“I know. I know,” she replies. “I was mistaken. I came home from running some errands and heard somebody upstairs. I overreacted.”

None of us ended up being able to get back to sleep after Lieb Tal’s midnight visit, so we just got back to work, which amounted to us spinning our wheels until midmorning when we got a call from a panicked Violet, telling us somebody was in her house. We, of course, dropped everything and came rushing over, not sure what we were going to find. What we hadn’t expected was to have her tell us that she overreacted.

“Why didn’t you just call the police?” I ask.

“I… Elliot doesn’t want local police involved in any of this, and I… I was afraid it would get out about Ashley if I called them. So, I called you,” she stammers.

I blow out a frustrated breath but nod. It makes sense. Violet isn’t used to anything like this situation and is just doing the best she can. It took us a little less than ten minutes to get from the war room to the Senator’s door, so from her perspective, I suppose it was reasonable for her to call us instead of the locals.

“So, if nobody was in the house, what was it?” I ask.

“Oh no, there was somebody in Ashley’s room. But it’s her best friend, Nicole,” she tells us.

“What was she doing in Ashley’s room?”

“You’re probably going to want to talk to her,” Violet tells us. “She knows.”

“Knows what?” I ask.

“That Ashley is missing.”

Astra and I exchange a glance, and I frown. Teenagers are notorious for not being able to keep anything to themselves, and if the Senator was still wanting to keep a lid on this whole situation, we might have a problem on our hands.

“Where is she?” I ask.

“In the kitchen,” Violet replies. “I persuaded her to stay and talk to you. But I didn’t tell her you’re with the FBI.”

“Great. That was good thinking,” I say. “Thanks, Violet.”

“Of course.”

Astra leads me through the house and to the kitchen where a girl is sitting at the large center island with a plate of cookies and milk. It’s an odd snack to offer a girl her age, but the girl looks happy enough as she chews on one of the homemade cookies. With hair the color of champagne, cornflower blue eyes, and a short, petite figure, she’s a pretty girl. Just looking at her, she seems like the yin to Ashley’s yang. When she sees us walk in, she puts the cookie down as a troubled look crosses her face.

We walk around the island and stand across from her. I offer her a warm but small smile as I pick up a cookie and take a bite.

“These are really good,” I say.

She nods. “They are. And who are you?”

“Nicole, I’m Chief Wilder and this is SSA Russo,” I say. “We’re with the FBI.”

“So, it’s true. She’s missing.”

“Why would you say that?”

“She hasn’t returned my calls or my texts in days. And she hasn’t been at school. She’s never not at school—just like she doesn’t blow off my calls or texts. Ever,” she replies.

Astra leans forward. “As you know, her father has a very busy schedule and—”

“And I didn’t buy that story when they peddled it to me the first time,” she cuts Astra off with an angry snort. “Now, the FBI is here asking me questions. Oh, and I heard about you guys talking to Tyler Mayhew supposedly doing some background checks. Mr. Barlow has his own people for that. The FBI has never done that for him in all the years Ash and I have been friends. I’m not stupid, you know. I can put two and two together.”

“No. You’re definitely not stupid,” Astra says.

She’s not stupid. In fact, she might be too smart for our own good. The girl is perceptive and pieces things together quickly. She might know something that can help us. I still have a lot of unresolved questions that need answers, and I flash back to something Paige had said about teenage girls telling their best friends everything. This girl might know more than even she realizes.

“How did you get into the house?” Astra asks.

“Ash gave me a key years ago,” she replies. “Her dad knows I have it, so it’s not like I broke in or anything like that.”

“What were you looking for in her room?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Just something that might tell me where she went or what happened to her.”

“And did you find anything?”

Her face clouds over with emotion as she shakes her head. “No.”

Her voice is soft. Quiet. But it’s thick and heavy with emotion. It’s not hard to see just how difficult this is for her, and I can’t help but feel sorry for the kid. Answering our questions will probably be just as hard on her, but I can’t let my pity for Nicole keep me from doing my job. Ashley is still out there, and she needs us.

“Nicole, did you know about the sugar baby group Ashley belonged to?” I ask.

Her cheeks flush, and she looks away, unable to meet my eyes; she doesn’t say anything for a long minute. That tells me all I need to know.

“Nicole, it’s important that you’re honest with us and tell us what you know,” I say as gently as I can. “I’m not kidding when I tell you that Ashley’s life may depend on it.”

Her eyes fill with tears, and she draws in a shaky breath but nods. “Okay.”

“You know about what she was doing, don’t you?” I ask.

She nods. “Yeah. We both did it as a joke at first. We were just out for a laugh. But Ash kept talking to some of those guys. She kept going to those mixers.”

“Why did you guys do it?” Astra asks.

She shrugs. “Like I said, we heard about it at school—one of our friend’s dads got caught doing that, and his mom was divorcing him because of it. But we thought it sounded funny, so we signed up just as a joke. We weren’t, like, sleeping with any of them or anything. We’d just talk to them and laugh about it. That’s all. But Ash seemed to like it. She liked the attention some of these guys were giving her, and she liked doing something her dad didn’t know about. I know it sounds terrible, but she liked having her own life without being micromanaged all the time.”

As she speaks, I nod. It’s pretty much what I thought it was. It was Ashley’s attempt to rebel a bit and have her own identity—even if it was a fake identity she was using. I can’t say I don’t understand. But it’s a lot more reckless than I would have thought she could be.

“I tried to get her to stop going, but she wouldn’t. Like I said, she was really into it,” Nicole goes on. “And she really seemed to connect with this guy Archie—but there’s no way he would have done anything to her. I listened to them talk on the phone a few times, and he was always super nice. He doted on her. He seemed like a really nice guy, and I think he really cared about her.”

I want to tell her about who Archibald Richter is and his real life. Part of me wants to strip away the belief that he’s a nice guy, but it ultimately doesn’t matter. It would serve no purpose.

“We’ve actually spoken with Archie, and we don’t believe he had anything to do with Ashley’s disappearance,” I tell her. “But do you know of anybody else she was talking to? Was there anybody she was concerned about?”

Nicole shakes her head. “No, not really. I mean, she talked to plenty of guys on the Sugar Shack site, but nobody really seriously. I think Archie was the only guy she was serious about. But… I don’t know how serious they could have been. He didn’t even know her real name. Not to mention the fact that her dad would have never approved… he was so much older than she was. She felt bad about lying to him, and I think she was going to tell him at some point.”

My ears perk up at that. “She was going to tell him the truth?”

She nods. “Yeah, she talked about it. But she was still trying to work up the nerve.”