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“I dropped Lucy at school,” I say. “She’s okay.”

He nods but doesn’t ask anything else.

Which bothers me.

“She had a rough morning,” I add.

His expression flickers. “Yeah, well. We all have.”

I go very still. “She’s five.”

“I know how old my daughter is.”

Mick appears behind him, face drawn. “Laurel. Come in.”

Tom steps aside.

My nostrils fill with the scent of stale coffee, unaired laundry, and the faint, frowzy scent of takeout and desperation.

The sink is full.

So’s the trash.

Grief, apparently, creates clutter.

Maggie's everywhere and nowhere.

A purple mug on the counter. A cardigan over the back of a chair. A hair tie around the cabinet handle.

Normal things.

Abandoned things.

I walk into the living room, scanning automatically.

“What happened before she left?” I ask.

Tom lets out a breath. “We’ve been over this.”

“Not with me. Not in person.”

He offers a one shouldered shrug. “She was upset.”

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“That’s not an answer.”

His eyes flash. “It’s the answer I have.”

Mick shifts uncomfortably near the doorway. Sophie isn’t here. Probably out searching. Or avoiding this confrontation. Or both.

I pull my notebook from my bag and flip to the pages I started on the flight over. Tom looks at it like I’ve brought a weapon.

“I need a timeline,” I say. “Last time you saw her. Last thing she said. What she was wearing. Whether she took her purse, phone, car, wallet⁠—”

“Laurel.”