“You mean you think she’s…” Imani trailed off, unwilling to utter the word dead lest it somehow sink into the universe and change Melissa’s fate. “You think whoever hurt Nate—”

“Who hurt him?” Bill made the question sound rhetorical.

“Do you know?” Imani asked.

Nancy glanced at the empty staircase before speaking. “Melissa was seeing someone.” She glared at Imani, her blue eyes turning to slate. “Did you know?”

Imani knew that online commentators didn’t need facts to weigh in with their opinions. “People are only saying the affair stuff online because of their careers,” she countered. “Melissa played some ruthless female characters in the past, so they’re confusing her roles with her real life. She—”

“The police asked us if Nate had said anything about problems in the marriage or her being unfaithful,” Nancy interrupted. “It’s clear they suspect something.”

Imani looked away from Nancy’s disgusted expression, struggling to bring an imaginary cement wall into focus. “The cops are only speculating, looking for motive anywhere.”

“She was privately messaging some guy on Instagram,” Bill grumbled.

Imani shook her head, even as she considered the implication of Bill having such a specific piece of information. Germaphobe that she was, Melissa wouldn’t have started seeing a stranger during a pandemic. However, if she were completely honest with herself, Imani could imagine Melissa growing bored and possibly flirting online. She and Nate thrived off of attention, and they hadn’t been able to get much adoration from strangers lately.

“I’m sure it was nothing,” Imani said.

Bill’s nostrils flared. “Well, they’re trying to track him down. For all we know, she’s hiding out with him.”

Imani closed her eyes, trying to force the friend that she knew into the character the police had created. On some level, she wanted Bill to be right. If Melissa was hiding out with a lover, then she was definitely alive. But even if Imani threw out everything that she believed to be true about Melissa and Nate’s relationship, she still couldn’t reconcile Melissa the mother with a woman who would leave her daughter to mourn her disappearance as she galivanted around with a lover.

“Or this guy kidnapped her.” Imani said it too loudly. She looked nervously up the stairs and then turned the dial on her voice down to sotto voce level. “I’ve known Melissa for more than a decade. She would never hurt—”

“Then where is she?” Bill roared.

“Hey.” Philip stepped forward, hand raised like a traffic cop. “I imagine this is hard, but—”