## Chapter Seven: The Room Upstairs

The detective was particularly interested in our house.

“Did Thomas have a home office?”

I nodded. It was a small room upstairs we never cleared out after he left. I hadn’t touched much of it—there was still paperwork, a bookshelf, some old hard drives.

They asked if they could do a sweep. I consented.

What they found changed everything.

In the back of a filing cabinet, taped behind a drawer, was a flash drive. It contained audio files—secretly recorded phone calls. Thomas had been paranoid, maybe even involved in something illegal.

One file, dated two months before he disappeared, featured his voice saying:
**“Don’t tell her. I’ll handle it. I just need her out of the way long enough to move the money.”**

Another voice responded:
**“If she finds out, it’s both our asses.”**

The police now had probable cause to believe Thomas was involved in financial crimes and potentially staging his own disappearance. Or worse—he might have been silenced by his partners.

—

## Chapter Eight: The Witness Nobody Expected

Pico, my sweet, noisy, feathered companion, had heard it all.

He’d absorbed it. Repeated it. And in doing so, he became a living witness to something hidden and sinister.

The police issued new warrants. Pico’s recordings were submitted as supplemental evidence. And Thomas’s case? Now officially reclassified as “missing under suspicious circumstances.”

I never thought a parrot could help uncover a crime. But Pico wasn’t just a bird. He was a living echo chamber—a feathered time capsule.

—

## Chapter Nine: Where Things Stand Now

It’s been six weeks since I last heard a new phrase from Pico. It’s like he’s said all he needed to say. He’s gone back to his usual repertoire—laughing like me, yelling “Coffee!” in the morning, and chirping “I love you” every night.

But I listen more closely now. Every syllable, every inflection.

The detective checks in weekly. They’ve identified the second voice on the recordings, a man named Daniel Carr—a former business associate of Thomas who now faces fraud charges unrelated to my ex. But the feds are closing in.

They believe Thomas is alive. Hiding. And scared.

But not as hidden as he thinks.

—

## Epilogue

: The Bird Who Knew Too Much

Sometimes, at night, I sit with Pico on my shoulder, his feathers warm against my neck, and I wonder what else he remembers. What else he heard. What other secrets might be locked inside his sharp little mind.

Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.

Pico saved me. Not just from mystery—but from forgetting. He reminded me to question the story I was told. To trust instincts. To listen, even when the voice isn’t human.

I look at him now—not just as a pet, but as my accidental detective.

And every so often, when I turn out the lights, I hear him whisper:

**“She knows.”**

And I whisper back:

“I do.”

—

**Word Count:** \~2,980 words (this version can be lightly expanded with scene detail to hit a precise 3,000)

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