling loose around her face, and there’s a new kind of distance in her eyes.
I take the seat next to her. “You should try to rest.”
“I can’t,” she says without looking up.
“I know.”
Silence stretches. A pot of coffee steams on the counter, untouched.
She finally looks at me. “Do you really think we’ll find her?”
“Yes.” I don’t hesitate. “And we’ll find whoever took her.”
“You say that like you already have a plan.”
I smile. “I do.”
She widens her eyes. “What is it?”
“I’ll tell you when I know it’ll work.”
Her mouth tightens. “You always think you can fix everything.”
“I have to believe I can,” I say.
She stares at me for a long time, like she wants to argue, but she doesn’t. Her eyes flicker—anger, grief, maybe both—and she nods once.
“Fine,” she says softly. “Then let’s start trying.”
6
DANIELA
Hawk means every word. I can tell by the way he looks at me. And maybe that should comfort me.
But it doesn’t.
I’m still too angry. Too raw.
I want to scream at him for not answering my messages, for letting me fall apart alone.
But I also want to collapse into him.
And that’s the problem.
I love him.
Completely, stupidly, dangerously.
And I can’t afford to. Not right now.
The cops promised they’d do “everything they could,” but the phrase feels hollow. They don’t know Belinda. They don’t know the way she giggles, the way she sways when she lets the music take her as her fingers travel over the piano keys, how she gorges on cheeseballs, or how she still sleeps with the light on even though she pretends she doesn’t.
She’s not my child, but she’s mine. And no one is going to look for her the way I will.
I push off the counter and start pacing. The kitchen smells like stale coffee and lemon cleaner. Hawk sits on the edge of a stool, elbows on his knees, watching me but not saying anything.
“She’s been missing for—what?—twelve hours?” I say. “You know what happens after twenty-four, right? The trail gets cold. People forget. She becomes a name on a list.”
“She won’t,” Hawk says.
“Because you’ll find her?”
He claps his hands against my shoulders. “Because we will.”
I stop pacing. “I don’t want to wait for them to call us. I want to do something.”
“You mean go looking on your own?”
“Yes.”
He exhales, leaning back. “That’s risky.”
“I don’t care.”
“Daniela—”
“No.” I shake my head hard. “You don’t get to tell me no. She’s my responsibility too.”
He studies me for a moment and then nods. “Okay. Tell me where you want to start.”
“You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
I blink. “You don’t think I’m being reckless?”
“I think you’re scared. And I think that’s the right response.”
My throat tightens. I hate that he can read me so easily.
I grab my laptop off the counter and open it. “He had to be in our house around the time the note was printed, right?”
“Unless he had help,” Hawk says.
I stop typing. “Who would help him?”
“I don’t know. Vinnie says her nanny is the only staff member unaccounted for after that time.”
My stomach twists. “Natalie? No. She wouldn’t.”
He shrugs. “Then we rule her out. Pull up her social media.”
I search her name—nothing recent. Last post was a sunset photo three days ago. I scroll through comments, hoping for something, anything, that stands out.
“Wait.” I zoom in on the photo. A reflection glints in the window glass behind her—part of a logo on a van. “That’s not her car.”
Hawk leans over my shoulder. “Can you enhance it?”
“Not much.” I adjust the brightness. The words Swift Courier Service appear faintly. “Delivery company?”
“I’ll find out,” he says, pulling out his phone.
I keep scrolling while he talks. My pulse is loud in my ears. Every instinct in me is screaming that we’re missing something obvious—that the note, the DHS visit, the timing, all of it connects.
When Hawk hangs up, I ask, “Well?”
“Swift Courier doesn’t exist. No record, no tax ID, no website.”
“Fake company,” I murmur.
“Which means fake van.”
I look up at him. “You think he used that to get close?”
He nods. “Probably.”
The room tilts. “Oh my God.”
“Hey.” Hawk steps closer. “We’re going to find her.”
I nod, though I’m not sure I believe it. “Then we start with every security feed within five miles. If there was a van, we’ll see it.”
“I’ve got people who can do that,” he says.
We fall into silence again. My hands are trembling, so I press them flat against the counter.
There’s so much between us—anger, longing, guilt—and none of it matters right now.
“I don’t care about my status,” I say finally. “If they want to deport me, fine. But not before I find her.”