The Missing Best Friend

The name Fatcat Cook was something Lena Moore and I came up with back in our final year of college, after finishing an entire bottle of red wine and lying on the rooftop, tossing out random ideas.

That night, the moon was full.

Lena had her arm looped around my neck, her voice slurred as she said, “Zoe, let’s come up with a code.”

“What kind of code?”

“I mean if one of us disappears or goes silent, hearing this name means something’s gone wrong.”

I laughed at how childish she sounded.

But I still went along with it, thinking it through with her for a long time, and in the end, we settled on Fatcat Cook.

Because the name sounded so ridiculous, no one would ever actually have it.

In the entire world, only two people knew what the name Fatcat Cook meant.

One was me.

The other was Lena.

And Lena had been missing for thirty-one days.

She said she was going to Silverridge, in Valoria, for a few days.

Before she left, she even video-called me, holding up her phone in the airport duty-free store and shouting, “Zoe! What do you want? I’ll bring it back for you!”

That was the last time I saw her face.

After that, she never replied again.

Her calls wouldn’t go through.

Her social media stopped at a single photo of the Silverridge night market.

I reported it to the police.

Her family reported it too.

Authorities in Valoria were investigating as well.

But there was no trace of her, alive or dead.

It was as if Lena had vanished from this world.

And now my husband, Tristan Shaw—someone who, in theory, had no connection to Lena and wouldn’t have even liked one of her posts—had casually asked, over dinner, who Fatcat Cook was.

“What’s wrong?” Tristan said, his eyes lingering on me. “You’re acting strange.”

“Nothing.” I lowered my head and put some food into my mouth, tasting nothing. “I’ve just never heard that name before. Where did you hear it?”

“Oh, a friend mentioned it.” Tristan lifted his glass and took a sip of water. “Just asked out of curiosity.”

He changed the subject and started talking about work.

But I couldn’t hear a single word.

There was only one thought in my mind.

How did he know that name?

How did he find out?

After dinner, Tristan went to take a shower.

I sat on the couch, my palms slick with sweat.

The sound of running water came from the bathroom.

I glanced at the bathroom door, then stood up and walked toward the phone he had left on the dining table.

I knew the password.

It was our wedding anniversary.

I unlocked the phone, my fingers trembling as I started scrolling through his messages, call logs, and notes.

There was nothing.

It was too clean, unnaturally spotless.

No normal person’s phone could be this empty.

I moved on to check his computer.

His laptop was in the study, and I knew that password too.

Or rather, he had never hidden anything from me.

I checked his browsing history, folders, and download records one by one until I opened the cache of a ticket booking app.

My hand froze.

One month ago.

Tristan told me he was going to Northaven on a three-day business trip.

I had even helped him pack his suitcase.

But the booking record showed he hadn’t bought a ticket to Northaven.

He had bought a ticket to Valoria, to the city of Silverridge.

The departure time was one day earlier than Lena’s.

The return time was two days after Lena went missing.

The sound of running water in the bathroom stopped.

I quickly shut down the laptop, walked back to the living room, sat on the couch, and picked up my phone, pretending to scroll through videos.

Tristan came out, drying his hair, and glanced at me. “Not sleeping yet?”

“Mm, just scrolling through my feeds.”

I smiled.

He went into the bedroom and turned off the lights.

I stared at the bedroom door in the darkness, my fingers tightening around the armrest of the sofa, bit by bit.

Tristan Shaw, why did you go to Valoria?