At Mrs. Sullivan's insistence, Nanette stayed for their pot roast dinner. She had no desire to phone home, but there were certain things she simply could not do with a cop for a dad, and not telling him where she was spending her evening was one of them. She quickly texted him her dinner plans and gave her phone back to Owen. She had an unread message from Rosa, but she closed the app without reading it.

Dinner was a boisterous affair, between Dougie's refusal to eat anything that wasn't hand-spooned to him and Owen's penchant for challenging anything anyone said, no matter how mundane.

"We've got to get new chains for the Subaru," Mr. Sullivan said. "I almost--"

"We got new tire chains last year," Owen interjected.

"Yes, for the Honda," Mrs. Sullivan said. "And don't interrupt."

"I wasn't interrupting!"

Owen's beefy older brother, Alfie, contributed very little to the conversation, picking sullenly at his pot roast and texting under the kitchen table for the duration of the meal. As soon as dinner was over, he wandered off, and Nanette helped Mrs. Sullivan and a reluctant Owen clear the table and load the dishwasher.

Mrs. Sullivan offered to drive Nanette back, but Nanette politely refused. The Sullivan's driveway was even longer and more treacherous than her own at night, and the pavement would be icy. It would be safer to walk.

She accepted a spare coat from Mrs. Sullivan and slipped out the front door.

"Wait!"

Behind her, Owen was hopping on one foot, jamming his other foot into a boot that was too large for him.

"I'm gonna walk with you. Lemme grab my coat."

He disappeared and was back a moment later.

"I'M GONNA WALK NANETTE HOME," he hollered, slamming the front door behind him.

"I know the way back."

"Alfie likes you," he said, as though she had asked.

This was an unexpected, baffling bit of news, but Nanette was too tired to care.

"He didn't even talk to me tonight."

"Yeah, 'cause he's still upset about Tommy. And because he's fighting with dad over dropping out of college. But he likes you. I can tell. I'm his brother. Are you feeling better?"

Nanette sighed. "I guess."

"Why were you crying before? Lady problems?"

Nanette tried to swat him with the back of her hand, but he leapt out of reach.

"What?" he whined. "Cathy acts all cry babyish too when she's at that time of the month." Nanette pursed her lips but didn't respond.

Cathy was the oldest Sullivan child, off studying to be a doctor somewhere. Nanette missed having another girl around. 

They trudged onward. Owen pulled her phone from his pocket- she'd forgotten he had it- and switched on the flashlight.

"Mitch had the same app." He sounded unusually serious, and it took Nanette a moment to remember that Mitch Alms had been Owen's friend. It took another moment to realize Owen was looking at her home screen, which was filled with WhatsApp notifications. "He was always talking to... never mind."

He turned when he realized Nanette had stopped walking.

"Mitch used WhatsApp? Did he use it to talk to someone specific?"

"Um. Yeah."

Nanette's heart rate picked up, her body reacting while her mind whirled, working furiously to catch up.

"Who? A girl?"

"No..." Owen trailed off, and Nanette sensed there was more to the story.

"Someone he knew?"

Owen shifted from one foot to the other, obviously uncomfortable.

Nanette looked at him sternly. "Owen. You know my dad's a cop, right?"

"Yeah..."

"So- you can't tell anyone this, but they never found Mitch's phone. If you tell me everything you know, maybe we can find out who stole it, and why."

Owen's face was barely illuminated in the cell phone light, but Nanette could see he was chewing on his top lip.

"He was talking to an older guy," Owen said, finally.

"How much older?" Nanette asked, concerned.

"Nineteen, I think? At least, that's how old he said he was."

"Was it definitely a guy? Could it have been a girl pretending to be a guy?" Suddenly, Nanette realized she didn't know for certain Rosa was a girl. And this was ridiculous, anyway. Why would the two people be connected?

"Maybe. I don't know. They were going to meet in Fargo. The day before he... you know."

"What happened?"

The boy was silent, scraping at the ice with his oversized boot.

"Owen," she prompted, then tried a different question. "Do you know how Mitch met this guy?" She winced as she realized she sounded a little like a cop. Like her dad.

"Instagram. But he wasn't just some random guy from the internet, you know? They were talking for months. His name's Brett."

Owen looked up at Nanette then, his expression miserable. "I knew it was a bad idea, but Mitch wouldn't listen."

"What was a bad idea?"

"They were going to meet and run away together. Mitch thought Brett was the love of his life. And then Brett never showed up."

Owen exhaled, a cloud of white mist forming in front of him.

"That's why Mitch killed himself."