“When did Ursula meet him?” Theo asked.

“At the Central Park Zoo, at least a couple of times,” Gloria said. “Ursula said she had met him at a gala Caroline hosted.” Her face was miserable. “Teddy liked Ben. They talked about animals.”

“We have to call the police,” Reagan said. “Even if Ursula’s not plotting with Ben, he’ll have no trouble getting Teddy to go with him. We need to think about where Ben would go.”

“My sister sent me a photo of her and Ben—it mentioned a house in High Falls, New York.”

“Do you know where it is?” Theo asked.

“No,” I admitted. “Just High Falls.”

“I know where it is,” my father said.

“How?” I asked.

“I had to pick Caro up from there once.” He didn’t elaborate on why. “His family was well off. They had a vacation home in the Poconos too.”

“I’ll give the police every lead we have,” Theo said. “But if Caroline mentioned High Falls, I think we should head there.”

We took separate cars, me in my father’s and Theo following us. We were mostly silent heading out of the city. It had been a decade since I’d driven anywhere with my father, and it felt uncomfortable because it was familiar and strange at the same time. It was like the adult me had been transported into the past, only instead of stressing about my parents’ fighting, we were united in our fears for Teddy.

“What happened?” I asked finally. “The time you had to pick Caro up at Ben’s house, I mean.”

“She didn’t come home for her birthday. Two weeks later, she still hadn’t stopped by. It wasn’t like her,” he said.

“You talked on the phone?”

“Aye, there were some short chats. But very much on the surface, about work and the like.” He was quiet for a moment. “She never said anything was amiss.”

“What happened?”

“I thought, ‘This is too strange.’ Your mother believed I was overreacting. She’d met Ben and liked him. But I didn’t think much of him, to be honest.”

“Too macho?”

“Too much of a show-off. All these tales of derring-do.”

“What happened when you got to the house?”

“Caro was fit to be tied. ‘That bastard stole my work,’ she told me.”

“Ben stole her work? Wasn’t he a Pulitzer Prize finalist?”

“Apparently that very story was one Caro reported on and wrote. She got no credit for it.” He shook his head. “I thought she might strangle him, but he wasn’t in the house. She told me to wait, packed up her things, and that was it. Didn’t even leave him a note.”

“Stone cold.” I stared at the road. “She never told me anything.”

“Crawleys are good at keeping secrets, bad at asking for help.”

“What I don’t understand is why she would have anything to do with him again.”