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“That’s her.”

The words barely come out. Because even blurry and grainy and half turned away, I know my sister.

I know Maggie’s posture. The curve of her shoulders. The way she always tucks hair behind one ear when anxious.

Tears hit before I realize they’re coming.

“She’s alive,” I whisper shakily. “Oh my God, she’s alive.”

Relief crashes through me. I’m shaking so much I have to sit down fully before my knees give out.

Ashby crouches beside me. Briggs moves closer too. Torin’s hand settles against the back of my shoulder.

“She’s alive,” I say again, because my brain seems incapable of processing anything else.

Ashby produces a white handkerchief and hands it to me. I wipe quickly at my face to dry the tears that won’t stop. “I need to go there.”

“We know,” Ashby says.

“But Lucy⁠—”

“We’ll figure it out,” Briggs says immediately.

“I can’t just leave her.”

Torin kneels beside the chair now too, his vivid blue eyes fixed on mine. “Then we plan it properly.”

I look between all three of them helplessly. “You’ll come with me?”

The answer arrives so fast, their voices overlap. “Yes.”

Gripped by impossible feelings and the terrifyingly fragile hope that my sister might finally be within reach, I realize something momentous.

I’m not alone in this anymore.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Briggs

I pull the truck onto River Road after we drop Lucy at school, watching Laurel cradle a coffee that's gone untouched since we left the parking lot, and I don't have to ask how she's doing because the answer's been written across her face for weeks.

When she arrived at Redwood Run a month ago, she kept everyone at arm's length and answered questions with enough distance to end the conversation before it began. But living here has chipped away at the walls she built, leaving behind the strain she'd managed to keep hidden.

I catch it in the habits she's picked up without realizing. She checks Lucy's car seat straps twice before every drive, even after Ashby gives them his own inspection, flinches whenever an unfamiliar number lights up her phone, and hesitates each morning before pulling back the curtains, as though she's bracing herself for whatever might be waiting outside.

The inevitable rain settles over Redwood Run as we make our way toward the sheriff's office. Outside, fog winds through the trees lining the road and swallows pieces of the landscape until the forest fades into white.

Laurel keeps staring through the passenger window with the coffee balanced between both hands.

"You planning to drink that," I ask with a glance her way, "or are you hoping it'll surrender under pressure?"

She blinks, looks down at the cup like she's surprised to find it there, then huffs out a breath. "I forgot I was holding it."

"That's probably worth mentioning to a medical professional." One corner of her mouth briefly lifts upward before relapsing. It's a small victory, but at this point I'll take whatever I can get.

The sheriff’s office sits between a hardware store and an insurance building that looks emotionally exhausted. Laurel goes tight beside me the second we walk through the doors.

Frustration.