I tucked Vera’s journal back into my bedside table, then hustled from the living room, to the kitchen, to the foyer searching for my keys as I heard the grandfather clock tick tick tick down the precious minutes I had left. My body prickled. My fingers twisted. My foot tapped. My nerves sizzled. I could feel the pent-up excitement begging for a release. Now I knew how Meowzebub felt when she got a bad case of the zoomies. I’d been counting down all afternoon for the chance to sneak out and visit Blythe Sampson, watching the clock until the magic hour: time to drop off Eliot and Sydney for their martial arts class.

Neither child had ever once shown interest in karate until Oliver featured The Karate Kid for Friday Family Fun Movie Night. Friday turned into a Saturday The Karate Kid marathon, including the Cobra Kai spinoff series on Netflix. “Syd needs some semblance of normalcy,” Oliver had insisted. Which was true. When the instructor happily agreed to ensuring Sydney would have plenty of water and breaks, we ordered her uniform—or gis, as Eliot reminded me every time I “said it wrong”—and we signed them up. By we I mean me, because while Oliver was the dreamer, I was the doer. Those always seemed to be our repeat roles: Dad introduces the fun idea, and Mom gets stuck driving the kids all over God’s creation.

After chauffeuring the kids to karate, and reminding Sensei Lee about Sydney’s water break and rest schedule, I stopped by the house to grab a knife from the kitchen drawer. I had no idea what kind of person Blythe was, if she was packing heat—did anybody say that these days besides uncool moms like me?—but I wasn’t taking any chances. If she was responsible for Vera’s disappearance, I wanted to be prepared to defend myself. I had exactly one hour to kill, no pun intended. Enough time to drive over to Blythe’s house and make it back in time to pick up the kids from karate.

As long as nothing went wrong.

I slid the knife in my purse and found my keys splayed on a French provincial-style mid-century table I had found at a local antique shop. The Italian marble top felt cool against my touch. I carefully shut the front door behind me with a soft click. Oliver would never have approved. Certainly not if I told him I was interrogating a teenage kid and bringing a weapon with me. While he preferred to leave everything up to the cops to deal with, I had done that for six long months, forced to wait through body recoveries and autopsy reports while Vera could still be out there. No more waiting. I was getting my own answers this time.

Besides, Blythe was a teenager. How dangerous could she be?