Ten minutes pass and there’s still no sign of her.

“Do you want to go and knock? Could the bus have taken a shortcut?” Hunter asks.

“It didn’t, I’m on their website and the bus route takes a pretty direct path through North Acres, only stopping twice until it passes into South Acres where it stops ten more times before it hits the bus depot. Assuming the bus she was on didn’t encounter a delay, which is unlikely, she should have been home by now,” Clay tells us.

No one disagrees or questions him, like I mentioned, he’s a genius and if he says she should be home by now, then she should be home.

“Could she have stopped to get groceries or something?” Evan suggests

“She shops at the grocery store in South Acres, and she only went yesterday,” Clay tells us matter-of-factly.

“You’re such a good little stalker,” Hunter laughs.

“Could she have gone to work?” Clay suggests.

“I thought you said she doesn’t normally work on Mondays, or this early,” I say, panic rising in my chest. Unclipping my seat belt I open my door, climb out and stride up the path to her house, ringing her doorbell.

When the door hasn’t been opened a minute later, I press the doorbell again and then once more just for good measure. Waiting impatiently, I tap my finger against the doorframe, until the sound of someone descending the stairs comes from inside.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” her mother calls, a moment before the door is thrown open and an older version of Starling looks up at me.

“Hello, Ms. Clarke. Is Starling home?”

The woman in front of me assesses me for a moment, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looks me over. “And you are?” she asks me coolly.

“I’m one of Starling’s classmates, I was hoping I could speak to her about a school project, but we forgot to exchange cell phone numbers earlier,” I tell her, using the polished, cajoling tone I use whenever I’m around my parents’ obnoxious friends.

“Oh,” Cassidy says, exhaling a shaky breath as she smiles up at me, like somehow me going to GAA makes me less threatening. “I’m sorry, she’s not back from school yet, would you like to leave a message for her?”

Furrowing my brow, I grit my teeth and try not to let my frustration show. This is my little bird’s mother, why the fuck doesn’t she know where her daughter is? Why isn’t she concerned that she’s late getting home? “No that’s fine, I’ll speak to her tomorrow in class.”

Turning, I stride down the path back toward my car as she calls. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

Ignoring her, I climb back into the car, turn on the engine and pull away from the curb. “Track her cell,” I snarl to Clay, who shakes his head, but immediately starts pressing the screen on the tablet he has on his lap.

In the year since I first laid eyes on Starling, I’ve had the ability to track her cell phone and find out her whereabouts, but I’ve refrained, for the most part, just like I didn’t allow myself to know her name or anything about her. But everything’s changed now and I won’t hold back anymore.