“Girl.” My mother refills her mug with the last of the coffee. “Again, though, you can’t tell anyone that. I’m trusting you with this information because I feel like you at least deserve a few answers, after what you went through. Finding her and all. And what they’re saying now.”

I nod and sip juice from my glass.

“Beckett.” She puts her hand over mine until I meet her gaze. “I’m sorry. I had to ask.”

“I know.” I pull my hand free and carefully back away from this tender moment. Detective Julie Bergen may be more observant than the off-duty version of my mother, but she asks fewer personal questions. Which is why I’d much rather deal with the cop right now. “What I did not know is that you’re on Twitter.”

“I’m not, but the Clifford PD has been made aware that an anonymous Twitter account has posted a picture of what may turn out to be a crime scene, and we’re obviously interested in finding out who opened that account. And where they got the picture.”

“It isn’t from you guys? Penn said people think it’s a leaked police photo.”

I should feel guilty for this obvious misdirection, but I don’t.

“We’re looking into that possibility too, but unless one of our guys took a photo on a cell phone—which is done, sometimes—it isn’t ours.”

“By looking into it, you mean …?”

“Chief pulled Doug off the street and parked him in front of a computer at the station with a gallon of coffee and a pizza. Until we know there’s been a crime committed, we can’t justify borrowing a tech guy from the state police. I’m going back in to help him in a few minutes.”

“Can you get Twitter to remove the account?”

“Not until it posts something that violates their terms. Unfortunately, hypothesizing on the parentage of a dead baby doesn’t do that.”

“What about the picture? How is posting that okay?” I ask, without saying what’s really going through my head: Yes, I took the picture, but I had no intention of sharing it. And I didn’t take it to exploit that poor baby. I just needed to know if it was Jake’s.

“That’s not against the terms either. In fact, there are hundreds of images of war victims out there, posted by journalists covering combat zones. This isn’t the same thing, though, and we have put in a request to at least have the photo removed. But I have no idea how long that will take, or whether Twitter will comply.”

“So, what should I do?” I haven’t asked my mom that in a long time. “Should I reply? Tell people it’s not my baby?”

“That’ll just invite more interaction. Delete your account.”