#rivervale_lodge

Her brow furrows. "Connor went with you to Connecticut?"

"No! No, he was here when I got back."

"I mean, where else could I bring all of them? Can't go to mortal cops, they'd deport them or worse..."

"No, absolutely. Makes sense. Smart." She nods, assuring Dagmar that she's not judging.

"I don't know when you fell asleep, but Sally Mae says that some of them are with Anne Marie now, and the rest are getting settled in at the lake house."

"Good. That was happening, the kids were watching movies. I must've crashed."

"No Grown-up Panic, so there's that." A brief brow furrow. "Thanks."

"Yeah." A pause. "Symon was looking for you earlier. I texted him a few minutes ago to let him know you're back." She checks her phone. "He hasn't seen it yet. No 'read' marker."

Another frown and a hint of a shoulder curl.

"You have my phone?"

"I had it. I gave it to him to hold on to. I figured...well, you might prefer that."

"...oh."

"I just mean because of...y'know, earlier." A shrug.

"Yeah." She squeezes her eyes shut.

"Oh, he also gave your folks a cover story, I think, so they wouldn't worry."

"So, I figure next I'm gonna look for whoever hired these guys to steal people."

Sylvi leans forward. "The papers you mentioned? You think the info's in there?"

"I do."

"You wanna look?"

"Symon'd be..." A frown.

"Yeah, if you don't mind?"

She rubs at the back of her neck, taking a moment to find where the briefcase was stashed.

There it is, under the couch

She brings it over. The lock appears to have been broken.

A grin. "No key needed, huh?"

"Yeah, funny that."

Sylvi looks on as Dagmar goes through the contents of the briefcase.

She offers out the stack of papers.

The papers give the names... and more

Sylvi takes them and shuffles through them, scanning the pages.

"This is a lot. You think this is the purchaser?" She points at a name. "Or maybe a fake name?"

"Maybe?"

The same frown as earlier.

Sylvi notes. "What?"

"Just... I kinda did the dumb jock stuff I'm good at, already."

"Taking down an organization? Above my paygrade, maybe."

"Well, above mine, too, if I were trying to do it alone. I don't think any of us could do it single-handedly."

A distracted, troubled look crosses her face.

"Well, I knew I needed help, so I came home."

The troubled look is replaced by a bit of a grin. "Smart. I'm glad. Not that you need help, but that you came home."

"Where were you going, anyway?"

She shrugs. "Boston, maybe?"

"Boston? Why Boston?" She tries to think if they know anybody there.

"Never been there."

A surprised look. "I mean, good a reason as any."

"The drive was pretty."

"Yeah?" Sylvi invites her to tell more about what she saw.

"Yeah, I didn't want to do the main way, not on the bike, so...."