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“This is a secret call?”

I screw my face up, then immediately relax it again because I don’t need to deepen the fine lines forming under my eyes. I use eye cream religiously, ever since I discovered “mature skin” starts at twenty-five. I’ve never considered any part of myself mature, let alone my skin, but who am I to argue with the skin experts?

“I suppose you could call it a secret mission,” Drew says. “Just between the two of us.”

Oh, I like the sound of that. I haven’t been involved in a secret mission since I was six.

“Do we need code words? Disguises? I’m up for a bit of make-up, but I draw the line at shaving my head and reconstructive surgery,” I joke, but I’m actually considering where I could purchase a wig from.

Drew laughs, and I picture him shaking his head the way people often do around me.

“No, nothing like that. I’ve been trying to contact you for a while, but the first number I tried was the one in Sydney’s phone, and it said it was disconnected.”

I slap my forehead, almost knocking my mobile from my hand. “Yeah, she’ll have had my old number. I had to change it.”

There’s an awkward silence before I realise Drew must be waiting for me to explain.

“There was this guy, a year ago. Things didn’t go so well. He was almost stalking me.”

“Almost?”

“He wasn’t like a full-on stalker, more that he had the potential to stalk me.”

“I see,” he says, but I can tell by Drew’s voice that he doesn’t see at all.

“We went on one date, which was underwhelming, to say the least, so I quickly shut things down. He seemed to take it well, but he just had this vibe, you know? The stalker vibe. So I changed my phone number and came off all my socials, which was a bit of a headache but worth it to avoid being stalked.”

“Okay.” Drew elongates the word. “So, as I was saying⁠—”

“Wait,” I interrupt, alarm bells ringing. “How did you get this number?” I ask, trying to deafen the ringing because I’m too intrigued to be cautious.

“Well.” He draws out his reply as long as he can before letting out a sigh, as if resigning himself to having to tell me the truth. “I’m a forensic scientist, and I have friends in the police. One in particular owed me a favour.”

“The police?” I gasp. “God, am I in some sort of database somewhere? I don’t have a criminal record—not unless they’re still after me for accidentally stealing a whiteboard marker when I was twelve. And it was accidental. I put it in my blazer pocket and completely forgot it was there, I swear!”

Nerves are making my mouth run ahead of my brain again, and judging by the silence on the other end of the line, I’m veering dangerously close to weird Alice instead of funny Alice.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Drew cuts in. “My friend works in the tech side of the police, and he’s pretty good at finding people. He has access to things civilians don’t, and although what I asked him to do wasn’t technically legal, Sydney’s worth it.”

My heart swells. This guy has broken the law for Sydney. Somewhere beneath the panic, a deeply romantic part of me swoons.

“…because I think you guys need to talk if you’re willing.”

If I’m willing?

My heart settles back into place only to crack a little instead. Things didn’t end badly between Sydney and me. They ended catastrophically. We didn’t drift apart over time or slowly stop calling each other. She shoved me out of her life when she needed me the most.

When Sydney was fifteen, her parents split up. Which, statistically speaking, probably makes her one of millions, but for Sydney, it was like somebody had detonated a bomb in the middle of her world.

It destroyed her.

Her parents had always seemed solid. The kind of couple who shared desserts in restaurants and danced together at parties. Then Sydney’s mum discovered her husband had been having an affair for years, and suddenly their house became a battlefield.

The break-up was messy, volatile, and downright nasty, and poor Sydney was caught in the crossfire.

I tried to support her. Tried to reach out. But she was so angry. The betrayal of discovering that the people who were supposed to protect her from all the crap of the world had lied to her had turned her into someone I barely recognised. She stopped eating, stopped caring, stopped being the bright, funny Sydney I’d grown up with.

Our last fight still stings. The way she screamed that I’d never understand what she was going through because my mum and dad were still together. Still in love. I still had a family.