Pen­ny Dahl glances at the time on her phone—10:15 PM—and redi­als the num­ber, her fin­gers tight­en­ing around the device as unease creeps in. Chap­ter 38 of her night unfolds with grow­ing ten­sion. Voice­mail. Again. She inhales sharply and leaves anoth­er mes­sage, her voice now edged with impa­tience and con­cern. “It’s Pen­ny Dahl again. Where are you? Call me as soon as you get this. It’s impor­tant.” The night is grow­ing dark­er, qui­eter, and the dwin­dling fire­flies seem to mir­ror the dimin­ish­ing hope she clings to. Hol­ly Gib­ney is not the type to for­get an appoint­ment, let alone leave some­one wait­ing with­out a call or expla­na­tion. Some­thing is wrong.

The weight of silence set­tles around Penny’s shoul­ders, wrap­ping her in a sense of dread she can’t shake. Hol­ly had promised to check in, had assured her there would be updates about Bonnie’s dis­ap­pear­ance. Pen­ny had held on to that promise like a life­line, believing—or forc­ing her­self to believe—that tonight would bring answers. But as the min­utes stretch into an hour, her frus­tra­tion cur­dles into fear. She had met Hol­ly only weeks ago, but she knew enough to rec­og­nize this was­n’t like her. Hol­ly was metic­u­lous, respon­si­ble, and when she said she would do some­thing, she fol­lowed through. The fact that she was now com­plete­ly unreach­able felt like a warn­ing Pen­ny didn’t know how to deci­pher.

By 11 PM, Pen­ny has giv­en up pac­ing and set­tles on the porch, her phone rest­ing in her lap, her eyes flick­er­ing to the dim screen every few sec­onds. The air feels heav­ier now, thick with an unease that has noth­ing to do with the late hour. Some­thing has hap­pened. She can feel it. Every instinct in her is scream­ing that this is more than a sim­ple missed call, and she can’t ignore it any longer. She swipes through her con­tacts, finds the num­ber she had saved just in case, and press­es the call but­ton.

Detec­tive Isabelle “Izzy” Jaynes answers on the third ring, her voice grog­gy but alert. Pen­ny wastes no time, launch­ing into a hur­ried expla­na­tion, her words tum­bling over each oth­er as she strug­gles to artic­u­late her fear. “She was sup­posed to call me—hours ago. She had some­thing about Bon­nie. She wouldn’t just dis­ap­pear on me like this.” The detec­tive lis­tens, her respons­es mea­sured but seri­ous, and Pen­ny clutch­es the phone tighter, hold­ing on to the only thing she has left—the hope that some­one is tak­ing this as seri­ous­ly as she is.

As soon as the call ends, Pen­ny wraps her arms around her­self, try­ing to stave off the chill that has noth­ing to do with the weath­er. The dark sky looms above, press­ing down on her as she sits on the porch, wait­ing. But wait­ing feels unbear­able. She con­sid­ers call­ing again, but what good would that do? If some­thing had hap­pened to Holly—if she had uncov­ered some­thing dangerous—then every sec­ond wast­ed could mean the dif­fer­ence between life and death.

Her mind races through worst-case sce­nar­ios. What if Hol­ly had final­ly got­ten too close to the truth? What if the peo­ple respon­si­ble for Bonnie’s dis­ap­pear­ance had been watch­ing, wait­ing for the moment Hol­ly became a threat? What if Pen­ny had been sit­ting here in the dark while some­thing ter­ri­ble was hap­pen­ing?

By mid­night, she can’t take it any­more. She gets up, phone still in hand, heart pound­ing. If Hol­ly wasn’t com­ing to her, then maybe she need­ed to go to Hol­ly. But she knew noth­ing about pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tions or how to track some­one down. All she had was an address—Holly’s office, Find­ers Keepers—and a sense of urgency that refused to let her sit still.

The night stretch­es ahead, vast and uncer­tain, and Pen­ny knows she is about to step into some­thing far big­ger than her­self. But what else can she do? With Bon­nie still miss­ing, and now Holly—the only per­son who had cared enough to help—also unac­count­ed for, Pen­ny feels like she is los­ing the last thread of con­trol she had left.

As the porch light flick­ers above her, Pen­ny takes one last deep breath before head­ing toward her car. She has no plan, no answers—but she knows she can’t just sit here, wait­ing for the worst to find her.