The timing is not a coincidence.
The timing is a message about what happens when she tries to leave.
I dial Silas. He doesn’t answer.
"Silas isn't answering either," I say.
This lands differently than the other things. I watch the shift move through Beckett.
"You think Silas—"
"I think Silas has been running his own game this entire time," I say. "And I think I underestimated how long he's been doing it."
I pick up my phone. Nothing. The screen is clean and bright, and tells me nothing.
“He’s not a team player, just like Crick always says.”
"Yeah."
We sit in silence, unsure of our next move. My phone is face down on the counter when it starts to ring.
We both look at it.
“Think it’s him?” Beckett asks.
I shrug. “Fuck.”
I pick up my phone, and it’s my mom calling. I answer before the third ring.
"Theo." She’s out of breath. "Nessa just left. She wouldn't tell me where she was going. And she had that look."
I know that look.
I grew up watching it move across Nessa's face when something didn’t go her way. Our father always joked that she was a bit too sensitive for this world, but he spoiled her anyway. My mother sat back and let it happen, thinking it would make Nessa happy. The poor psychologist ruined her own daughter.
"I'll find her," I say, already walking out the door. Beckett is right behind me.
We're in the car in under two minutes.
Neither of us speaks as I drive.
Nessa answers on the last ring.
I hear her breathing first. I can tell she’s crying.
"Come back home," I say. "We can talk."
"You don't understand." Her voice breaks on the last word, and she lets it, which tells me she's past the point of holding it together. Nessa cries clean when she's sad. She cries ugly when she's angry. This is somewhere in between, which is the version that worries me most.
"You don't have to stay," I say. "Just come back and pick me up. We'll talk."
She doesn't respond.
The line stays open. I can hear road noise. I let the silence sit for one beat, and then I say, "The talk, Nessa. I got you."
A long pause.
"Okay," she mutters.
