Sunday morning dawned gray and still, the air unusually thick and quiet. Ryleigh moved through the kitchen slowly, her limbs leaden, her heart heavier than it had been all week. She hadn’t slept much—every time she closed her eyes, she imagined Derek alone in Brazil, sick, or worse, unconscious in some hospital bed with no phone.
She stirred sugar into a cup of tea, the soft clink of the spoon the only sound in the quiet house.
And then it happened.
A door slammed upstairs, followed by hurried, uneven footsteps. The sound of sobbing. Shouting.
Ryleigh turned toward the hallway, setting the spoon down.
“No, no, no—this can’t be right!” Margaret’s voice shrieked from the upper floor. “Find him! Now!”
Ryleigh’s breath caught in her throat.
She rushed to the archway just as the towering
