Page 3

“T his is really starting to stress me out, Rose.” Zoey’s voice cut through my phone’s speaker again as I sipped the last dregs of my coffee.

I’d stayed up way too late working on details for my investigation and fact-checking things with Herbert over the phone.

I meant to call Zoey back after the party last night but was too frustrated to do so.

Instead, I drank half a bottle of wine and dove straight into work.

Work was the only thing keeping me sane, it seemed.

“It’s been too long,” Zoey went on. “Do you think she’s okay?”

I refrained from rolling my eyes just as a I heard a knock on my office door. Herbert stepped in, waving a few sheets of paper in the air with a huge grin pasted on his face.

“ More info on Cowan ,” he mouthed.

I silently thanked him as he slid the paper across my desk. I picked it up with eager hands, perusing the papers, studying the violent domestic report from Cowan’s wife, Melissa. One he desperately tried to hide by paying off a lead detective on the case.

Robert Cowan, CEO of a massive tech company with headquarters in Charlotte, was “allegedly” drugging and raping some of his female employees.

Melissa Cowan allegedly found out about this and reported it to the police.

News leaked and I’d been on it like Winnie the Pooh on honey.

The next thing we know, Cowan’s wife revokes her statement and they’re traveling to Ibiza and wherever the fuck rich people travel to these days.

On one of the papers were photos of Robert’s wife smiling from ear to ear but there was no spark in her eyes. It’s almost like she was being forced to smile, forced to enjoy their escape to restore their marriage. In other words, forced to live a lie. It made me wonder what Robert had on her.

This carried on for a month before video footage came out showing Robert Cowan at a bar with a twenty-four-year-old girl named Anabel who worked for his company. Allegedly dropping something into her drink. The footage was released yesterday morning.

This story was the only thing I could focus on at the moment (or perhaps it’s what I chose to focus on).

If executed well, it could top me with that senior reporter hat, the one Twyla so happily liked to dangle above my head like a carrot.

What I should’ve been doing was sending an email to Anabel to see if she’d be interested in meeting with me for an interview, but that couldn’t happen because my ex–best friend’s little sister was on the phone.

“Oh, this is beautiful,” I said. A grin split my face in half as I read over Melissa Cowan’s revoked statement. It had taken some digging to get it.

“Rose? Oh my God, are you even listening?” Zoey’s voice crackled through the speaker again and I briefly averted my attention from the report to the phone screen.

Sighing, I reluctantly set the paper down to pick up my phone. “Zoey, I’m sorry. What . . . uh . . .” I rubbed my forehead with the pads of my fingers, trying to remember what she was talking about. “What did you ask me again?”

“I asked if you’ve heard from Eve,” she said, and I could tell she was talking through her teeth.

“Oh. That’s an easy one,” I told her, snapping my fingers. “No.”

“No? Like you haven’t seen her?”

“Sure haven’t.”

“Well, when’s the last time you talked to her?”

“Hmm, let me think.” I pretended to ponder it as I scanned the statement again. “Oh, right. It was three months ago. Around that time, she got so drunk she went to a man’s table while he was having dinner with his wife , grabbed his tie, and kissed him right on the cheek.”

I’d never been so embarrassed by Eve’s behavior. That said a lot because she did embarrassing stuff all the time—ever since we were sixteen and the best of friends, actually. Now that we were thirty-two, it still hadn’t changed.

“I haven’t heard from her in three days.” Zoey ignored my statement. “It’s not like her to not answer my text or calls. She always calls me back if she misses one.”

“Does she have some new boy toy you aren’t aware of?

” I asked, inspecting my cuticles. An unnecessary distraction because I’d just gotten a gel manicure two mornings ago with my sister Diana.

I told the nail tech to surprise me. They’re velvety pink.

They call the style a cat eye or something like that.

“I don’t know,” Zoey said. “All I know is the last time I talked to her she was driving and said she wanted to take a break from working and traveling so much.”

“Well, there you go, Zoey. She’s probably just holed up somewhere moping or sniffing cocaine.”

“Rose.” Zoe’s voice grew serious, despite the tremble in it.

Hearing it caused me to lose a bit of the coldness.

“I know you guys aren’t as close anymore but .

. . I don’t know who else to call or ask about this.

It isn’t like Eve to not respond to me. She knows how bad my anxiety gets when she takes too long to answer. ”

I sighed, closing my eyes and lowering my defenses.

As much as this conversation was annoying me, she was right.

Even though Eve could be a reckless woman, she never missed out on her sister’s calls or texts.

Zoey was all she had—the only family left.

It was because of their parents that Zoey suffered bouts of anxiety and depression.

Their parents were awful to them, and it wasn’t until my dad, a social worker, intervened that their lives changed.

They were immediately moved in with their grandmother.

She and Zoey had been inseparable up until Zoey started college.

“Look, I’m sorry, Zoey,” I murmured. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll swing by Eve’s place after work and see if she’s around. Okay?”

Zoe sniffled. “Thank you, Rose.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it. I’ll call you when I’m there.”

“Okay.” She sniffled again. “Thanks. I have to go before I miss my next class. But please don’t forget to call me.”

“I won’t, baby girl.”

“Ew. Rose, I told you I hate that name!” She laughed.

“I know.” I smiled. “Just wanna hear you cheer up before letting you go.”

She giggled. “Thanks. Talk later.”

As soon as the call was over, I drew in a deep breath and released it. Then I picked up my phone and scrolled through it until I found the name I hadn’t tapped in months—Eve. I called but it went straight to her voicemail. That in itself was unusual. Eve never turned her phone off, like, ever.

She freaked out whenever she had to put her phone on airplane mode during a flight, which I always thought was dramatic, seeing as she was a travel vlogger . . . and since most airlines had free Wi-Fi.

Airline Wi-Fi just doesn’t hit the same, Rose , she’d said one time.

“So? What do you think?” Herbert’s head popped in through a gap in the door, a big smile on his face.

“It’s crazy, right? I knew that motherfucker was guilty.

” He pushed the door open a bit and walked in, sitting in the chair on the other side of my desk.

“By the way, you look official up in here! Sitting behind your big desk in your big comfy chair.”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“You’re moving up in the world, lady,” he said.

“Well, I won’t be moving up quick enough with Eve always doing something ridiculous.”

“Oh Lord.” Herbert rolled his eyes. “I swear that girl is always getting into hot water.”

He wasn’t lying there.

I stood and collected the statement as well as my laptop and a few folders.

“That was Zoey on the phone. I told her I’d check on Eve, see what’s up with her.

In the meantime, can you have Nico politely hack into Melissa Cowan’s social media?

I want to see if she might’ve DM’d some of her friends on there about her issues with Robert. ”

“ Politely hack ?” Herbert busted out laughing. “There is nothing polite about hacking a rich person’s socials. And you know that’s illegal, right? You probably shouldn’t be saying that out loud.”

“Well, it’s a good thing Nico is good at covering his tracks, huh?” I walked around the desk and wrapped one arm around his neck to give him an awkward sideways embrace. “Call you when I’m home. And kiss Dozer for me!”

Eve Castillo journal entry

I woke up this morning feeling a little . . . off. Like there’s been a change . . . or that a change will come soon. That’s the only way I can describe it. It doesn’t feel good at all.

There’s this ache in my chest, like a thick knot is forming. When I swallow, it hurts. When I breathe, the pain intensifies.

Some days I feel like I’m losing touch with reality. I do things and don’t know why I do them. Rose says I need to see someone, that maybe something mental is at play and I need a diagnosis.

I can’t take meds like Zoey. I don’t need them. If I take them, I’ll be weak, then who will Zoey look up to?

God. It was so much easier when we lived with Abuela. I wish she was still here. I wish there was someone around who understood me the way she did.