“Of course,” I said. “Get anything you want. Anything we can carry, that is.” I paused. “Chlo, can you be in charge of my pillow?”

“Yup.”

“Great.” I was having a thought. Julie had said that we should try to help prove that my dad was innocent. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. No, I wasn’t some total expert in the world of finance, but the premise was pretty easy: we had to find proof that he hadn’t stolen that money. “Hey, guys, I’m going to my dad’s office really quick.”

I opened the door just enough to slip through and closed it behind me, tapping my flashlight icon again. Without Chloe and Dabney, it felt eerie to be here alone in the dark, like a ghost or the boogeyman was going to jump out and grab me at any minute. I took deep breaths and made my way the few steps down the hall into my dad’s home office where he worked at least half the time. At work, Dad’s desk was always piled with papers and notebooks, files and folders. Here, everything was perfectly tidy on top of his large mahogany desk that ordinarily contained a Mac, a wireless keyboard, and nothing else. Behind the desk sat a matching antique credenza with awards on top. To the right was a small closet that, I knew, held Dad’s printer, shelves full of books, and assorted paperwork, perfectly organized. A large leather swivel chair sat behind the desk. My throat gripped when I saw it. Of all the places I could picture my dad, I pictured him here the most. Now the office was basically empty. No computer. But no mess either.

Man, I missed when we all lived here together, when Dad would work from home, when I’d sit on the other side of his desk and do my homework. I picked up a framed photo from Dad’s credenza of the three of us at the Rockefeller Center tree lighting in New York. If I could close my eyes and twitch my nose and go back in time, I would do it in a minute.

I missed the man who had raised me, who always came home for dinner and asked me about my day and helped me with my math homework. I missed sitting with my parents in our den watching movies. I missed every simple thing about our life together, and while, sure, so far that ideal family had only been MIA for less time than when I went to camp in the summers, the idea that I didn’t know when or if I would get it back hurt the most.

I turned to Dad’s credenza and opened the drawers, which were, as I could have predicted, empty. The feds had cleaned out his files, obviously.