“I am just saying we should think about it,” I said. I reached out and took the gold card from Kayla’s hand. The paper was thick, almost artificially heavy, as if it was trying too hard to prove it was important.

I slipped it into my purse. “We will call you tomorrow, Mr. Vance.”

He didn’t like that. I saw the tiny muscle in his jaw twitch, just for a second. But he recovered quickly, giving us another one of his rehearsed nods. “Of course. But remember, ladies, I am only in the Cleveland area until Thursday. Once the slots are full, they are full.”

We walked back to the Buick in silence. Kayla was quiet, looking out the passenger window, her thumb tracing the spot where the card had been.

Tracey was angry with me. She didn’t say a word as we drove down Route 2, the old car humming as we passed the familiar strip malls and car dealerships.

When we got back to my house on Maple Street, Tracey went straight to the kitchen to start dinner, slamming the cabinet doors a little harder than usual. Kayla went up to her bedroom. I sat down at my kitchen table, which still has the worn green linoleum from the seventies.

I made myself a cup of black tea in my favorite blue mug, the one with the chipped handle, and opened my old HP laptop. The fan in the laptop started up with a loud, grinding wheeze.

I put on my reading glasses and started to work. I spent thirty years finding missing patient records, so I know how to search for things that people want to keep hidden.

First, I typed in the name of his agency: Vance Talent Group.

They had a beautiful website. It had high-gloss photos of young girls smiling, with bold letters proclaiming their success in New York and Paris. But when I looked closer, things didn’t add up. There were no physical addresses listed. Just a post office box in Atlanta. The domain registry showed the website had been created exactly nineteen days ago.

I began reverse-searching the images of the models on the homepage. It took me until nearly midnight, sitting under the dim yellow light of the kitchen ceiling fixture. I found the first model on a bridal boutique website based in Seattle. She wasn’t a Vance model at all. She was a local dentist’s daughter who had modeled for her aunt’s shop three years ago.

I checked the next photo. Stolen from a lifestyle blog in Utah.

By 2:00 AM, my tea was stone cold. My back ached, but I kept digging. I opened Facebook and started searching regional mothers’ groups in Georgia and North Carolina. I typed in “Vance Talent” and “Atlanta Showcase.”

That was when I hit the jackpot.