Adam wakes facedown in his pillow, sixteen hours after he fell asleep. His hair is messy; his clothes are still on. He opens his eyes slowly, the room dark. Because he works night shift so often, the blinds in his room are never open, but the clock on his nightstand reads five-forty-nine in the evening. Adam works at seven—today is briefing night, and tomorrow, Saturday, is buyer night.

He sits up carefully, trying not to anger his headache anymore. How is it possible that he slept so late into the evening? If he was tired, he should've slept until ten, maybe eleven—not five-thirty in the evening. He shuffles around for his phone, for anything that will bring back his memory of whatever last night. He has numerous missed calls from Sarah, open webpages of cab numbers and Nyx—

Adam freezes. No. No. That had not happened. That could not have happened.

In a panic to get to the window, he trips on the blanket that's fallen from the bed. He slams his head into the wall, groaning. He recovers quickly and pulls aside the blinds, inviting in evening light.

His car isn't on the street where it always is. Because he left it at the parking lot of Nyx.

Adam rushes to change. He wants a shower, but there's no time. If any cop drives past the parking lot at Nyx and sees Adam's car there before Nyx even opens for the night, he'd be done. He'd be cafeteria gossip and Wilkes would finally have what he needs to take Adam off of the Nyx case.

The cab pulls up to the front of Adam's building nearly right after he called. He gets in and calls the business line for Nyx. He presses four for guest services.

"Nyx, nightclub, restaurant and bar services. This is guest services. What can I do for you this evening?"

Adam clears his throat. "Hi," he says, "I was at the restaurant last night, and I took a cab home. I have my car there in the parking lot, and I know it's secure. Where should I go to get it back?"

"We can get that sorted out for you," the woman replies. "Unfortunately, Nyx is entirely closed right now, but guest services around the back is opening up again at six, in a few minutes. If you come 'round the back, I'll happily get that worked out for you then. We just ask that you bring valid photo ID."

He hangs up the phone and taps his finger against the seat for the remaining drive. When the cab pulls up to Nyx, he pays the driver and steps out at quarter after six.

The place looks different in the setting sun. That gleaming black crystal-like look of the building is dulled slightly, making it look less dangerous. The top floor has tinted windows from the outside, so Adam doesn't know if she's home. He doesn't want her down there. Doesn't want to speak to her. He just needs to get his car so he can go to work, organize the details of this buy, and have Eris in jail and Nyx shut down by Sunday.

Adam pushes open the door to guest services just as Nyx opens again. That was something that had stumped Adam and his coworkers about Nyx—the restaurant was open for lunch from twelve until four, but the whole building shut down for two hours before opening again at six. When Adam had questioned Eris about it during an interrogation once, thinking that's when Nyx got their deliveries, she'd simply explained that Nyx provides different atmosphere during the day and night, and the staff needed time to prepare as such. It'd been a bullshit answer then, and it was a bullshit system now.

"Hello!" a chirpy woman is saying the moment Adam walks in. "What can I do for you?"

"I left my car here last night," Adam says. "The silver Mazda—here's the key." Adam lifts his car keys to eye level.

"You...have the key, sir?"

Adam holds the keys a little higher, as if in answer.

The woman's face is clouded. "Sorry, sir, but we require patrons who take company cabs to leave the keys here in order to ensure they don't drive home. We have a specific list with names and photos of those who left their keys and therefore their cars. If your keys aren't here, and your name isn't on the list, I'm afraid I can't let you into the lot."

Adam sputters out a laugh. "It's my car," he says. "The keys are right here."

"I'm sure it is your car, sir," she says. "But it's Nyx policy. You'll have to bring proof of ownership of the car in for us to let you have it."

Adam blinks. "It's my car. You can't hold it hostage from me—I have the keys."

"Actually, sir, we can," she replies, still kind. "The moment you accepted Nyx's payment of the cab home, you also agreed to have us safely return the car to the rightful owner, which involves the process of either the keys and the list, or proof of ownership of the vehicle."

Adam considers banging his head against the counter, but instead he only sighs. "Look, I don't have time to go home again and come back. I'm Adam Hughes. I'm the cop your boss knows. I was with her last night."

The woman stares blankly at him.

"Adam Hughes?" Adam says, gesturing. "The guy with hearts drawn all over his picture in the staff room?"

The woman lifts her chin slightly, and Adam can see her hiding a smile. She shakes her head and says, "Sorry. Policy."

Adam's jaw sets. "I'd like to speak to a manager."

"Unfortunately, sir, I'm the head of the guest services. If you have a grievance, we invite you to file out the grievance form on our website."

"Just go talk to her," Adam insists. "I know you know where she is—or how to contact her. Just get her to tell you who I am so I can have my car."

The woman gives a slight smile. "If I bothered my boss every time a customer had a grievance, I wouldn't be a very good employee."

"She knows me."

"Many people claim to know the head of a company. Again, I invite you to file a grievance form on our website—"

"I need my car. Now."

"If you could provide me with proof of ownership—" As the woman repeats herself again, Adam spots the dark-haired bartender from last night walk by in the hallway behind her.

"Hey!" Adam shouts. "Niky? Niky something?"

The man turns slowly, then leans over the corner. He recognizes Adam immediately, but he puts on a blank face. Stall as much as possible—those were his orders.

"Apologies," Nikolas says. "I don't deal with guest services—"

"I know you recognize me," Adam says. He points to the chirpy woman. "Tell her to give me my car back."

"Policy—"

"Oh, fuck your policy," Adam snaps. "You know me. You served me last night—your girlfriend's free pass? Don't act like you don't know me."

Nikolas gives him a sly smile and backs away from the counter. "Again, I apologize. I don't deal with guest services."

Adam checks his watch. Six-twenty-four, and it's a thirty-minute drive to the police station. Adam is going to be late if he has to go home and get his registration—not to mention the two cabs he'll have to pay again. He can't take a cab right to work, since all the Nyx and buyer info is in the file in his trunk. He'd told Carlos he'd take it home to go over it on his day off, but he'd been too busy to even take it out of his car.

Adam doesn't know Eris' phone number. He has no clue where she is. He desperately looks up at the woman. "Look, is there any way you can speak to Eris for me?"

The woman sighs. "She's unavailable right now. She'll be back at Nyx when the club opens at nine."

Adam wants to strangle the woman. "Can you call her? Can you give me her number?"

"I truly apologize, sir. I can't give that out to a patron."

"I'm not a patron, I'm—" Adam takes a deep breath. Fine. Fine. He'll just have to rework his schedule. "Fine," Adam says. He tosses open the door and opens his phone. He calls the Diakos case organizer and tells him to push the briefing back to ten for now—it wouldn't make a difference to the team anyway. It only messes around with Adam.

Outside the building, he searches up Eris' name. The only results he gets are the phone numbers for Nyx, some cryptic articles about the CEO of Nyx and speculation over her favourite colour. He probably has her phone number in her file, in his car.

Defeated, Adam calls Sarah back. She's left him messages, but he doesn't care to listen to them.

"Adam?" Her voice is frantic.

"You bailed," he says, walking down the sidewalk, towards the café on the corner.

"No, I didn't!" She pauses. "Well, I never showed, but that wasn't my fault!"

Adam pulls open the door to the café. "What incredible excuse have you come up with?"

Her scoff is more of a windy noise through the phone. "I ran out of gas. I swear. Right there in the middle of the street!"

"You didn't think to fill up your car with gas?" Adam asks, seating himself in a booth. "Or call me and tell me you weren't coming?"

"I swear I did fill up," she insists. "And my phone was dead."

"I bought you two damn chargers for your phone, Sarah. They're in your car. Why didn't you charge it before you ran out of gas?"

"Right, well I think I might've lost the chargers. Look, Adam, I was on my way, I swear. I planned to show up—"

"You always plan to show up. You never do. It's always some problem with your car or your phone or your schedule. It's always something."

"You're not being fair. This wasn't my fault—"

"It never is." Adam switches the phone to his other ear. "I'm nights for the next few days, so I'd like to spend my day off on Tuesday with Daphne. I'll take her out to dinner at the Thai place she loves."

There's silence over the phone for a moment. Then, Sarah's voice is tentative, "Maybe we can all go—"

"Just Daphne," Adam replies. "I'll get her at nine."

Sarah is silent for another moment. She takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry about last night, Adam," she says. She means it. "But if you want to come home, you're going to have to live with me, too. I mean, if you want to reconsider us—"

"I'll get Daphne at nine on Tuesday," Adam interrupts. "I'm not going to give her coffee or guzzle liquor on my way over. Just make sure she's ready." He hangs up the phone before Sarah can answer.

Sarah puts her phone down on the couch. She's exhausted—she was up late hitchhiking home, and then she had to call her dad to drive her back to her car and fill it up with gas, since she doesn't know how. She called Adam nearly seven times after she got home, but he didn't answer. She knows she's always late, and she knows she can be flaky, but this time, she swears she filled up with gas. She doesn't remember losing the chargers.

Daphne sits on the floor across from Sarah, doing a puzzle of a unicorn. Sarah watches as she puts the pieces together. The instructor at pre-school said Daphne was doing puzzles twice as hard as the other kids. Sarah knows Daphne didn't get that trait from her, and she doesn't exactly know how to nurture it. The only thing Sarah can do even in the slightest is play the piano, but her parents always said that was a useless skill. For her twentieth birthday, Adam gifted Sarah the beautiful baby grand that's covering dust in the sunroom. Sarah doesn't touch it anymore.

She knows she made a mistake, but when she saw Daphne's little hand curl around one of her fingers in the delivery room, she just couldn't see it that way anymore. She thought she'd hit the jackpot—a handsome, older guy that had his life together, a beautiful house in a nice area, an adorable daughter—but the night Adam pushed Daphne out of the way after drinking too many beers and broke her wrist, Sarah's jackpot shattered into a million fake coins. Adam hadn't loved Sarah since she got pregnant, and he made sure she knew it. She'd told the hospital doctor that Daphne broke her wrist after a fall, but she'd been more honest with the courts.

Now she's beginning to wonder if that had been the right decision. Sure, Adam had a few too many drinks a few times a week, and he worked so much that he completely forgot Sarah existed, but other than Daphne's wrist, he'd always been perfect with his daughter. Perhaps Sarah, whose favourite pastime was getting her hair done and gossiping with her friends—wasn't any more fit to raise Daphne than Adam was.

"Hey, Daphne," Sarah says, bringing her knees up to her chin. "Daddy's gonna come by on Tuesday and take you out for the day. Does that sound fun?"

Daphne moves around two pieces, trying to figure out which one fits. She has Adam's green eyes, but she has Sarah's ski-slope nose.

"I love Daddy," Daphne replies quietly.

"Yeah? What's so great about Daddy?"

"He tells me about things," Daphne says. She doesn't look up at Sarah, but she's finally got the right piece for the unicorn horn.

"What kind of things?" Sarah asks.

"He talks about the planets," Daphne says. She finally looks up from the puzzle to Sarah. Her eyes are big and wide, her lashes curled and long. "The ones in the sky."

Sarah smiles. Daphne's instructor said she loves to look at a book in the library that has pictures of all the planets, so Sarah had bought those little stickers of stars for Daphne's ceiling. She wanted to lift Daphne up so she could stick them on, but she hadn't been strong or tall enough. She'd had to grab the stool from the kitchen and put them up herself. Afterwards, she'd called Adam to talk, but he hadn't answered.

"Which planet is your most favourite?" Sarah asks.

Daphne thinks for a moment. "I like the blue one."

"Venus?"

Daphne shakes her head. "Venus is red. I like Neptune. It's blue."

Sarah purses her lips. The only thing she remembers about the planets comes from the poster that hung on the wall of her tenth-grade classroom. She hadn't cared to really look at it.

Sarah rests her chin on her knees, feeling cold. Adam would know what colour Venus was. Everyone knew what colour Venus was, except for Sarah, apparently.

"Your puzzle looks nice, honey," Sarah says.

"It's a unicorn." Daphne swirls a little piece on the carpet.

That much, Sarah does know. The light coming through the window is dim and disappearing, and Daphne is probably getting hungry. She doesn't know what to make—she has some leftover pasta and a little bit of chicken, but that's not enough. She considers ordering food, but Adam said she couldn't do that every time she didn't feel like cooking—he said Daphne should eat good food six days out of the week. He's probably right. He's always right.

"What do you want for dinner, Daph?" Sarah asks.

Daphne makes a little shrug and puts the last piece in the unicorn. "I like the green peas."

Sarah nods. "We can make some peas." She gets to her feet and goes to the kitchen, watching Daphne move around the unicorn like it's flying.

"Mommy?" Daphne calls.

Sarah looks over at her daughter, who's looking up now.

"Do you know if there's any other blue planets?"

Sarah doesn't.