Vivian sat on the floor, her back pressed against the bed, arms loosely wrapped around her knees. Her breath had evened out, but the pressure in her chest remained, heavy and unmoving. Her head ached, her throat burned, and the dried salt on her skin reminded her of just how long she had been crying. The room was still, too quiet, the kind of silence that should have been comforting but only made her feel worse.

  She couldn’t stay like this forever.

  Her limbs felt heavy, her mouth dry, her body stiff from exhaustion, but none of it mattered. She wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweater and forced herself to take a deep breath. The logical part of her mind was reasserting itself, pushing past the haze of grief, reminding her that she couldn’t afford to stay broken.

  She had to figure out what came next.

  The police believed Serena had something to do with Vince’s murder. That meant she was missing, dead, or being framed. None of it made sense. Serena wasn’t dangerous—not to Vince, not to her. But Mercer had asked the question like it was a real possibility.

  Why would they suspect Serena?

  Had they found something?

  Or had someone given them a reason to?

  Vivian grabbed her phone and unlocked it, pulling up her messages first. She scrolled through her last conversations with Serena, scanning for anything that stood out, anything she had overlooked. But there was nothing. Their exchanges had been normal, routine. Nothing unusual, nothing that suggested Serena was in trouble.

  She checked Serena’s social media next.

  No updates. No posts. No new activity.

  Her stomach clenched.

  The silence wasn’t just unnerving—it was wrong.

  Serena was always active online, even if just to scroll. If she hadn’t posted, hadn’t liked anything, hadn’t so much as opened her accounts, then she had been gone since before Vince died.

  Vivian gripped her phone tighter.

  If the police weren’t looking for her, then no one was.

  And if no one was looking for her, that meant Vivian had to start herself.

  She needed to retrace Serena’s steps.

  She needed to figure out where she had last been, who she had last seen, what had led to her disappearance. But she had no trail to follow, no leads, nothing to work with except what Vince had said that night—that this had to do with something from five years ago.

  Her mind combed through the past, through all the things Serena had never told her outright, through the pieces she had only been allowed to glimpse.

  Vivian had been fifteen when she first understood that Serena was making money in ways she wasn’t supposed to.

  “You don’t need to know how I get it. Just use it.”

  She had never questioned it.

  She had never thought she needed to.

  And now, years later, Serena was gone, and she had no idea what she had been caught up in.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Her stomach twisted, but she pushed the feeling aside. She needed a place to start, someone who might have answers.

  And then, as if the answer had been waiting for her to stop drowning in grief, it became obvious.

  She wasn’t the only one who had been at Silver Key that afternoon.

  Noah had been there too.

  She sat up straighter, her breath slowing as she stared down at her phone.

  Noah.

  She had been so focused on herself, on what she had done, on what she had seen, that she hadn’t stopped to ask the most obvious question.

  Why had Noah been there in the first place?

  Silver Key wasn’t open to the public that early.

  Vince hadn’t been expecting anyone.

  He wasn’t even supposed to be there himself.

  So why had Noah been there?

  Had he known Vince?

  Had he been looking for him?

  Had he been looking for her?

  Vivian’s fingers tightened against the fabric of her sweater.

  She needed to talk to him.

  But before she could move, before she could even think about calling him, something else slammedinto her mind.

  The clothes.

  The ones she had stuffed under her bed the night she got back from the motel.

  The ones she had meant to throw out. The ones she had planned to get rid of.

  But she hadn’t.

  And suddenly, she wasn’t sure why.

  A cold sensation crawled up her spine.

  Vivian pushed herself onto her knees, gripping the side of the mattress for balance as she lifted the bedspread.

  Her hands froze.

  The space beneath her bed was empty.

  Her pulse slammed against her ribs.

  She reached further, patting the floor, checking the edges, pulling everything out, checking again and again.

  Nothing.

  The clothes weren’t there.

  Her hands clenched into fists as she pressed them against the floor, her breath coming faster, her mind scrambling.

  Had she moved them?

  Had she thrown them out and forgotten?

  No.

  She remembered stuffing them under the bed. She remembered thinking she would deal with them later.

  And she hadn’t touched them since.

  Her stomach dropped.

  Someone had been in her room.

  Her hands trembled as she pushed herself back up, her breath uneven. She turned toward the door, suddenly hyper-aware of the lock, of the quiet, of the fact that nothing else in the room looked out of place.

  But the clothes were gone.

  And no one should have known they were there.

  Unless—

  A shiver ran down her spine.

  Noah.

  Her mind raced through every possibility, every angle, every reason why.

  If he took them, what did that mean?

  Was he covering for her?

  Was he watching her?

  Had he been in here?

  Had he been waiting for her to notice?

  And then, a worse thought struck her all at once, sending ice through her veins.

  The clothes were the only thing that could tie Noah to that motel.

  Now, there was nothing left.

  Noah had wiped his prints.

  Noah had made sure there was no evidence of himself at the scene.

  Vivian had been the one who threw up there.

  Vivian was the one Vince had called.

  Vivian was the one the police had questioned.

  And now, if the clothes were gone, there was nothing linking Noah to that night at all.

  He had left her to get caught.

  She pressed a hand to her mouth, forcing herself to think, forcing herself to calm down, but her mind wouldn’t stop racing.

  No clothes meant no connection to him.

  No connection to him meant that when everything fell apart, it would be her name the police called again.

  Her jaw tightened, her hands curled into fists.

  She had thought Noah had helped her.

  Now, she wasn’t sure he had ever intended to.

  She didn’t know the answers.

  She had to talk to him.