Theo’s father had admitted his son had shown up around five that morning, but his visit had been brief. Ben had told me he was supposed to meet Caro near her house, but that plan had changed, with my sister deciding to come down to his neighborhood. I understood that Theo’s surprise appearance had rattled Caro—it had to be why she’d dashed off her message to me—but I felt like there was something I was missing, some detail that would thread everything together.

I didn’t know what she expected me to do. She’d left me with exactly nothing . . .

Or had she?

All her data in Osiris’s Vault was gone, but that wasn’t her only digital footprint. I thought of the photographs and the memory card she’d given me. The spreadsheets had been a surprise. What if there was something else on there, a detail I’d missed because I hadn’t known what I was looking for?

That thought pricked at me like a thorn all the way back to Queens. I didn’t even stop at Kung Fu Tea on my way home. But when I landed on my block, a cop car was parked outside the house, lights flashing.

My landlord, Saira Mukherjee, was on the lawn, talking to a uniformed cop. He was taking notes and nodding. When she noticed me, Saira waved me over frantically.

“We’ve been robbed!” she yelled.

I hurried over. “What happened?”

“Wilson was in the basement”—Wilson was the human foghorn in the room next to mine—“and he heard some strange sounds. When he poked his head out of his room, he saw your door was open. There was a man ransacking your room.”

“You caught him?”

Saira gave me a look that said, Are you for real? Wilson hid from his own shadow most of the year.

“The burglar saw him and punched Wilson in the head. He dragged him into your room and messed him up. Poor Wilson’s at Elmhurst now.” Saira meant the public hospital nearby.

“We’re going to need you to do an inventory, see what was taken,” the cop said.

I nodded and moved on autopilot toward the house.

My room was a mess. Whoever had broken in had ignored the lock and splintered the plywood door. I didn’t own much, but most of what I had was lying on the floor. I sifted through the rubble but couldn’t find the envelope from Caro. My laptop was gone. I searched on my hands and knees in case the memory card had somehow fallen out of the envelope, but it had vanished.

CHAPTER 32 DEIRDRE

CHAPTER 32

DEIRDRE

There was no way I could stay at my apartment that night. I gathered up some clothes and toiletries and made my escape to Reagan’s house. I felt embarrassed, standing on the porch. There I was, asking for them to take care of me. Again.