Who buys groceries, refills their Starbucks card, then decides to run away? It made no sense.

He scrolled back through the records. As far as he could see, the day-to-day account had no unusual charges for the past several days, and the last substantial withdrawal was one he’d made that past Friday. Sutton used a debit card for everything, hated carrying cash. Ethan was the opposite; he loved the tangible feel of money.

Part of him was relieved, and part of him was frightened. She hadn’t fled with cash in her pocket.

Call the police. You need to call the police. Something is wrong. The note, it could have been written under duress.

The other side of his mind said, Just...assemble all the facts first.

He switched to the investment account. This one was much more complicated, with multiple subaccounts, separate ones for tax and investments, the latter loaded with high-performing stocks, puts and lets and shorts. There was even one account with a separate money manager who essentially did day-trading on a variety of stocks and bonds for their well-managed portfolio. He thought it a waste, thought they should use Ivy, but Sutton had put her foot down. Money and friendship never, ever mix.

He kept scrolling. He was surprised by the balance of the managed account, much more than he’d expected.

It took him an hour to find the pattern of withdrawals, because she varied the time of the visits and the amount, and made cryptic notes in the withdrawal slips. But when all was said and done, there was at least $50,000 unaccounted for.

It wasn’t a huge sum. Truly, he could probably explain it away as incidentals, money Sutton had spent on clothes, or things for the house.

But something in him said, No, mate, this is it, this is something.

He printed out the spreadsheet he’d built with all the withdrawals and their corresponding dates in it, then shut off the computer. He was barely out of the office when the phone rang.

He glanced at the caller ID. Ivy.

He grabbed the phone, ignoring his fumbling desperation. Depressed the Talk button and practically shouted, “Have you heard from her?”

Ivy’s voice was smoky and low. He could hear a din in the background. She was at a conference, somewhere in Texas. Sutton had been invited—Sutton was always invited; Ivy thought the different locales good for research—but Ethan knew she’d declined this trip, saying she wasn’t in the mood to travel. She hadn’t been in the mood for much of anything lately.

“Ethan? I can hardly hear you.”

“I said, do you know where she is?”

“No, I don’t. There’s been no word, and her accounts are turned off. You still haven’t heard from her? Where could she have gone?”

“What do you mean, her accounts are turned off?”

“It looks like she committed social media suicide.”

“I thought she’d done that ages ago.”

“Oh. Maybe she did, I don’t keep up with Facebook like I should. Where could she be?”