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And honestly, I’m still happy to see him.

“Bear! Oh, thank the stars,” she cries, her voice rising to a level that ensures every person in the store is now an audience member. “Your aura is so murky, darling! What on earth have you been doing to your chakras in this damp little town?”

My cover is blown. The secret is out. And judging by the way she’s charging toward me with a righteous maternal fury in her eyes, my carefully cultivated life of being unbothered and flourishing is about to suffer a catastrophic systems failure.

I stand there, clutching Faun to my chest like his small body offers any meaningful protection, while she wraps both arms around me and attempts to compress my rib cage into a medically significant event.

“Mother,” I choke out, gently disentangling myself. “How? How are you even here? I told you I was on a retreat in the Catskills. I told you the signal was spotty.”

She pulls back, tsk-ing as she straightens my collar, her eyes scanning my face for vibrational shifts or whatever she’s calling stress these days. She flashes a triumphant, knowing smile—the kind that makes me realize I never stood a chance.

“Oh, darling, the universe doesn’t care about your little white lies,” she says, her voice taking on that airy, storytelling quality. “You remember our call two weeks ago? That lovely, fleeting moment of connection?”

I remember it. I’d been drowning in guilt and stepped onto the porch of the inn to get enough bars to hear her complain about her yoga instructor. I thought the darkness of the Stillwater woods was my cover. I was wrong.

“You were so careless, Bear,” she continues, her jewelry clinking as she mimes holding a phone. “The security light flashed, and there it was—that magnificent, jagged white pine right behind you. The one with the lightning-scarred limb that looks exactly like a skeletal hand reaching for the heavens.”

She leans in closer, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“I didn’t just see a tree, Bear. I saw an omen. I took a screenshot and sent it to a wonderful woman I found—a spiritual intuitive on a board for retired psychics. I let her read the vibrations of the bark, the history written in the wood. And wouldn’t you know it? The vibrations pointed directly here. To a town that smells like wet leaves and generational resentment.”

She beams at me, patting my cheek. “You can’t hide your soul from me, Baryn. Not when the trees are talking.”

I am acutely aware of two things in this moment. First: there are at least three shoppers pretending to compare cheese prices while they watch this unfold. Second: my mother, the cosmic bloodhound, has torpedoed seven years of witness protection-grade secrecy in less than two weeks.

And for the record, I do not believe for one second that a spiritually gifted retiree led her to Stillwater.

My mother has money. The kind that makes most logistical problems temporary. She also has an assistant, an accountant, at least one attorney on retainer, and absolutely no shame about calling strangers and asking questions they have no business answering.

She probably started with Simon. Not because Simon would willingly tell her where I am, but because my mother has never required willing participation from anyone. She would’ve called him, gotten nowhere, found someone adjacent to him, gotten Maine, and kept digging until Stillwater fell out. From there, it’s hotel desks, rental-car counters, and anyone else susceptible to a charming older woman with excellent manners and no respect for personal boundaries.

The tree came afterward, because admitting she tracked her adult son through aggressive social engineering lacks whimsy.

She takes my face in both hands, her rings icy against my cheeks. “You look so thin, baby. Have you been eating enough iron? I can see it in your tear troughs.”

“I’m—” I shoot a look at the nearby cheese spies. “I’m working. I’m busy.”

“Oh, but that’s what I love about you,” she croons, “you always find a way to transform your trauma into productivity.” She plants a kiss on my forehead, then slides her arm through mine, steering us both toward the front of the store. “Now, tell me everything. Start with your sleep hygiene, and end with why you haven’t called your mother since the last full moon. Or should we do this in the car?”

The efficiency of her maneuver is breathtaking. I don’t even realize she’s cleared my shopping list for me until we hit the checkout, and she insists on paying (“Money is energy, darling, and I have plenty.”). The cashier, a man who looks like he’s been personally victimized by every customer this week, rings us up with a hollow sort of resignation.

“You visiting your son?” he asks, scanning the almond milk.

“My son is an investigator,” she says, chin high. “He specializes in unspeakable tragedies. It’s such a gift.”

The cashier doesn’t respond. The register beeps, a single note of despair.

My stomach drops.

She knows.

For seven years, my mother has believed my unexplained absences were spiritual retreats—silent meditation, digital detoxes, the occasional vaguely described journey of self-discovery. I once spent three weeks investigating a suspicious drowning in Oregon and told her I was reconnecting with my root chakra.

She was thrilled.

At no point was she supposed to discover that all that spiritual growth had actually been B.R. Slate investigating dead people.

So how the fuck does she know?