Page 140 of Double Puck

"You're right." Mason almost smiles. "He's getting good at that."

"It's not funny."

"Little bit funny. We've spent twenty-seven years knowing where Beck is because he's usually yelling from three rooms away. Now the bastard just leaves."

Declan grunts.

But something warm blooms beneath my panic.

Because maybe Beck isn't disappearing anymore.

Maybe he's finally learned he doesn't need anybody's permission to go somewhere.

"HELLO!?" Zoey's voice cuts through my thoughts. "Has anybody actually heard from him?"

"No."

"Alright. Then forget the contract. Forget Colin. Forget your report." Her voice gentles, and somehow, that's worse. Because she's looking directly at me again. "Darcy. Do you love him?"

I look at the screen. "Yes."

No qualifier. No decimal places. Just the truth, said out loud.

Zoey nods, satisfied, like she's checking a loaf she's pulled fresh from the oven.

"Okay. So help me figure it out… where is my brother?"

Everyone looks at everyone. Declan looks at Mason. Mason looks at the stairs. Colin looks at his papers like Beck might be filed underneath them.

Then, right beside me at the kitchen island, Diego clears his throat.

"Um… Mr. Beck left some time ago." He folds his cloth with terrible calm. "Before any of you were awake. He said he was going for a walk, and begged for me not to say a word."

A walk?

Beck Morrison does not walk. Beck Morrison bounces, sprints, dances, rolls across the hoods of vehicles. Beck Morrison only walks when the noise in his head gets louder than the noise in his mouth.

And I know, with the certainty of a woman who has spent weeks studying one man closer than any subject in her entire career, exactly where he goes when that happens.

I still come here sometimes. Usually when I need to think.

I can hear him saying it now, leaning against that weathered railing on our first date. The place he goes when he wants to disappear. Where his whole life fell apart on a livestream, and where he took me anyway, on the best night of my life.

The pier.

Zoey is watching me through the screen. She sees it land on my face. This woman raised three boys, and she can read a person like a fucking recipe card.

"I know where he is," I whisper.

One eyebrow goes up.

"Then why are you still standing there?"

She's right.

My heart kickstarts in my chest, as I launch out of the chair, nearly sending my cappuccino across the table as I grab my handbag.

"Where are my keys?"