She walked into the kitchen and set the bags down, ignoring the apple that rolled across the counter. She had much bigger problems than runaway fruit. The two days of silence ate at her, chipped away at her hope and intensified every worry.

She turned to the refrigerator, about to open it, when she saw a flash of movement reflected in the stainless steel. She spun around and stared into the quiet dining room. Stayed completely still, thinking she might be able to pick up on a stray sound.

Nothing.

She groaned, frustrated by her wild imagination. “Nerves.”

Rob’s theories had her spun up. Her mind raced with conspiracies. Trying to figure out how and if the hidden bid letter fit in, she’d looked up Loretta and Earl Swain and fallen down a rabbit hole of charity dinners and magazine features. One article included photos of her house, and Gabby doubted she’d ever look at her own backyard with love again. The Swains had a yard, with a pool and fountains and . . .

Her laptop was closed.

She stared at where it sat on the kitchen table. She’d packed up all the files and papers from Rob before stepping out, but she’d left the laptop open because she was doing a full-system backup and didn’t know if closing the laptop would accidentally end it. It was one of those tech questions she usually asked Kennedy, who then rolled her eyes and treated her old mother as if she were born before the invention of electricity. Kennedy would have lectured her for hours if she’d realized Gabby hadn’t done a backup in almost eight months.

But the laptop was closed. Habit, maybe? Even though she specifically remembered the internal debate about closing or not, she did tend to shut down everything when she stepped away, so maybe Rob’s dire warnings didn’t have her daydreaming nonsense.

“Kennedy?” A fourteen-year-old’s anger either burned out fast once boredom or hunger set in, or the need for money called . . . or the anger lasted for a lifetime. Gabby hoped for the shorter version.

She was about to walk back to the bedrooms and call out in one last, desperate hope that Kennedy had returned home. She passed the knife block and cursed her silliness as she pulled out the biggest one. She’d seen enough horror movies to know how this ended, but she had an alarm . . . Wait, had she put it on? Now she tried to remember if it had chirped when she’d walked in.

She stepped into the hall and listened for footsteps. She couldn’t hear anything over her own panicked breathing. Reinforcements sounded good. She pulled her cell out of her pocket and debated calling Liam. He was her emergency contact. If she hit the SOS, he’d get a call and so would the police. Then she’d probably be fined for wasting law enforcement time on her paranoia.