Her kids exchanged another glance. Imani interpreted this look as pitying. It was the kind of side-eye that she imagined adult children gave one another when they realized a parent was suffering the beginning stages of dementia.

Protesting her sanity would only solidify their opinion, Imani decided. She headed to her room, slumped onto the bed, and opened her phone. The Instagram profile that she’d been perusing before the window broke was still on-screen. In the center was the name MickyKline_Drinks. Below it was the message that she’d started to write.

“Hello Mr. Kline.”

Imani deleted the greeting. Use of honorifics and last names on Instagram would read as a call for charity. You don’t know me, but my daughter is sick… Better to get straight to the point, she thought.

“I’m a friend of Melissa’s and understand that you were also,” she typed. “I’d like to speak with you.”

It read like a Twitter dating request, Imani thought. She needed something more enticing than a simple call for conversation. If the police were correct and this Micky had been sleeping with Melissa, then he wouldn’t want to advertise his cuckolding a dead man. It made him a murder suspect. In fact, for all Imani knew, he was Nate’s killer. He could have become obsessed with Melissa, shot her husband, and kidnapped her.

“The police are already trying to find you,” Imani wrote. “Maybe I can help.”

Or maybe I can rescue my friend and send you to jail, she thought.

She appended her telephone number and email. As her phone sounded with the whoosh of a sent message, her bedroom door opened. Quickly, she exited the application. Philip would not appreciate her messaging handsome, young strangers, let alone people of interest in a murder investigation.

His coloring had returned to normal, though his body language seemed more beaten down. Philip entered with his hands in front of his stomach, knotted into a ball like he’d been praying. The pious posture unnerved her. Philip was not a man to come pleading about anything.

“What’s wrong?”

He rubbed his forehead, working out the words. “I think I have a possible solution to our financial problems. But it will require some flexibility.”

Flexibility was earned through pushing muscles to the point of pain. The last thing Imani wanted was more of that. She put her phone down to give Philip her full attention. “What do you mean?”

“I think—”

The doorbell’s ring cut him off. Imani stared at Philip, wordlessly urging him to resume guard at the entrance. He winced. “I’m sorry, babe. I guess she’s early.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

TONYA

He hadn’t told her. Tonya could tell by the smile plastered onto Philip’s wife’s face, a cemented expression, ready to crack. The woman’s pupils darted from Tonya’s large suitcase to their masked faces and back again as Philip welcomed her and Layla inside.