"I already checked every coffee shop she likes. Even the ones she doesn't," Shelby said.
Zach reached for his jacket. "Okay, let's split up."
"Wait," Noah interrupted, holding a palm out. "We should think. I mean, she wasn't just upset. Which means impulsively running through Denver's most popular back alleys might not be the play."
Zach let the keys rest in his palm but didn't pocket them. A breath ticked out of him.
Shelby nodded. "She's not random when she spirals. She's precise. Logical, weirdly. We need to work backward."
"This is all because she thinks she's toxic?" Noah asked, carefully.
Shelby nodded. "She's said that before. That she poisons good relationships just by breathing near them."
Zach's throat dried instantly.
"She believes it," Shelby admitted.
"It's not only the belief in a curse," Zach added, quieter now. "It's her story. Every breakup, every wedding disaster in her past… it's real to her."
The urge to throw something climbed up Zach's arm.
Because he couldn't do a damn thing about any of this standing there in the shop. They needed to be out looking for her. Finding her.
"I'm gonna say something here that might make this worse." Noah ran his hand over his face. "But I'm going to say it anyway, because it needs to be said. And it might help."
Zach and Shelby both stared at him like he'd grown a second set of nostrils.
"Actually." Noah pulled out his phone. "I'm gonna loop in Tess."
He dialed the numbers and set his phone in the center of one of Zach's sewing tables, battered edges and pieces of thread still clinging to every crevice—because crisis theory always worked better with visual clutter.
Zach used a scrap of paper to start a timeline like it was a blueprint. He didn't have time to waste, but he trusted Noah. So, he rolled with it.
"Tess, hey," Noah said in an intimate kind of way that had the hairs on the back of Zach's neck prickling. "You're on speaker with me and Zach and Piper's roommate; I need you to tell Zach what you told me earlier. About the whole tabloid thing."
"Hey," Tess said, instantaneously in PR-crisis mode. "Yeah, of course. But I can't reach Piper. The photographer for the wedding isn't answering, and I want to counter all this with some reassuring dance floor photos. Is she there with you, too?"
"No," Zach said. "She's not here. She went dark. We're worried. She's got this idea that it's her fault somehow. It's a long story."
"Her parents fucked her up," Shelby said, matter-of-factly. "That's all you need to know."
"It's not her fault at all. It's my damn intern." Tess blew out a breath into the receiver.
Sorry, what?
"One of the interns figured the press would be watching the honeymoon and if there was a kiss or… something romantic between Anna and Drake, it would be good for image. Don't worry, we've discussed it. Not going to happen again."
"For fuck's sake," Zach muttered.
Tess hesitated. "It was supposed to be subtle. Carefully placed. Obviously, my team didn't pick the exact moment. The photographer went rogue, kind of."
"Apparently, this is standard PR practice." Noah pressed the end of his pen against his lips.
Tess hesitated, the line crackling with her exhale. "I didn't... It was a bad call. The intern's on coffee duty for a month, the photog's not gonna work with us again, and the oversight is mine. All mine. Damn, this is on me. Not her. How do we find her to tell her?"
Zach leaned into the phone, the knot in his chest loosening a fraction. This wasn't a blow-up. It was a pivot.
"Shelby's roommate intel says she holes up somewhere logical when she spirals." Noah turned the phone his direction.
