“Comin’ right up,” Nina replies.

She hits a few keys, and the large monitor at the foot of the table lights up. There’s the electronic sound of a phone ringing, and a moment later, Rick’s face comes into view with Mo leaning on the back of his chair.

“How are you kids doing over there?” I ask.

“Bored,” Mo says. “No ransom calls, no communication with anybody.”

“I didn’t think there would be,” I say. “Are you guys in a place you won’t be overheard?”

“Nobody’s here,” Mo says. “Violet is out running errands, and she gave the house staff a few days off. We’re all by our lonesome.”

“Okay, good,” I reply. “Rick, did you get my text?”

“I did, and I’ve been digging through Ashley’s laptop. And you’re not going to believe what I found. She is not the sweet, innocent little girl everybody thinks she is,” he says.

“What did you find?” I ask.

“She’s got an account on a sugar baby website,” he says.

“A sugar what?”

“Sugar baby,” he responds.

“What the hell is that?”

Astra casts an inscrutable look at me. “Really?”

“What?”

“You seriously don’t know what a sugar baby is?” Nina asks.

“Should I?”

Astra shakes her head. “You’re so sheltered and naïve. It’s adorable, really.”

“Boss, do you know what a sugar daddy is?” Rick asks.

“I think so. Isn’t that what a guy is who has a financial arrangement with a girl who provides him with sex and companionship?” I ask.

“Exactly that,” Mo adds. “It’s usually affluent men and much younger women.”

“A sugar baby is the other side of that coin,” Nina says. “But rather than the men trolling for women, this is younger women who put themselves out there looking for their sugar daddy.”

“It’s gross, but I get it. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement,” I say.

“Emphasis on the gross,” Astra chimes in.

“And not illegal,” Rick adds.

“You don’t make enough money to be a sugar daddy,” Astra says.

“Boss, can I have a raise?” Rick teases.

“No,” I say. “So, anyway, you’re telling me that Ashley was one of these sugar babies?”

“Bingo,” Rick says. “I’m going to share my screen.”

A moment later, the screen splits. Rick and Mo are on the left, and on the right is the homepage for a website that’s done in pinks and purples and is called “The Sugar Shack.” Just below a line of pictures of young, attractive women that scrolls across the screen is a purple banner with bright pink lettering that reads, “Meet Your Sweet Little Thing Here.”

“Let me reiterate… gross,” I say.

“Okay, let me show you what we’re looking at,” Rick says.

I hear the tapping of his keys as he takes us into the website. It looks a lot like the various popular online dating websites out there with photos of girls, their stats, answers to the site’s questionnaires, as well as a personal statement. With a few more keystrokes, Rick navigates to a page that shows a picture of Ashley. In the photo, she’s made up, has her hair done nicely, and looks to be older than her sixteen years.

“She goes by the name Shelby Kittridge,” Rick says.

“Why in the hell is she trolling for a sugar daddy in the first place?” Astra asks. “She comes from money. She’s got a great family and all the privilege in the world… I don’t get it.”

As I look into the girl’s golden-brown eyes in the picture, I ponder Astra’s question. Why would a girl who has seemingly everything do something so reckless? Something so—for lack of a better word—gross? Why on earth would she put herself out there and do God-knows-what with these older men? It couldn’t be for the money. It couldn’t be for the privilege being in their arms gave her. She has those things in spades already. There’s also the fact that she can’t really go out in public with these men in the first place given that she’s underage. Not that I think the men who frequent sites like this one are necessarily looking for social companions.

So, why would Ashley take such a risk? Why would she do something that would put her in such a precarious and potentially dangerous position? As I think about Ashley’s life and the way she’s grown up, the questions rattle around in my mind. Slowly, though, a picture starts to form, and I think I hit on the answer. I think I understand it.

“I think I get it. I think maybe it’s the fact that she’s living in a fishbowl—and has been her entire life—that’s pushed her to become Shelby Kittridge,” I say.

“What? Like she developed a split personality?” Rick asks.

“No, nothing like that. Ashley’s grown up in the spotlight. She’s a Senator’s daughter, and everybody has an image of who she is—the image she’s had to portray for her father’s sake. But I think there’s part of her that wants to be her own person—that wants to live her own life,” I say.

“So, she created this Shelby Kittridge persona,” Astra finishes for me.

I nod. “Yeah, I think so.”

“But what’s up with the whole sugar baby thing? Why would she put herself out there like that?” Nina asks. “It can’t be about the money. And I really hope it’s not about the sex.”

Mo shrugs. “She can’t be this other person at her school. If she wants to experiment with sex and whatnot, she can’t do that with her classmates or anybody else in her direct orbit. Not if she wants to keep her image intact anyway. I can kind of see why she’d do something so radically different from what people expect from her. It’s crazy, but I can kind of see it.”

“I didn’t think about it until you said it, but I would imagine growing up under a microscope like that has to be suffocating. Her every movement tracked, her every activity scheduled to the microsecond… I can see why she might want to do something wild,” Rick adds.

“We can sympathize with her for growing up in a fishbowl all we want, but we have to consider the possibility that one of these men she’s talking to is the one who took her,” I say. “I’m assuming it’s older, professional men who frequent these sites?”

“That’s affirmative,” Rick replies.

“That would be a closer fit to the profile than a guy like Tyler Mayhew. An older, professional man would more likely be organized and methodical. An older, professional man is somebody who’d be more likely to pull off the abduction we watched than a kid like Tyler,” I say.

“It’s just insane to think that Ashley has this whole shadow life her father knows nothing about,” Astra says.

“It’s also kind of sad that because of her father’s aspirations, she can’t live the life or be the person she wants to be,” Nina adds.