Morning comes on little rays of light, pinpricks peeking through the blinds, laying atop Lacey's eyes. She blinks. The walls are blurry. She huffs into her pillow. I need better curtains. This ain't it, chief.

Turning over and going back to sleep is a tempting idea and she gives in. Wants to, anyways. She's nearly back in the deep swing of unconsciousness when a strange, unfamiliar tune starts to ring and vibrate. She rolls over and casts her eyes down, where Gideon's phone lights up on her charger. She doesn't touch it, as much as she wants to punch the noise back into its electronic hole, and instead waits for Gideon to stop rustling and finally answer the damn thing. He sighs into it, voice scratchy and tired. "Hello."

She lays back, but through the corner of her eye she sees Gideon stiffen. Whoever's on the other end gives him pause. Lacey watches the interaction intently. "Uh-huh," he says, "Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I, uh...give me an hour and I can come to you. Thanks. See ya." He hangs up. The phone slips from his fingers and lands on his blanketed lap. He rubs his face again.

"Who was that?"

"Dolly. She said she confronted Clint about the lying and he was acting pretty shady but then finally popped off about some coworker. She wants to talk to us about it."

Lacey knits her brows together and checks the time on her own phone. In an hour. "Couldn't you've told her we'd meet her at like noon or something? It's so early. I wanna fuckin' sleep."

He frowns. "Me too. But this is Erie on the line."

She closes her eyes. Shit. "Right. Right, I know. Sorry."

"We get him back and all three of us can sleep in for three days straight. Until then, we work."

They give themselves a bit longer to wake up, and then Gideon rolls up the blankets, sets them aside, says he's gonna go retrieve his mom's car and pick her up so their sore legs don't have to bear the burden of running across town all day. This is a relief - and the moment he's out the door, Lacey rolls over and allows herself another fifteen minutes of precious sleep. Those fifteen minutes feel more like three, though, and eventually she has to haul herself up, brush her teeth, and get dressed.

Jeremy is still asleep by the time she's done - and she's still grounded, she reminds herself - so she moves as quietly as physically possible through the house, down the creaky stairs that might give her away with every step. The scratch of a pen on the note she leaves behind on the kitchen counter seems to echo as she writes. Even the front door knob squeaks. After that, though, she's settled on the front porch. A safe place to wait. Can't wake the guy unless she starts yelling out here. Not necessarily the most comfortable (this stone is wet, eugh) but it'll have to do until Gideon shows.

And show, Gideon does. He rolls to a stop at the curb in front of her house, the grey clouds reflecting off the windows, but she recognizes the vehicle well enough. She walks in front and settles into the passenger seat. Gideon offers her a cheeky grin. Definitely in better spirits than, well, any other day this week, she notes. It gives her calm. Perhaps too much of it: they're hardly off her street before she's started dozing off again.

"Lacey," she hears after a while, faint and garbled somewhere altogether different. Fuck off. Am sleep.

An aggressive tapping - nails on glass - right beside her head sends her shooting up. She throws her body to the left and blinks profusely, squints. They're at the trailer park already? And is that- is that Dolly crouched outside her window? The woman is more done up than a few of their previous encounters, hair curled and, unfortunately, swatting at her own face in the very harsh breeze outside. Flyaways get stuck to her dark lipstick and she struggles to splutter the hair off her lips. Lacey leans forward and rolls the window down. Not all the way down. Just halfway. It's not worth letting the cold in and Dolly is still too sketchy for her liking.

Gideon clears his throat. "Get in the back. It's unlocked."

"Hurh?" Lacey says.

Dolly tilts her head. "I'd really rather not. I thought this'd be just us for a few minutes and then y'all'd be back on your merry way, sweetpea."

"Well," Gideon says, still maintaining a smile, "you thought wrong. There's someone I want you to meet while we work this whole thing out. Can't exactly meet if you're all the way over here."

"So bring him to me."

"Not gonna work. Get in. We don't bite."

There's clear reluctance in Dolly, a hesitation, a curl of the lip, but with a heavy sigh, she takes the extra step and dramatically flings the back door open before somehow taking up the entire backseat with her slender self and bulbous purse. She slams the door shut and immediately cranes to check the rearview to fix her hair. If Lacey had to guess, she'd say she really only agreed to get in to get out of the wind.

Gideon puts the car in reverse and glances back. Lacey gives him a very pointed look. "Where are you taking us?" she hisses.

"If I tell you, you'll leave now."

On cue, she hears the click of her door locking. She growls but, too tired to argue, she simply rests her head against the seatbelt, a little hammock for her skull. It's like getting actual sleep made her more tired. This is bullshit.

At least the drive goes quick. Gideon finds another narrow path through the trailer park going through the woods. She watches out the rain-speckled window as they crawl along, focusing on the new, loud buds still struggling to sprout from branches under the weight of all this water. They're polka-dots against a backdrop of neutral hues. They're like Lacey's standard yellow against the entirety of Carrick. But when a gap breaks in the trees and the ground falls away and the tires underneath start rumbling suddenly she stops making parallels and grabs onto the edges of her seat in a panic. "Where are you taking us?"

"I had to take a back way to get past the flood waters. Chill out, we're fine."

"I'm with the skittish one," Dolly adds from the back, a hand pressed to her gut. "If I knew you'd be driving us down some back road I wouldn't've bothered to call."

She gives a precarious peek out the window to see the Epling River gushing far beneath them, past the metallic rail of a bridge. It makes her stomach drop, but just as soon as it does they're off the bridge and back on relatively stable land.

Unfortunately, the house she sees before them makes her want to take her chances with the bridge of death again. "Why the fuck are we here?"

Gideon parks. "Listen. I know you don't like the guy. But we're running out of resources and this man if full of them, okay, and even though he's a hermit, he wasn't always. Just after his accident. If we wanna know something about someone in Carrick, we ask him." He collects a backpack from the floor. "Plus, I trust him."

I trust a bear locked in a cage with me more than I trust this guy, but go off. When she exits the car, she slams the door, and her feet strike the ramp leading to the front door harder than they ought to. Dolly keeps a reasonable distance. Lacey's tempted to tell her to just cut her losses and run now, but if Gideon's dragging her into this, damn straight she's gonna make others suffer with her. So she keeps quiet while the boy knocks and Kathy answers and yada yada, yes, of course he wants to try a slice of your pecan pie, let us in already. "He's upstairs," the woman adds once they're all safely inside. It's a little too warm for her liking.

"You're a gem, Kathryn. An absolute gem." Gideon takes the lead, waving Lacey and Dolly forward, and they head up the stairs once the guy ruffles Gordy's hair in passing. Creepy little dude gives Lacey a shit-eating grin. She ignores it as best as a seventeen year old with poor social skills can. Lord, give me strength.

They find Nefyn Lore in his white room of half-finished canvases and full tubes of paint. He's turned around, facing the open window, a brown bottle glinting in the sparse morning light. Still, he hears them before he sees them, and he must know Gideon by smell, or something, because he lets out an exasperated sigh and clinks the side of the bottle against his wheel. "I didn't ask you to come today, boy, and if you brought that insufferable, entitled brat with you, I'll opt to send you both right back out that door."

"Hello to you too, asshole," Lacey bites, crossing her arms over her chest.

He chuckles to himself. "Ah, she knew I was talking about her. She might be smarter than I give her credit for. That's endearing."

At this point, he finally wheels himself around, but instead of making some smart remark about Lacey's clothes or the eager look on Gideon's face, his eyes shoot straight past them both, deep in color and pushed wide. Even with the shadow falling over his cheeks, there's a clear rise in color on them. He coughs. Coughs a lot. Like he can't catch his breath.

"Dolores Carina," he finally says, the last vowel hanging out of his open mouth. Is that some fresh youth in his tone? "This is certainly a surprise. Might I ask what in the bloody hell you're doing in my house with these children?"

"I'm eighteen actually so I'm a-"

"Shut it, Gideon, I asked the lovely lady a question."

And so the spotlight lands on Dolly in the back. Her lips are parted, chin dropped and double-chin making an appearance. Those beady hawk eyes dart between the trio staring back at her, a bird cornered. But then she seems to remember that she has wings, and everything straightens back out again, the sharpness returned to her features before she responds. "I agreed to talk to these darlings and then they brought me here. Had no idea it was gonna happen. But... it's been a while." That's familiarity in the look that falls down her nose at Nefyn, isn't it?

"Wait, wait, wait," Lacey intercedes, holding her hands out. "You two know each other?"

"Knew," Dolly corrects before Nefyn can. He presses his lips in a tight line. "I took care of him, before he got his actual caretaker in place. We were friends a long time ago, which explains...that." There's a pause, but then rushes out, "Haven't seen each other since, though." Her eyes soften on Nefyn in that chair over there, full head of black hair rustling in the breeze through the open window. "You look..."

"Old," he says, slack in enthusiasm, jaw stiff.

"Good. Healthy."

The man bites his lip and ducks his head. Their previous conversation comes rushing back to Lacey, his resounding declaration of I'm not even forty yet! Those bits and pieces of grey in his hair must be stress, the lines on his face, too. Just how tugged in every direction is this man to make him look so worn out in his thirties? She almost feels sorry for the guy. Almost. He ruins it by opening his mouth again.

"Right, well, what'd you kids think bringing her here? There's nothing I have for any of you."

Gideon steps to the plate. "She's helping us figure out what happened to Stella and I want you involved in helping us too. I know you won't want-"

"If you know, then why-"

"I know you won't want to help us," Gideon continues, voice slightly raised above Nefyn's, "but if you care about any of the work I've done for you these past couple months, about the time I've spent with you when you'd otherwise be alone in that dark study, then you'll help me with this. Hell, I won't even collect my earnings this week or the next or the next ever but please, please help us. You have connections. You know people. There is a library next door full of records and names and motives, all penned by you and saved in newspaper clippings."

"You've gone through my books?"

"In conclusion, let us use your observant, wise brain there. You are valuable to this investigation. We need you."

Speak for yourself, Lacey wants to say. What use has Nefyn been to them at all in the past, really? Even still, the man seems to consider Gideon's words. Only after the aptly timed compliment, no doubt. The dark green of his eyes doesn't sit thoughtful in his lap for long. They drift to Dolly. The corner of his eye twitches; confliction. "All right. I'll bite."

Lacey's no idiot. She may not be the best at reading a room, but the air here is thick with background. It's thick with the way Nefyn's eyes settle on different parts of Dolly and Dolly pretends not to notice the fond admiration, licking her teeth and looking to see when Gideon will finally stop talking so she can have her turn.

No such luck. "Excellent! First thing's first: I want to lay out everything we know, completely, for all of us, so we're all on the same page. Lacey, go get paper and scissors and string and can I use that wall over there to make a murder board?" Doesn't wait for a response. "Excellent. Dolly."

"Hm?"

"While we build, I want you to tell us what you talked to Clint about."

Lacey rolls her eyes but nevertheless, heads to the back of the room, behind the crafty wooden island, in search of the pieces for Gideon's puzzle. She can't help but watch the three in front of her as she does so. It slows her hands, but sometimes it's important to step away, to become an outsider looking in. Dolores Carina. Nefyn Lore. Gideon Lucas. The first shifts her feet. Uncomfortable. She doesn't want to be here. The second rolls just a tad closer, and while the third paces back and forth, thumbs to his lips, the man mutters to the first, "Do you want a chair?" A dart of the eyes from the first. To the window. Does she want to jump out? Lacey wouldn't blame her. After a while, she offers a curt nod. Nefyn sends Gideon out to find one. He does, and Dolores settles upon it stiffly, legs crossed, arms crossed, probably fingers crossed, too, that she'll find a solid out soon.

Lacey joins Gideon at the front, hands full of the requested materials and then some. The boy gets to work. She doesn't intercede since she's got no way to tell what sort of tangential nightmare is tangled up in his head, can't tell what he's gonna spit up on this wall, but she does hand him things when he gestures sometimes. She is useful. Sort of.

"So," He says, scribbling names on pieces of paper and ripping off tape to stick them to the wall, "tell us about Clint. Tell us everything."

Dolly wrings her hands. Sighs. Blinks, tired. Then comes the deep inhale, and as he works, she talks, and they all listen.

"I waited for one of his visits before I sat him down and confronted him about the lying. I figured, well, if he sees me snoopin', he'll have the chance to get mad at me first, and we're both pretty frank, so this was the best way. I asked him, 'Why'd you go and lie to me about Stella and Isaac, pumpkin?' He started laughing up a storm at me for a good while there, but then he realized I was serious. Started running fingers through his hair, twisting his hands together, got all sweaty and nervous, which he already is, but more so than usual. Sat there, head in his hands. All quiet, like. I took one of those hands and see, he's a soft man, and it doesn't take much, so he started breaking down right there. Went off the handle, like, 'it's this fuckin' coworker of mine.'"

The loud plastic rip of tape from the dispenser sounds. Dolly continues her impression of Clint the Lying Bastard.

"'It's this fuckin' coworker, and you know how the two of us work together in that little demolition gig we get called up for every so often, and it's been stressful, y'know, with us not being able to do our job because of the rain, so I called him up one day to talk about a game plan since, y'know, we have to replan our entire set-up and schedule for the buildings down in that flooded level 'cause the materials there can't be salvaged and it all has to be knocked out from scratch, it's all gotta go.' So Clint says he set up that meeting and they met but the guy was off. Fidgeting. Twitchy. Like on drugs or something, and he kept going on about how he had to get outta Carrick, how he was gonna quit, how Clint had to help a brother out, cover his back and all that. And Clint's a generous man, y'see, and this guy was clearly off his rocker but he's never been in this bad a way before, so Clint was like, alright, what do you need me to do, who should I call to come pick you up?

"And the guy was like, 'Well, I've done a bad thing and I'm afraid Isaac'll come down on me hard for it. So I need you to hold him off a bit, I don't know, paint him out to be bad so he's all caught up in some different mess and's too busy to mess with mine and I can get away without him lighting a fire under my ass because, oh, you know Isaac, he's got them long lashes he can bat and anyone'll do anything for him and, well, that wallet of his.' And Clint did know. Then you kids came around and he was like, aha! That's how he'll slow down Isaac. He'll tell all these stories about Stella and Isaac and hopefully one mouth leads to an ear and Isaac'll be taken in on a forty-eight hour hold or something of the sort. Then he sat there and took my other hand real sweet, like, and he said, 'Dolly. I see it was stupid of me to lie. I ain't even know what kind of shady shit I'm tryin' to cover for. But I'm done now. I ain't mean nothin' by it, forgive me.' And I did. He seemed truthful."

At this point, Lacey's head is in her hands, now, probably how hopeless little Clint felt in that moment Dolly dropped the bomb on him. This keeps going deeper and deeper and I'm ready for it to be done and over with. Just stop...being complicated. "Where's the coworker?" she mutters, rough. "What's his name? Do you have literally anything of value on this mystery man?"

"Oh, I reckon he's already lit out of town by now. Didn't mention a name. I'm sorry. I can ask."

Too little, too late. Please don't let this be our guy. I'll give up on everything that is good if this is our guy and he's gone.

Gideon doesn't seem as peeved. Maybe it's because he doesn't believe this is the guy, not really. He steps back, hands on his hips, to survey his work. A satisfied nod. "Okay," he starts, "clearly word of mouth isn't fucking working, excuse my language. So we'll trace this. Work our way backwards. Figure out an exact timeline of events and try to fill in the gaps instead of trying to fit people into them."

"This seems like a wild goose chase," Nefyn snaps. However, he still lifts his nose and squints at the "murder board," his interest at least semi-piqued. "I don't have a damn clue what any of this is. Or why I have to participate in these antics."

"Well, Nefyn, I'm glad you asked!" Gideon jumps forward with all the pep of a cheerleader. He grabs up a brush from a stray easel and smacks his arts and crafts project with the wooden end. "Timeline as it stands. Two months ago, Ro-Anne Foster goes missing. Little to no follow-up with the police, with search parties. Everyone assumes she's another quiet runaway."