He coughed on a surprised laugh. “Um, hello. This is Jeff Bunker. May I speak with Mrs. Sokolov?”

“She’s not here right now. Can I take a message?”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah.” He organized his thoughts.

“Is that the message? ‘Oh. Okay. Yeah’?” the girl asked, her tone laced with humor.

It put him enough at ease that he could get real words out. “I was calling to check on Miss Callahan. I know she won’t want to speak with me, but I was up all night worrying and—” He cut himself off. “I’m rambling.”

“It’s okay,” the girl said gently. “And Mercy is okay. She appreciated you getting that video taken down and she understood why you didn’t call the cops about Miss Romero’s body right away. The man you saw is scary. She knows that better than anyone.”

So there was history there. I knew it! He was about to ask, then caught his mother’s challenging glare. “Thank you,” he said instead. “I’m glad she’s okay. If you could tell your mother that I called and, if she can, to please call me back. My article has sent a lot of people to my own blog and my YouTube channel.”

“I know,” the girl said, unimpressed. “One of them was me. You have some decent writing skills, Mr. Bunker, but you’re wasting your time on that gossip trash.”

Part of him preened. But most of him stayed focused. “Thank you, and you’re right that it was trash. That’s why I wanted to talk to Mrs. Sokolov. I read online that she and her husband do a lot of charity work. I was hoping they could give me some advice for how to use my fifteen minutes of fame to do something good.”

His mother gave him a proud smile.

“Oh,” the girl said softly. “I’ll tell her. It’ll be a while before she calls you, so don’t be worried. We had a family emergency and Mom had to go out of town, but I’ll pass this on to her.”

He wanted to ask about the emergency, but his mother’s lifted brows kept him on task. “Thank you,” he said again. “Maybe I should contact her by e-mail if she’s dealing with an emergency. She doesn’t need to call me back. Does she have an e-mail?”

“Uh, yes,” she said, like he’d asked if her mother had a pulse.

“I can give you my e-mail so that you can forward it to her.”

“Oh, I can find your e-mail. I’ve been on your blog and YouTube channel, remember?”

He smiled at that. “Can I ask who I’m speaking to?”

“Zoya,” she said. “I’m the youngest Sokolov. Listen, I saw you from my window yesterday and I thought you were pretty brave to face my brother and Gideon. They can be formidable when they’re upset and they were very upset with you. But now they’re not, so . . . good on you. Stay safe, okay? The man you saw is . . . well, he’s really dangerous, but you knew that already.”