The baby stops fussing, settling into my arms like a sleepy puppy. The soft weight of her. Her lips pucker, then relax, her little chest rising and falling almost to the rhythm of my own. She is back to sleep, her face peaceful as a porcelain doll’s. That wasn’t hard.

The living room window is open; fevered voices carry in from the terrace of the apartment above. Commotion. Mania. I shouldn’t be surprised.

I recognize the sound of Cassie’s screaming, obviously—I’ve heard her scream dozens of times. Horror movies (she love-hates them); the afternoon we picnicked upstate and she got stung by a whole swarm of bees; the time in high school when she walked in on her ex-boyfriend Kyle and our semi-friend Ashton, manically fucking in her basement during a party. Manically fucking was the way Cassie described it afterward, so that’s how I remember it.

Anyway, Cassie is screaming now the way she did then—except even more psychotically this time, and who can blame her? Her baby is gone.

I picture her one story up, her blue eyes swimming with tears, already swollen even though it’s only been fifteen minutes since Ella went missing. Five since anyone noticed.

In the midst of Cassie’s wailing, I hear her friends banding together. I recognize Ava’s voice, McKay’s. I don’t know the others’ voices by heart, but some of them sound familiar, probably from Cassie’s Instagram stories. Evelyn, maybe Blake? The one who speaks with an upward inflection.

“I just called the cops,” someone says.

“Hold on, where’s Grant?” It’s McKay, panicked. “Someone get him. Someone get Grant!”

“No,” says Cassie, and I hear her sniffle. Eight stories below, there’s a series of violent honking. A siren blares, a high-pitched wailing that climbs into windows and bounces off buildings. Part of the soundtrack of the city.

“Billie,” she says, and I freeze. “I need Billie.”

“Billie? Why?” McKay is the one challenging this statement. Of course. Dumb bitch.