“All the more reason why this isn’t a great day for her to be disappearing on us,” Zanne said.

“Is it ever?” Mark said.

It was true that their jobs got exponentially harder whenever the family veered from the daily plan, following their own whims and timelines. But today there was more than just a tightly choreographed schedule that would be derailed by a family member going rogue.

“There’s a reporter who’s been trying to talk to Holly,” Zanne said. “I’m worried the press might follow her.”

“Let’s check her credit card,” Mark said.

“What?”

Mark smiled at her. “Come on.”

He led them back to his office under the back stairs, where the laundry room was meant to go if you were the kind of family that did your own laundry. Mark sat at his desk and moved through a serious of screens and keystroke shortcuts, adroit at checking on the family’s recent purchases.

“How do you know—” Zanne asked, because Joe was the accountant on staff, not Mark, and it had never occurred to Zanne to log into the family’s bank accounts. Use their credit cards? Sure, they all did that. How else would you pay for an elephant for a cocktail party? And if you were a woman, you’d recite by heart Holly’s birthday and social security number when the bank’s fraud department called to confirm that you were Holly and you really just dropped fifteen thousand dollars on an elephant for the evening. So maybe it wasn’t so weird that Mark had jumped to the next logical step and was now accessing the Stablers’ accounts directly, despite it being another staffer’s area of responsibility. There was an argument to be made that he was just taking some initiative.

“Let’s see what you’ve bought today, Holly,” Mark said, rubbing his fingertips together like the hacker in a heist movie. “What have you been up to?”

Zanne moved a box of old remote controls and dragged the extra chair over next to Mark. She sat down. Erin stood behind them.

“Here,” Mark said. He pointed at the first item listed, top of the stack. “Seventy-seven dollars at The Pier at Malibu. Did she go out to eat or something?”

“She was supposed to go to Gladstones this week with Rebecca Freeman,” Erin said. “Maybe they changed plans?”

Zanne said, “No, she’s fishing.”

Mark laughed. “Gone fishin’! That’s hilarious.”

“Right now?” Erin asked. “During the party?”