“Oh, man. That had to hurt.”

“I’m sure it did, but he was never the same after that. He was actually quite a jerk. Thankfully, his parents had the marriage annulled as soon as he told them what we’d done.”

“Okay, so your first honeymoon didn’t go so well. But surely you had better luck with Amber’s father.”

“My second honeymoon was worse.”

“No,” I said, intrigued again.

She nodded. “We lived together a whole year. Everything was wonderful until the day we got married. Everything changed.”

“Cook, what happened?”

“Well, it started out okay. We had the wedding. It was a huge event. All the crazies from my side showed up, and his family numbered in the thousands. It was nice, but not really me, you know?”

“I do.”

“I was so nervous that I drank a little wine before the wedding.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Oh, the ceremony went off without a hitch. I slurred my vows a bit, but other than that, perfection.”

“Okay,” I said, growing wary nonetheless.

“So, we had the reception and I drank some more.”

That was never good.

“And we did the whole rice thing and left in a limousine for the hotel. We were going to stay the night, then fly out the next morning to Cancún.”

“Awesome. Loving it so far.”

“Well, I’d had a bit too much to drink, we both had, and Noah decided to moon the people on the freeway.”

“Wait, who’s Noah?”

“Amber’s father,” she said, suddenly annoyed.

“Oh, right, I knew that. Okay, so he’s mooning everyone.”

“Yes, but I started to get sick.”

“Understandable.”

“And I just reached for the closest door handle.”

“No.”

“Yes. I opened the door while he was mooning everyone. He fell out of the limo on I-25.”

I sat stunned.

“South,” she added.

I still sat stunned.

“Near the Gibson exit.”

“Cookie,” I said at last, “what happened?”

“He suffered multiple fractures, a ruptured spleen, and a mild concussion.”

I slammed my hands over my mouth.

“I know. Things just changed after that. Even after ten years of marriage, we never found what we had again.”

“I’m sorry, hon.”

“I just don’t have the best luck with honeymoons.”

“No, that’s not true. Those were total coincidences.”

She smiled sadly. “You don’t believe in coincidences.”

I squeezed her hand. “I do now.”

“This is so much better,” Amber chimed as she skipped back to her seat.

“I can’t believe you’re that girl,” I said softly as Amber tried to get back under Quentin’s shoe and balance her hot chocolate at the same time.

“What girl?”

“The one who meets a guy and marries him twelve hours later.”

“Nine.”

I stifled a grin.

“And a half.”

I leaned forward and gave her my best hug. “But now you have Uncle Bob. Nothing is going to change his mind about how unbelievably perfect you are.”

She giggled. “You might be surprised.”

“Never.”

“What are you guys whispering about?” Amber asked, her hair in her face as she shimmied up the back of the couch under the weight of an anvil.

Cookie leaned back and wiped at her eyes. “We’re talking about the boarding school we’re going to send you to if you don’t start earning your keep.”

Amber blew her bangs out of her face. “You have to come up with some new material, Mom. That hasn’t worked on me since I was three.”

“She catches on quick,” I said. “So, any luck with the information Kit sent over?”

The frustrated sigh that escaped her lungs told me everything I needed to know. “Nothing. Everything they have is right. Faris was supposed to go to the park after school, and then she and her friends were going to walk to a party.”

“A party her mother didn’t know about,” I added.

“I don’t get it, though,” Amber said, scanning a handful of pages, and I realized she had been going over the case with Cookie. “Why are the cops so worried about that party or the park?”

“Because according to all her friends, that’s where she was going.”

“Which friends?” she asked as though we’d lost it. “Certainly not the one she was texting that day.”

I straightened and walked over to her. “What are you talking about?”

She pointed to a copy of Faris’s texts that were in the file. “Right here. Did Kit talk to this guy? Nate something or other? Because according to these texts, they were ditching the party and meeting at a skater hangout.”

Cookie thanked Reyes as he handed her a piping hot cup, then stayed to listen in.

“Amber, where does it say that?” I asked.

She pointed again as I dialed Kit’s number. I still didn’t see it. She was pointing to a text that said,

COP at tunnel.

Feeling like an idiot, I said, “I don’t get it, hon.”

Before she could explain, Kit picked up. I put her on speakerphone.

“Okay,” I said, forgoing the pleasantries, “you’re on speaker. Who is this Nate kid that Faris was texting?”

“We don’t know,” she said, sounding exhausted but not sleepy. I hadn’t woken her. “She has a friend named Nathan, but he says it wasn’t him in the texts. Still, there were only a few texts from Nate, and they seemed pretty innocent.”

“Nuh-uh,” Amber said. “There were only a few from him as Nate. He also texted her as Caleb, Isaiah, and Sean. It’s their favorite show.”

“Yeah, we couldn’t find any one of her friends with those names. What do you mean their favorite show?”

“NCIS,” she said as though we were daft. “It’s right here.” She thumbed through the pages and pages of texts. “Back when he was Nate the first time.”

“The first time?” I asked, trying to see what she saw.

She rummaged through the pages until she got to a set of older messages. I’d remembered them talking about NCIS, but how on earth did Amber get the name thing out of it?

“Right here. He tells her if her parents catch on to let him know and he will switch to the next episode.”

This was getting ridiculous. I was still young, for goodness’ sake. I wasn’t that out of touch. Was I? The text read,

If PAW, will start next episode.

Clearly I was. “You’re going to have to explain.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, sympathizing with me. “Okay, this says if your parents are watching, P-A-W, then I’ll start the next episode. I’ll go to the next letter. Thankfully, when the phone company sent a copy of her texts, they sent them in order instead of by user. That’s how we figured it out, because right after that, like ten seconds after, Caleb wrote this.”

She pointed at a text that read,

Starting next episode now.

“Caleb,” I said, realizing at last what they were doing. I’d have to go back completely and find all the transitions and texts from this same guy. “But what about a skater hangout?”

“Right here,” she said, pointing for the third time to the same text,

COP at tunnel.

“Isn’t that just warning her away from a tunnel? That there’s a cop there?”

“No, it says C-O-P. ‘Change of plans.’ And to meet him at the Tunnel. Aka, a skater hangout. Not that I’ve ever been there,” Amber assured her mother.

My jaw dropped open. “How did we miss this?”

Cookie shook her head, flummoxed.

“We missed it, too,” Kit said. “We just thought they were planning a little underage drinking and were trying to dodge the cops.”

“Which is probably exactly what he was hoping we would think,” I said. “This wasn’t a crime of opportunity, Kit. If Amber’s right, he planned this. Got to know her through texts. Spent weeks planning the abduction.”

“And he sent her pictures,” Amber said. “But that’s not him.” She held up one of the shots he’d sent. “I can’t believe she fell for that.”

“Why?” I asked. “Who is it?”

“It’s the Target kid. The one who got famous when a girl snapped his picture and tweeted it to her friend? It went viral?” she said, trying to clue us in. “It was, like, everywhere? And this one,” she said, holding up another, “is a kid who got famous on YouTube for doing ‘Paparazzi.’” When we stared at her, she added, “Lady Gaga?”