I reach the end of my activity, the ambient track I took in the diner on Sunday, and that’s all. The chatter of the diner blares in my headphones. This is it. There’s nothing here. What do we know? Where do we go? Who do we talk to? I could go revisit Roxy’s notes, but I’m not prepared for another false path – I mean, what else could we do at this point? Dissect lyrics? Hidden meanings? Code?

I flick through the recordings. Anything.

Then I realize that when I was recording the ambient sounds in the diner that day, I was still recording when I went into Mary Anne’s office.

‘Knock,’ I can hear her say.

‘Whoops. I’m sorry,’ I reply.

I remember now. What I’d only before caught glimpses of: all that equipment in her office. What looked like radios. And the clicking: it’s there, faintly, in the recording.

What had Archie said? She’s there?

It’s not just clicking, is it?

I play the recording again. I think back to Roxy’s notebook – the Morse code key. All the radios in Mary Anne’s office.

It’s Morse code.

‘Oh my God,’ I breathe.

Peyton thinks something’s the matter, and it is, but I don’t have time to explain and I don’t care because, for the second time in the past twenty-four hours, I’ve finally stumbled on something I can sink my teeth into.

Ellis picks up on the second ring.

‘Ellis,’ I say, ‘I need you to get over here now.’

‘I know, you said. Are you sure it’s Roxy’s jacket? Mona, I don’t know if –’

I can’t believe how quickly I’ve moved on from that being my most pressing concern. Everything is happening so quickly. The moment threatens to tumble away from me. ‘That, yes, but not that. Something else. Come over now. Like – run. Take a golf cart. I don’t care.’

‘Is everything OK?’

‘More than OK. Get over here.’ I hang up.

Peyton’s eyes bore into the back of my head. ‘You scared him, Mona.’

I’m not sure what compels me to snap at her, the adrenaline from the potential of this discovery or my utter exhaustion. ‘You think so little of him – you do,’ I say, when she tries to speak over me. ‘You think he’s weak and needs to be protected and can’t make his own decisions. One of the first things you said to me was that you didn’t like that Sylvia treated him like a child, but this whole time you’ve been acting the exact same way.’