The Name You Should Never Have Asked

Right in the middle of dinner, Liam suddenly put down his fork, looked at me, and asked, "Who is Jack Falcon?"

My fork stopped in mid-air.

My heart skipped a beat.

Jack Falcon.

That was a fake name my best friend, Chloe, and I had come up with one night when we were drunk.

We made a pact. If either of us ever got into trouble and couldn't be reached, we would use "Jack Falcon" as our distress signal.

Besides her and me, no one else in the entire world knew this name existed.

And Chloe had been missing for exactly one month.

She said she was taking a vacation to Thailand.