“They were undocumented—his family, I mean. He had DACA protection. That’s how the subject came up. He told me . . .” She started to say “once.” He told me once . . . She realized how fleeting it made their relationship seem, but it wasn’t like that. And she realized how stupid she’d sound if she tried to explain “It wasn’t like that.” She’d had short, dramatic, intense flings before—ugh—but Alex hadn’t been that. She left out the once and embellished a bit. “He told me all the time how unsettling it was to grow up with undocumented”—her father would have said illegal—“parents. It wasn’t until he got registered with Dreamer protection that he started to, well, dream, I guess, that he could be something other than pure under-the-table labor. Like he’d been living in an invisible prison, and the bars were suddenly gone. And Frank was the one who encouraged him. For Alex to be a business owner here? In the Hamptons? It was major to him.” She felt a lump in her throat again and a sudden urge to crawl back under the blankets. She was exhausted from the pure physical act of crying.

“Did he ever mention living anywhere other than Phoenix or Alaska?”

She shook her head.

She could tell that Decker was contemplating whether to ask another question. “Not the Midwest?” he asked.

She shook her head again, even as she thought about that neutral accent.

“Kansas, maybe?” Decker asked, clearly revealing more information than he had initially intended. “Wichita, Kansas.”

“He just said Phoenix. And Alaska.”

“Did he ever tell you where his parents currently lived? Any siblings? Anything?”

“His parents are gone. He told me that even with DACA protection, it wasn’t until his parents passed away that he felt comfortable owning anything in his name. He called it ‘coming out from the shadows.’”

“Do you know when his parents died? Or where they were before they passed? Nothing about Kansas?”

“I’m sorry. No.”

“When you filed the missing person report, you mentioned that he had seemed distracted lately.”

Suddenly, you’re interested. “He was normally one hundred percent in the moment.” Unlike anyone else she had ever dated, she thought. “But for the past few weeks, I’d notice him not listening, kind of with a vacant stare. Checking his phone a couple times. I’d ask him about it, but he’d brush it off and tune back in.”

“It doesn’t sound like he was the most open boyfriend.”