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Maggie is missing a front tooth. Ben has marker on his cheek. I'm standing stiffly between them with my hands clasped in front of me, already trying to look responsible at eight years old.

Briggs looks at it for a long moment. Then he sits, carefully. The couch protest as his frame fills it.

I sit in the chair across from him, because sitting beside a strange biker built to function like a structural support beam feels like a choice my future self would judge harshly.

“Do you want some tea?” I ask, a dutiful hostess under duress.

“No.”

“Good. My tea is terrible.”

His mouth moves again. Almost-smile number two.

The fact I’m counting is becoming deeply concerning.

“I spoke to Randy Kline,” he says.

No preamble. Fine. I appreciate efficiency, even when it arrives wearing leather and intimidation.

“Who’s Randy Kline?”

“Bartender in Everwood. Place called Miller’s.”

I know it. Vaguely. Maggie once described it as the kind of bar where people go to drink and make decisions they might later regret. “And?”

“He saw Maggie two Fridays ago.”

My spine straightens. That’s more information than anyone else has given me. “What?”

“Late. Around ten-forty. She was alone. Ordered soda water. Seemed nervous.”

My skin goes cold.

Suddenly, the room is too quiet.

“Soda water?” I repeat, my brain clutching at what might seem to anyone else the least important detail.

“Yeah.”

“Maggie doesn’t drink soda water unless she’s pretending to make better decisions.”

Briggs watches me closely. “A man came in after her. Possibly Tom.”

My hand tightens on the arm of the chair. “What happened?”

“He talked to her. She went pale. They left together.”

“Together as in willingly?”

His face hardens. “Randy says nobody forced her.”

The way he says it tells me exactly what he thinks of Randy’s observational skills.

I stand. I don’t mean to. My body simply decides being seated is impossible. “Why didn’t he call someone?” What a stupid question.

“People don’t call when they can explain something away easily,” he says, telling me what I already know.

I turn toward the fireplace. “Tom said she runs like this.”