Page 162 of Deacon

The detectives’ expressions softened.

“We’ll do everything we can,” the older one said.

He handed me his card while his partner looked at Matty. “We’ll keep you in the loop, Detective.”

Matty nodded once. “Appreciate the courtesy.”

The door shut behind them. Dad drew in a breath.

I couldn’t hear another word from him.

“I need a minute.”

Everybody looked at me.

I wrapped my arms around myself and backed toward the hallway. “I have a headache,” I lied. “I just... I need to sit alone with her things for a little while.”

Nobody tried to stop me.

Jade’s room smelled like her.

The second I shut the door, whatever had been keeping me upright gave way. I sank onto her bed and buried my face in her pillow. Shampoo, lotion, something faintly sweet she had sprayed in the room that morning. Ordinary traces of my daughter everywhere except where she was supposed to be.

My body shook against the mattress.

I pressed my face harder into the pillow to muffle the sound because the second I let myself really cry, I was afraid I would never stop. Some ugly, animal part of me kept insisting I had to stay functional for when she came home.

When.

I held onto that word until it hurt.

Time stopped behaving normally. The room darkened while voices moved somewhere beyond the closed door, muffled enough that I couldn’t make out words. Eventually the first wave of tears dried against my skin and another came behind it.

I rolled onto my back and stared at Jade’s ceiling, one hand resting over the phone in my hoodie pocket.

It buzzed.

My whole body went still.

Then I sat up so fast the room tilted.

Jade’s phone.

I pulled it out with both hands.

Unknown Number.

Cold spread through my chest before I had even opened the message. Jade wasn’t allowed to keep a passcode from me. I’d made that rule years ago because kids could mistake secrecy for independence while the world was full of people willing to use both against them.

My thumb slipped once before I got the screen unlocked.

Unknown: If you want your daughter back don’t say shit to anyone and come straight to this address 2704 Mariner Way

For a second, the words stopped making sense.

Then they made too much sense.

My thumbs moved.