“I’m with Lilah. Hold on.”
I heard muffled voices.
“Putting you on speaker.”
Lilah’s voice came through next. “What’s going on?”
“Ellie was supposed to be here, but she never showed. She’s gone, Lilah. She’s gone. What do I do?”
I glanced down at my phone and saw a new text from Rachel.
RACHEL
Confirmed she left. Ben drove her to the stadium, but the GPS lost signal. He’s not answering his phone.
“I sent her the police report yesterday,” Lilah said.
Colt cut in. “What report?”
“Lauren Hutchinson’s,” Lilah answered. “The one Ellie asked about. It was sealed, but I managed to get it. Figured it might give her some closure so she could let it go.”
“Why the hell would you do that?” Colt asked her.
“I didn’t have time to dig through it all. Thought the basics would help Ellie move on. Let me look at what it says.”
“I’m freaking out here, guys,” I choked.
“Okay, okay,” Lilah sighed. “It says the husband was shot, but the cause of death for the child was strangulation…”
“How the hell did that get overlooked? Ellie found out, and someone took her because of it,” I whispered.
“Let me pull up the whole report. I didn’t send her everything.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Colt shouted.
“We’ll unpack that later,” Lilah said. “Okay, Lauren claimed self-defense. She found her husband strangling the boy, so she pulled out the gun and shot him. When EMTs arrived, they were both dead.”
I gripped the edge of my locker until my knuckles went white.
“But who?” Lilah asked.
“The dad,” I said.
“The dad is dead,” Colt said.
“The real dad.”
“What do you mean, the real dad?” Lilah asked.
“The letters,” I said. “Lauren wrote about having an affair and the kid not being her husband’s.”
Colt’s voice was calm but urgent. “I’m trying to trace Ben and Ellie’s number. If they were taken, that’s our best lead.”
“I’m not waiting around,” I said, already moving. “If Ben left with her, he used a vehicle. Get me plates, traffic cams—anything.”
“This isn’t exactly a missing person case yet, but we’ll do what we can.”
I was already walking out of the locker room and through the tunnel, past half-dressed guys and equipment carts. My brain buzzed full of grief, fear, adrenaline, all piling up at once.
