Kara hasn’t seen it yet, but she knows. She knows from our faces.
“What?”
I turn the phone toward her. She reads the message. All the color leaves her face.
“She always answers Vanessa,” she repeats.
No one speaks. There is nothing to say that will not hurt more. Then Kara’s own voice, small and shaking, breaks the silence.
“She has my house code.”
Sloane goes still. So do I.
Kara looks at me, horror widening in her eyes as the realization opens beneath her. “Vanessa has my house code. I gave it to her when I went to Atlanta last year and she watered my basil.”
“Did you ever change it?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“No.”
Sloane nods his head. “That explains no forced entry.”
“It doesn’t explain the system bypass,” Rafi says from the laptop.
“No,” I say. “But it explains how she got inside long enough to learn the system.”
Kara looks like she might be sick.
“She was in my house,” she says.
The words are flat. Hollow.
“She touched my clothes. My photos.”
I step toward her. This time, she reaches first. Her hand closes around my forearm, hard enough that her nails bite through fabric.
Good. Let it hurt. Let it be somewhere I can feel.
“She took my knife,” Kara whispers.
Sloane’s phone rings.
He answers immediately, turning slightly away. “Archer.”
I keep my attention on Kara. She is breathing too fast now, but not collapsing. Not yet. Her grip on me is iron. Her eyes stay open, fixed on some point beyond all of us.
The old truth is dying in front of me. No blood spilled, but still brutal.
Sloane ends the call. “Eli just got confirmation from Orlando PD. They contacted Vanessa’s restaurant. Staff says she leftyesterday afternoon for what she called a supplier emergency. She hasn’t been back.”
Kara’s grip loosens.
“She told me she was at the restaurant.”
Rafi says, “Her last public post from the restaurant was uploaded yesterday, but metadata suggests the image was taken two weeks ago.”
Kara makes a sound. One small sound. It is not crying. It is the moment a person hears the floor give way. I catch her before her knees buckle.
