The Laguna casino and resort was nothing more than a small cluster of businesses built on tribal land—exempt from the state’s gambling prohibitions. It wasn’t exactly a hotbed of tourism—more like an escape for locals looking to exercise their right to throw their money away in slot machines. Connecticut already had Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. Laguna was their ugly stepsibling. A hotel. A gas station. A Jiffy bus stop with a ticket machine and a covered bench.

Molly Clarke had made one charge paying for two nights. No one recalled seeing her, but the place had been a zoo—people without power seeking refuge. The security cameras were set up high, looking down at heads, facilitating the identification of petty theft more than faces. They’d been through all of it, going back to the night of the storm—looking for her, her beige coat and jeans. Blond hair. A woman alone.

Watkins shook his head eagerly. “No, no. There’s nothing. And we have everyone on alert at Laguna. But, again, the absence of new evidence suggests she covered her tracks. That she doesn’t want us to find her. And, hard as this is to hear, that she doesn’t want you to find her.”

Nic let his words settle in place. She had no reason to doubt him. Or at least to doubt that he believed what he was saying. There was no point arguing until she met Edith Moore.

“Okay,” she said, finally. “Thank you for everything you’ve done. So—Officer Reyes? At the diner? I’ll be there by nine thirty.”

Watkins stood up. Nic did the same.

“I take it this means you’re not going home?”

Nic looked at him now, with surprise. She knew how all of this seemed. To her father. To Chief Watkins. To everyone. She didn’t care. It had never seemed right to her, even when she’d tried to force it down, and now this—the inconclusive handwriting report.

“No,” she said. “I’m not going home.”

She left the station with a pounding head and churning stomach. As she got in her mother’s car, smelling her fading perfume, she could hear the voices screaming out from the hollow spaces—sadness and guilt, rage and love, and all of the other shit that lived in them. All of them were screaming now, begging for some kind of relief. For a drink. For her “friends” at the bar back home. For some loser who might stumble in.

And she told them what she’d just told Chief Watkins. She wasn’t going home. Not this time. Whatever anger she’d felt for her mother for what happened to Annie, the love was deeper, and it was in her bones. With her mother’s absence had come a powerful longing to reclaim those sweet moments that had been lost.