Hailey picked up the iced coffees and brought them to a table, where Jessica was waiting patiently. She was examining the painting above their table with interest. Hailey gestured at it quizzically.

  Jessica shrugged. She mimed drawing something on the table, then looked at her invisible pencil with forlorn eyes, opening and closing her hand as if she'd lost it.

  Hailey nodded, pulling out her wallet from her bag and tapping it a few times. They'd go by the store on the way back and buy some more art supplies. Jessica had been practicing drawing things in an attempt to help make her actual illusions more realistic. At the present without a good model, they resembled children's artwork at best, since Jessica had never been much for art.

  Hailey leaned back and started reading a book on her phone while sipping her coffee, while Jessica kept looking around the store, but a snatch of conversation nearby caught her ears. More specifically, her own name.

  "You really think it was faked?"

  "Of course it was. Hailey Winscombe's dead like the rest of them."

  "So what d'you think happened to that poor town?"

  Hailey leaned forward surreptitiously, turning off her phone and tilting the screen to get a look at the trio of voices. No one she recognized, just a few college-aged kids with laptops and textbooks. She propped up her phone against the fixture on the table, so that she could keep an eye on them.

  "Beats me."

  "I think she's gotta still be alive."

  "So why not show her face?"

  "Well she's in hiding, right? From whatever blew up the town."

  "Yeah, us."

  "Us as in—"

  "America, duh."

  "Come on, why the hell would we blow up a place like that?"

  "Think about it. Everyone's saying how weird Rallsburg was in the first place. Why was a college ever built there anyway?"

  "Because the land was cheap and it already had trains running through?"

  "Lots of places have that. It was a glorified logging camp."

  "I dunno, I kinda wanted to go there."

  "For what?"

  "The business and economics programs was supposed to be really good." Hailey smiled to herself. That was the reason she'd gone there, after all. Or at least, the way she'd justified going there. Even this far removed from town, she still felt a twinge of protective loyalty toward her school… not that she could leap up and defend it without causing quite a lot of chaos.

  "Oh come on, that was just because they had a big name professor."

  "Better than some of the places I've looked at."

  "What's your point? That the school was so bad it had to be what—a front for something?"

  "Yeah, exactly. Secret corporate projects."

  "Not secret government projects?"

  "From our government?"

  "Fair point."

  "What kind of projects?"

  "Weapons, probably. Or something else crazy. Hey, maybe this is how the zombie plague starts."

  "How does zombies lead to all the buildings exploding or collapsing?"

  "...So it's aliens or something."

  "Right."

  "I'm just saying, there's something weird about it. It all looks like a coverup."

  "I don't disagree with you there."

  "So if it's a coverup, but we know there were two survivors…"

  "The guys up in Canada."

  "Right. Why is it so implausible that Hailey Winscombe could be alive too?"

  "You just want her to be alive because you think she's hot." Hailey, not immune to a bit of vanity, rolled her eyes in a self-satisfying way towards the reflection of the guy who looked a little embarrassed at the accusation.

  "I don't think he's totally crazy."

  "You think?"

  "Look at how many times they've dragged her mom back into the conversation. They gotta know something we don't."

  They did what to Mom? Hailey wondered. She hadn't been watching or reading the news as much lately, a little worried about what she might find. She trusted Cinza or someone else would let her know if anything really important showed up.

  "But the FBI said it was fake."

  "You believed 'em?"

  "I mean, they work for us, don't they?"

  "Sure they do."

  With that, the conversation devolved from a discussion of Rallsburg into an argument about the state of the government. Hailey had gotten enough out of it and picked her phone back up, scrolling through the news quickly. With tense fingers, she typed in her name into a search.

  She'd been avoiding her long enough.

  She was still as avid on social media as Hailey had ever been, and had just checked in at a restaurant only three blocks down the street. Hailey stared at the tiny message on her phone for several minutes, debating, but she couldn't resist the temptation. She stood up suddenly, and Jessica quickly moved to follow. They finished off their drinks and headed outside into the sunset.

  The city was bustling and packed as ever on a Monday evening. Jessica clung to Hailey's arm as they weaved through the sidewalk traffic. Hailey navigated it with ease, slipping through the gaps in the slower walkers even with Jessica at her side. They made swift progress without anyone batting an eye. After all, Hailey didn't look anything like her photos online, or even like the brief and blurry snippet of video from the night of the fire. No one was going to recognize her.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The restaurant was part of a larger mall complex, which meant Hailey found an easy spot to spy from. They headed up for the second floor, taking an empty table with a perfect view of the restaurant and the street beyond through the huge glass windows. Jessica was awed by the fountains and glass elevators in the center of the place, paying no mind to the restaurant. Dozens of white tables were scattered around a black carpeted dining area, which gave the whole place a vague aesthetic like a chessboard.

  There she was.

  Stephanie Winscombe sat at a far table near the windows with a man Hailey assumed was a work colleague. With a quick murmur, their voices were carried across the wide expanse to her ears.

  "...will bounce back. You really think Thomas Laushire is going to take this lying down?"

  Hailey had a brief thrill of shock hearing the name out of her mother's mouth, but she reminded herself that the Laushires were a huge name in business. It had nothing to do with Kendra, or Rallsburg.

  "I think he's overstepped. He accused Malton of corporate espionage."

  "'Corporate espionage'," her mom mocked. "Laushire got taken for a fool, he knows it, and he's fanning the flames a bit for cover. He just needs to blow the story up enough to flip the tables."

  "So all that about Laushire's overseas dealings…"

  She shook her head dismissively. "It means nothing."

  "You really think so?"

  "Honey, we're in a post-scandal world." Honey? Hailey wondered. Was that endearing or sarcastic? She couldn't tell. "There's not a whole lot of corporate crime you can't get away with anymore, now that the world's gone to hell. Worst case in the short run, Laushire can deflect a lot by claiming grief over his daughter. Fill up the news cycle until they find some other bone to chew on."

  "But he didn't even like her."

  Stephanie nodded. "Not at all. I heard he exiled her from the company."

  "That's just cold. Why, though?"

  "I'm supposed to know that?"

  "I've decided to assume you know everything now, ma'am."

  "I told you to stop calling me that."

  "Yes, ma'am, but your boss doesn't like it when I do. Please don't make me break the habit."

  She sighed. "As far as I know, Laushire booted his daughter over a family matter. That's all I heard."

  "Not for incompetence?"

  Stephanie snorted, nearly spitting out a sip of her coffee. "Hell no. Half of the best deals they made during that period were hers. She was a killer at the table. You should have seen her talk her way around a boardroom, it was brilliant. She could out-talk the lawyers."

  "Overshadowing her dad, then?"

  "Maybe." She shrugged.

  "Miss Winscombe!" A man called out, and Hailey realized with a start that he was actually directly beneath her, not in the restaurant. He was loud enough she'd assumed he was standing right next to her mother. A cameraman from a local station was just a few steps behind him. He practically leapt over the low ornamental fence surrounding the restaurant area, making his way over to their table.

  "Goddammit…" Stephanie murmured as they approached. She turned in her seat to face him, looking distinctly annoyed. Her assistant looked just as bothered. "No," she called back.

  Several other patrons of the restaurant were now looking up with interest. The noise had cut through the usual buzz of the mall and the sounds of the kitchen behind the restaurant wall. The reporter and his cameraman got right up in her mom's face at the table.

  "Is-it-true-that-your-daughter-was-sighted-in-Tacoma?" he said breathlessly.

  Was I? Hailey wondered. She doubted it. Cinza would have told her.

  "I don't know."

  "Have you heard from her?"

  "No."

  "Do you think she's still alive?"

  "That'd be nice." She said it so dryly that Hailey was torn between laughing and crying.

  "Can you tell us anything about what happened in Rallsburg?"

  Stephanie frowned. "Look, is this live?" she asked, pointing at the man's camera.

  He hesitated, then shook his head.

  "Good." She stood up, glass in hand, and chucked it at the camera lens. It shattered. Liquid sprayed all over the shocked cameraman's face. Hailey did a little fist-pump of satisfaction from her perch above the restaurant.

  "What the fu—"

  "Coming, Daniel?" Stephanie asked, striding from the restaurant at a brisk pace. Her assistant, dumbstruck, rushed to follow her out.

----------------------------------------

  Hailey followed her. She and Jessica stayed a block away at all times, and she had trouble keeping the spell going to be able to hear her mother speak, but every word counted. It was a huge comfort just to hear her voice again, even if it had to be from so far away and totally unaware.

  Most of their conversation wasn't of much interest to Hailey. She'd never really shared her mother's interest in business or economics, so the finer details simply buzzed through her brain without really sticking. She did learn that her mother actually worked for Kendra's dad, although not directly in any sense. Stephanie worked for a company (Wensley Group), which was owned by another company (Metcon Capital), which was a founding member of the Laushire Enterprises international conglomerate. She looked it up on her phone while they walked, trying to trace the lines of business back to her mom somehow.

  Hailey was surprised to see how much information was available online. Her mom even had a web presence besides social media. Apparently she was a much more important woman than Hailey had ever realized. Yes, she'd known they were well-off, but she'd never paid much attention to what her mom actually did to provide for them.

  Of course, her presence these days was as much about her connection to 'the Rallsburg Incident' as it was her business acumen and connections. From the sound of it, that annoyed her mother as much as it made Hailey feel cool and mysterious.

  "...and after the Dawkins meeting, remind me to check in with Legal and see if we can get some restraining orders on all these reporters. This is getting old."

  "Uhh, ma'am…"

  She sighed. "Look, call me ma'am if you really have to, but speak your mind. I promise, I won't ever fire you for something you say in private. I'll put it in writing if you like. I hired you for your opinions."

  He nodded. "The press doesn't really respond well to restraining orders or hostility in general. The more you resist, the greater their curiosity."

  "So I should just sit here and take harassment?"

  "It'll pass with time. Most stories fade after a week or two. Rallsburg has sticking power as an unsolved crime at such a scale, but sooner or later everyone will move on. The news survives on keeping things interesting. If you react to them, ma'am, you keep it interesting."

  Hailey had to dodge out of the way to avoid getting run over by a particularly aggressive biker, and missed half of her mother's reply. "...keep thinking they've seen her."

  "Well, you watched the video. What do you think, ma'am?"

  "...I don't know." Hailey nearly stopped walking. She'd never heard her mother sound uncertain about anything. Her voice wasn't supposed to make sounds like that.

  "Have you spoken with her father about it?"

  "You can say his name, Daniel. We're getting divorced, we're not mortal enemies."

  They're getting divorced? Hailey's heart sank. What happened?

  "Mr. Partel—"

  "Chris, Daniel. Chris."

  "I wouldn't presume to be so familiar with him."

  "Chris and I talked about it. We watched it together after they sent us the original copy. Neither of us thought it looked like her, but it's a terrible video. Besides, that agent on TV said it was fake."

  "True."

  "It's been six months. They did everything I asked, I did everything they asked. Neither of us came up with squat." Stephanie's voice sounded calm and confident, despite what she was saying. "I have to assume the worst."

  "I'm sorry, ma'am."

  "I am too." Another shout sounded from across the street. A man with a phone held up, camera pointed their way. "Oh, not again."

  Stephanie quickly turned down a side street, Daniel hurrying to keep up. Hailey, one block behind them with Jessica at her side, had to rush just to keep her in sight. They weaved through several city blocks before they managed to lose the guy. Her mom was great at ducking out of sight, which was both a note of pride and a major inconvenience. At one point, Hailey lost her entirely, and had to have Jessica boost them up into the air and fly over the crowd invisibly to spot her distinct wavy blonde hair, the exact same as Hailey's had once been.

  In a small corner coffee shop, they took another short break, while Hailey hung around just outside. Every time the door opened, she had to adjust her spell to hear them as it rose and shrunk in volume.

  "They really are quite persistent," Daniel huffed, drinking down a cup of water.

  "I swear, everything is all about that stupid town," Stephanie grumbled. "She just had to go to that school."

  "Hailey chose it?"

  "You think I'd send my daughter to a tiny school like that?" Stephanie shook her head. "Hailey wanted to go. I think she wanted to prove herself. I would have let her go anywhere, but she picked the smallest, most out of the way school she could find that still had a good business program. She liked the challenge."

  Was that why I picked it? Hailey mused. I thought it was 'cause I wanted to get away, and because of Weston…

  "She sounds like she was quite the young woman."

  Stephanie shrugged. "Chris insisted she made the right choice, but look where she ended up."

  "That's hardly her fault."

  She finished off her own drink and stood up again. "Come on, let's get back to the office."