Roxy stopped talking. Turning on her heel, she returned to her car.

Still, she was reluctant to walk away without a fight.

After a moment of silence in the car, she whipped out her phone to dial Manny’s number, but he beat her to it.

Roxy took the call right away.

“Dad, Laurence hasn’t been in the office today. I’ve been staking out his office building for a while, but I didn’t run into him. I don’t know where he went.”

Exasperated, Manny replied, “He pulled the rug out from under us.