Ellison Michael's apartment was exactly what I'd expected—impeccably clean and decorated like something out of a Pottery Barn catalogue, down to the chunky knit throw on the couch and the potted succulent on the kitchen counter.

I felt distinctly out of place.

My sneakers were muddy and wet with spilled beer, and the underarms of the shirt I'd borrowed from Hanna were damp with sweat.

I was also pretty sure I reeked of boxed wine and carne asada tacos.

And then there was Ellison. While I looked like something that'd been snaked out of a clogged drain, she'd somehow answered the door at two o'clock in the morning wearing a matching baby blue pajama set that was impossibly wrinkle-free, her hair falling in soft blonde waves that looked freshly curled.

It was ridiculously unfair.

She sat across from me at her dining table, which was a bit smaller than the one Hanna and I had at our apartment but didn't wobble when you touched it, and placed the crumpled pages of my article between us.

"Alright, Cates," she said, lacing her fingers together and propping her elbows on the table. "Talk to me."

I took a deep breath and told her what I knew.

Four women, all members of the Garland Country Club, had been in Cabo San Lucas during the second week of June for a self-proclaimed ladies trip. They'd gone out for margaritas and dancing on their first night in Mexico and spotted Truman Vaughn at a bar. He'd been with two other men.

They'd called him over and told him they were from Garland.

He'd bought them a round of drinks.

(They said he was drunk, already. Visibly so.)

By the end of the night, he'd come by their table several times. He'd told them how he'd been in Cabo for a week and a half, already, and that they simply must go out on the water. He had a boat—a yacht, technically—that he offered to take them out on. Then he'd invited them to a little party he was hosting at his room in the Alvarado Resort that night, the fifteenth of June.

They'd been hesitant.

(They had plans to go to a club. One of the girls had read on Yelp that there were male cage dancers. Apparently, this was a real selling point for them.)

Vaughn had given them his cell number and told them to text him from the lobby of his hotel if they changed their minds.

"That's all in here," Ellison concluded, tapping one manicured fingernail against the article on the table.

I nodded.

"In far less eloquent terms," I admitted under my breath.

Ellison cracked a smile.

"I've seen plenty of articles written the night before."

She'd known? Fuck. I slumped in my chair.

"If it makes you feel any better," Ellison continued, her smile softening at my obvious humiliation, "it's not just about the typos and the half-assed attempt at structure. I can't run a story about Vaughn having a vacation. It was summer. As long as he's not drinking on the job, people are going to make excuses for him."

"Unless it was more than just drinking," I said.

Ellison nodded solemnly and leaned forward over the table.

"So why did you call me?" she asked.

I slid my phone across the table.

"Read that. It's—it's an article I found. There are more, but..."

Ellison plucked it up and peered at the screen.

Josefina Rodriguez, a nineteen-year-old housekeeper at the Alvarado Resort, had been on duty the night of June fifteenth. The last time she'd been seen was at eleven thirty, when her supervisor tasked her with bringing fresh towels to a room that had requested them. A room that'd been paid for with cash and booked under the name Vito Corleone, which the police quickly concluded was a pseudonym.

It was the name of the titular character in The Godfather.

It was also the name of Truman Vaughn's boat.

Ellison Michaels was quiet for a long moment, her eyes snapping back and forth as she read rapidly.

"My god," she breathed.

"Maybe I'm wrong," I blurted. "Maybe it's just a coincidence, and maybe Vaughn was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or he really was just there on vacation, or whatever. But..."

I trailed off, staring at the papers on the table.

It was two o'clock in the morning, I had a wine headache coming on, and I hadn't touched my tacos. I was sitting in Ellison Michaels' apartment.

Nothing felt real.

"I think Vaughn did something to her," I admitted aloud.

Ellison set my phone down.

"We've got to follow up on this," she said, very calmly. "I'll need you to track down these four women and interview all of them again. Make sure their stories haven't changed. Record them speaking, too."

"One of them said she had a selfie," I blurted. "With him. With Vaughn."

Ellison's eyes lit up.

"That's good. Do you think she'll cooperate?"

"I do," I told her.

"Perfect. See what else they have—videos, pictures, texts. We have to make sure whatever we print is bulletproof. The second this is out, we'll have people trying to poke holes in our research to defend Vaughn."

The flare of panic in my chest was almost painful.

"Can we really just accuse him of—" I stopped abruptly, at a loss.

What would we even accuse him of?

Josefina Rodriguez was missing, so it wasn't like we could call her up and ask her to offer testimony about what'd happened that night in the hotel.

She might not even be alive.

The sudden thought made my stomach churn.

"We're not accusing Vaughn of anything," Ellison assured me, setting her elbows on the table and folding one hand over the other. "We're just reporting the truth. Some women saw him partying in Cabo. He told them he was staying at the Alvarado Resort on the same night a girl went missing. Those are facts. If we can verify them, we're untouchable—a libel lawsuit won't have any ground against us. It's up to the police to play connect-the-dots and fill-in-the-blanks."

She must've noticed I looked like I was about to hurl.

"Laurel, I can't force you to do this. If you want out, you can say so."

A part of me was upset that my night had taken such a turn.

I'd daydreamed about going to parties at the Baseball House, but I'd never actually been inside. It was a little difficult to picture what it would look like as I sat in some corner, eating my tacos, until Bodie St. James spotted me from across the room, recognized me, and came over to—I don't know, say hey? Ask me not to spill carne asada on the carpet?

My imagination was a bit pessimistic.

But I was a firm believer that everything happened for a reason. I'd been on shift at the tennis courts when those four women decided to recount their vacation stories. There'd been a missing persons poster taped to the pick-up window at my favorite restaurant.

I felt like a domino in a chain.

If I didn't budge, nothing else down the line would.

"I want in," I told Ellison.

She gave my shoulder a squeeze.

It felt like a hug, coming from her.

"Go home and get some sleep," she told me. "And drink some water, so you're not too hungover. We've got a lot of work to do."

I stood from my seat, my knees wobbling, and gathered my things.

Cell phone. Bag of room-temperature tacos.

Check and check.

Ellison walked me to the door of her apartment. I stepped out into the hall, the motion-sensor lights flickering on, and turned back to face her.

"Sorry I woke you up," I said. "I probably could've emailed you, or something."

Ellison shook her head.

"You did the right thing, Laurel," she said.

I hoped that was true.

❖ ❖ ❖

I have three more stockpiled chapters before I run out, which is a real bummer, because I love being able to edit a little before I post.

I know what you're thinking. Why don't you write the whole first draft before you start posting at all? I'm simultaneously lazy and impatient, that's why. And sometimes you guys make really important points in your comments that end up shifting the trajectory of the story. I've abandoned planned chapters and squeezed in unplanned ones because of solid points made by my readers.

Your friendly author,

Kate