Iris walked into my room, wet hair in a towel, wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe. “It’s Dad!” I said, putting Bill on speaker, biting my lip, wondering why, now that we knew we were safe. Shouldn’t Iris and I have rushed home immediately? Showered in our own showers? I reasoned that it was because all our stuff was here, but that didn’t seem quite right. All of our real stuff was at home. I knew Iris and I hadn’t discussed going home yet for bigger reasons than that.

“Iris!” Bill said. “How is it to be home?”

She was obviously quicker than I was because Iris said, “Mom and I decided that we want to spend our first night back at home with you, as a family.”

I could hear that Bill was choked up when he said, “Oh, girls. That is just the best thing I’ve ever heard. I’m counting down the minutes until I see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” Iris squealed back at him.

“We can’t wait to get you back,” I said. “Love you, Bill.”

“Love you both,” he said.

Iris flopped down on the bed beside me. “You did that,” I said. That wasn’t 100 percent true. The feds and Oliver had both independently solved most of what was going on by the time Iris did—hence the FBI’s truly perfect timing—but she was at least on their heels, which was pretty impressive for a fourteen-year-old who had never even really been that into Nancy Drew.

“Yeah. I’m like that,” she said. She paused and turned her head to look at me. “Should we unpack why we haven’t gone home yet, or just let it ride?”

I sighed. “Pretty smooth how you lied there. I didn’t just love how easily that slid out.”

She raised her eyebrows at me. “You should be thanking me for saving you instead of scolding me for lying. What would Dad think if we told him we didn’t want to go home?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to go home,” I said. “It’s just that we’ve had a nice time here, and it’s going to be different going home alone.”

“Quiet,” Iris chimed in.

“But I am excited to go home,” I said, “especially now that it means going home with Dad.”

“Same,” Iris said. “And it’s only, like, two blocks away. We don’t need to be dramatic. We’ll still see everyone all the time.”

“Right,” I agreed. “Want to go see what they’re doing?”

Iris nodded. “Last night at the mommune.”

“Last night at the mommune.” It was weird how now, knowing it was over, that made me so sad.