When this was safer.
If it ever got safer.
I closed my eyes. “This is going to get ugly.”
Devon’s voice softened. “It already is, sweetheart. You’re just looking at it directly now.”
I swallowed past the pressure in my throat. “Rios says the same thing, just with more… growling.”
Devon chuckled, warm and real. “I like him.”
“You would,” I muttered.
“I would,” Devon agreed. “Because he’s protective and angry and he’s trying to do right by people a system chewed up. That’s my favorite genre of man.”
Despite myself, I laughed, and it cut through the fog.
Devon turned serious again. “Madden. You said the town clerk responded.”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Devon said. “Then you assume the police are watching your moves now. Which means you don’t go knocking on doors. You don’t message the clerk again. You don’t create noise.”
“I know.”
“You do the quiet pulls,” Devon said. “Ferry logs through your friend. NamUs and state databases from your laptop. Use a VPN. Archived local news. Public social posts. Then you connect dots.”
“And I need to update Astrid.” The words tasted bitter because it meant telling her we still didn’t have her student.
“Yes,” Devon said gently. “But you don’t go to her with panic. You go with structure. With the shape. With what you can promise: that you’re looking for the people no one looked for.”
I wasn’t sure I could wait that long to give her something. But still, I said, “Thank you,” and meant it.
Devon’s voice softened again, the friend behind the podcaster. “Anytime. And Maddie?”
He was the only one who’d ever used the diminutive.
“Yeah?”
“You’re not crazy,” he said. “You’re not overreacting. This is what it looks like when people disappear in the gaps. The fact that you’re seeing the gaps means your eyes are working.”
I pressed my knuckles to my mouth, grounding myself in the pressure. “Okay.”
“And,” Devon added, a little lighter, “if you want, when this is over and you’re not actively living inside a nightmare, I’m going to drag you on Unaccounted and let you talk about why systems fail. Because the world needs to hear it from someone who’s been inside them.”
I made a sound that was half laugh, half something sharper. “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s my girl,” Devon said.
We hung up, and the boat was quiet again—except now my silence had edges.
Tools.
Paths.
A way to move forward that didn’t rely on Carson’s permission.
I opened my laptop and started building my own map.
