After eating supper, Casey laid down on the couch. Moonlight poured in through the opened curtains, where he'd kept a close eye out on Lani and his father. Wyatt played with his toys on the floor while Casey messaged his sister for updates. Soon, they'd be coming home but they already had to contact a lawyer.

The police considered Mr. Lockhart a suspect due to security footage revealing how he'd dumped the gun used to kill his wife. While they were aware that he'd been forced to comply with their every demand, they somehow got it in their heads that their father had connected those gang members and helped them out, making it all an act.

How did they connect Casey with his car being shot at then? Their version of the crime made no sense. It wasn't like his own dad came and shot at him while driving home.

If only Casey could've gone with them. Or maybe he should've warned his father after the funeral. They could've hid him somewhere, but that probably would have raised the detectives' suspicions more.

At the sound of tire tracks, Casey sprung from the couch. Lani's car pulled up, shutting off the engine. She climbed out first and then Dad emerged from the passenger seat. What a relief, they didn't hold him in a cell overnight.

Casey hurried to open the door, letting in a rush of bone-chilling wind. Neither of them said a word to Casey as they crossed the foyer, kicking off their snow-sodden shoes.

"So, what happened?" Casey broke the silence.

Lani gazed over at their father, who seemed a world away. Casey wasn't sure if he even heard his question.

"They suspect he helped cover up mom's murder. They think he paid a gang member to kill her," Lani said.

Casey gaped. "What? That's nonsense! What the hell got them to that conclusion?"

"I know, it's bullshit." Mr. Lockhard groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Their dad rarely cussed, but the irritation mounting on his face worried Casey. How could the police suspect him? Didn't they realize their dad only did what he thought was best to protect their family? He wanted to keep them all safe and get those gang members to release their mom.

"What can we do?" Casey asked.

"Nothing. My lawyer said we just have to wait. So far, they've got nothing concrete to hold against me. They're still building their case and were hoping I'd spill something to incriminate myself," Mr. Lockhart explained.

"There has to be something we can do," Casey insisted. "What if they build up enough evidence to arrest you? Dad, we can't lose you too. Maybe we can retrieve that missing video surveillance footage from the bakery and show them that you're innocent. Lani's girlfriend is really good with technology, so she could help."

"Yeah, I could give Aubrey a call and see if she wouldn't mind," Lani chimed in.

Mr. Lockhart shook his head. "Please, don't get anyone else involved. That footage is gone. I checked for it. I never deleted it. They got to it first. Must've been why they wanted to use my laptop. If only I'd just gone to the cops. But I just... I couldn't."

Casey was at a loss for words. Before he could even try to console his dad, Mr. Lockhart turned and walked off to his bedroom, locking the door behind him.

"Don't worry, I can still give Audrey a call," Lani said. "I've actually got his laptop in my room. Told him I needed to borrow it cuz mine died."

Casey frowned. "Why'd you do that?"

"There's something wrong and I wanted to get to the bottom of it," Lani told him. "I can't do much else, but I've been talking to Audrey and trying to find out what happened with that footage. I've been going through Dad's search history too. There's something... Odd."

"What did you find?" Casey asked.

"I think it's better if I show you," Lani replied, glancing over at Wyatt. "But only you."

Case frowned. "Okay, yeah. Sure."

Lani came back into the living room, carrying their father's laptop like she was about to make a drug exchange. Before booting it up, she spared a glance back at the hallway.

"Just a fair warning, you probably don't want Wyatt seeing this," Lani told him.

What the hell had Lani found?

Casey scooted closer to her, staring at the familiar wallpaper of their family. It had been taken right after Lani's graduation when they took her to her favorite restaurant. Lani moved the mouse to his browser history, where nothing appeared out of the ordinary until a link for some kind of dating website popped up.

"That doesn't mean anything. Could just be a popup," Casey told her.

"Yeah, that's what I thought too. Until I clicked on it," Lani replied, demonstrating it for him. It showed them a portal to a raunchy hookup site, where a user was already signed in. Their dad, using his real name. "See what I mean?"

"Oh, what the hell?"

"That's not the worst part," Lani explained, clicking over to the private messages. "I wish I could unread a lot of these. They'd already been viewed, so it doesn't show I messed with them."

Lani opened individual chats to some rather libidinous images from both men and women trying to flirt with their father. Some of them even made Casey blush and need to look away.

"Okay, I think I've seen enough," Casey told her.

"Weird, isn't it? Why would he be using this?" Lani asked. "You don't think he's been cheating on Mom, do you?"

"Before you showed me that, I would've said hell no. Now, I'm not so sure. I don't want to believe he'd do such a thing but it's hard to defend him after seeing that profile," Casey told her.

"Something I have noticed is a lack of communication," Lani explained. "Like, Dad doesn't really respond to any of the women or men. Just the occasional compliment. All but this one person. Fredia Hanson. They've got a long chat log with a lot of photos."

Casey cringed. "He's not sending nudes out, is he?"

"No, thank God." Lani forced a chuckle. "I'd need you to bleach my eyes if I found that. Usually, she shares her photos with him. I'm not sure if they chat more anywhere else though. On this site, you can also pay to watch videos. Dad's got a um, playlist so to speak, of them."

"Please, don't show me that."

"I won't." Lani closed the laptop, resting it on the coffee table. "But I needed you to see that. It's been eating at me. I know I shouldn't have snooped. I mean, I hate for Dad to see some of the crap on my phone, but he let me use this and didn't bother to delete his history."

"You'd think he would've done that," Casey pointed out.

"Maybe he just forgot?" Lani shrugged.

"What should we do about it?" Casey asked. "Do you want to confront him?"

"Not really," Lani admitted.

"Why not? Maybe he can clear stuff up," Casey said.

"That's why I don't want to tell him. Not only do I admit to snooping around, but we might learn that our parents weren't in love with each other anymore," Lani replied. "Using accounts like that usually leads to cheating. If I find out Dad's been cheating, that only makes him look more guilty."

"You don't think he's been cheating all this time, do you?" Casey asked.

Lani raked a hand through her red hair, groaning. "I don't know. What am I supposed to think after finding that crap?"

"Yeah, that was bad. We can't let the police see that," Casey told her. "He might know we were on his computer, but you need to delete it."

"Casey, I can't do that. What if there's evidence on here? What if he's been chatting with the person who killed Mom?" Lani asked.

"I don't think it's worth the risk," Casey replied.

Lani scoffed. "Well, he never should've made the profile and left it logged in like an idiot. I'm not deleting it. No, I'm going to message this lady he's been chatting with. I wanna meet her."

"Are you nuts?" Casey gaped.

"Don't you want to figure this out? Earlier, didn't you say you wanted to catch the person who killed Mom? What's holding you back now?"

Casey shook his head. "There's never been any doubts that Dad's innocent. Not until you showed me this. I don't want to know what we'll uncover."

Lani sighed. "You've always been like this, wanting to see the good in everyone. Hell, you didn't want to believe Veronica had gotten involved with the Black Vipers and even tried to defend her actions for so long. Had Wyatt not almost died, you'd probably still be sticking up for her."

"Hey, that's not fair. I loved Veronica and she wasn't always affiliated with them. What did you expect me to do when she said she was pregnant? Abandon her and my son?" Casey snapped.

"Sorry, that was too far."

"No shit. I get that you're upset, but you don't need to take it out on me. We have to work on this together. While I don't want to meet with this woman dad's been chatting with, I think you're right. We need to. Let's scroll more through their texts and see if there's anywhere they might've met before or if she has a place in mind."

"There's something else that crossed my mind," Lani admitted. "What if this woman killed Mom? Maybe she got jealous and wanted her out of the picture. I know that sounds like something straight off Dateline, but you never know what people are capable of."

"We gotta be careful then." Casey pulled out his phone, scrolling to August's strand of texts. "I'll see if August will meet her with me."

"Seriously? You can't consider bringing him into this. You barely know that guy," Lani pointed out.

"He's someone we can rely on," Casey told her. "Otherwise, one of us will be visiting this chick by themself because I'm not taking Wyatt with us."

"I can see if Audrey could babysit Wyatt," Lani suggested. "We'll tell Dad one of us is staying here with him while the other will come meet with us on their lunch break at the bakery. Just tell Dad that you're meeting up with a friend."

Casey considered her idea. "I mean, it might work. I'll have to see if Xavier's working that day too. Which he probably will be if you're not, so having August is our best bet. But at least that's the three of us."

Lani sighed. "Fine, alright. We can have August help us, but don't come crying to me if he stabs us in the back."

"There's just one thing I'll have to do then," Casey replied. "Compensation for his help."

Lani frowned. "How much does he want?"

"He doesn't want money."

"Huh? Then what the hell's he want?" Lani asked.

"Free cupcakes, so I better get to baking."