Trouble was Katherine’s middle name, and it followed her like a puppy follows its mama’s lead. The first time I babysat, I learned that chaos flowed through that girl’s blood. I was only eighteen, and she choked on a Lego just before her baptism. My Lego. Jake and Ashley would have killed me if anything had happened to their baby girl, but I saved little Katherine because the hero complex coursed through my blood. It turns out that’s not such a bad thing when you’re a bodyguard. And Jake and Ashley never found out. They also never found out about the sock she flushed down the toilet. I spent half a day unclogging the throne. Or the time she fell in the pool because maintenance left the gate unlocked.

Like I said, they would have killed me. Over the years, Katherine grew, and I eased Ashley and Jake’s busy schedules by babysitting. I walked through the park with a stroller while Jake completed his political whatever-Ph.D. alongside his wife, studying somewhere on the bench. I graduated from NYU and did what all the Silvers do best: built relationships. Plus schooling. Lots of fucking schooling because that’s what it took to be a good private investigator. And tonight, all that prestige earned me a late night emergency phone call from my best friends.

I scanned my card at the front entrance and hurried down the long hall to my corner office, where the night security guard was waiting by the door.

“They’re inside.”

“Good. Inform me immediately if anyone buzzes downstairs.”

“Yes, sir.”

I pushed the door open. Jake and Ashley launched from the couch toward me, Jake in a pair of sweatpants and Ash in leggings and Jake’s sweatshirt. The power couple from D.C. were on their way to another Congressional nomination and a win, and they looked like someone had dragged them through the trenches.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Is Katherine okay?”

Ash shook her head, crying, while their fifteen-year-old daughter sat behind my office desk, looking out the window into the night. The sky was clear, and the moon outlined Manhattan’s beautiful horizon, but if I had to bet, my goddaughter wasn’t paying attention to the city skyline. I glanced over at her. She was picking at the skin near one nail, and she looked like an absolute mess. Her plaid skirt was shorter than I remembered. She must have hemmed it, and Ashley must have freaked. But the spunky girl I’d known since birth seemed off.

“No. Nothing’s okay. Nothing.”

I passed her a tissue. “Start at the beginning.”

“It’s Katherine,” she whispered. “She’s in trouble.”