"Opening the door."
"Riley—"
"Trust me." She reaches for the handle, and I grab her wrist. "Rafe." She looks at me, and her eyes are calm. "You're afraid for no reason. Let me handle this."
I stare at her, every instinct screaming at me to pull her away from the door and find another way out. But there's something in her expression that stops me. She knows what she's doing.
I release her wrist and step back. Riley opens the door, and two uniformed officers stand on the porch with their hands resting on their belts. Behind them I see a plainclothes detective, a woman in her late thirties with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. The cold air that rushes into the room around them takes my breath away.
"Riley Maddox?" the detective asks.
"That's me." Riley smiles, and it's so genuine I almost believe it myself. "Come in. Please."
The officers exchange glances, clearly not expecting this response. They step into the room cautiously, and the detective follows, scanning the space before locking eyes on me.
"And you are?" she asks.
"Rafe Ferretti," I say. "Riley's boyfriend."
Riley walks over to me, draping her arm around my waist. The move is so natural, so comfortable, that the detective's expression shifts from suspicion to confusion.
"We have a warrant to check on your welfare, Miss Maddox," the detective says, pulling a folded document from her jacket pocket. "Your family reported you missing several weeks ago. Your car was found abandoned and burned. Your phone was off. We've been conducting an investigation."
"I know," Riley says, and she actually laughs. "My sister told me when I called her earlier today. I had no idea everyone was so worried. I'm really sorry about that."
The cops exchange confused expressions as they move deeper into the room, all of them now filing in and shutting the door behind them. "You disappeared for weeks without contacting anyone. Your family thought you were dead."
"I know, and I feel terrible about it. But it wasn't intentional. I just needed to get away for a while."
The detective pulls out a notepad. "Get away?"
Riley smiles warmly as she pulls me against her side more tightly. So far, she's doing a bang-up job acting calmly, though I already knew she could. She handled herself so well when we were faced with that federal inspection several weeks ago. I don’t know why I'm doubting her now.
"Rafe and I met a few weeks ago, and we hit it off right away. I was so stressed about the holidays and my sister's wedding and everything going on with work, and he offered to take me somewhere quiet where we could just be together. So I said yes."
"And you didn't think to tell your family?"
"I meant to. But my phone died the first day, and I left my charger at home. And honestly, it was so nice to be disconnected from everything that I just let it go. We didn't even turn on the TV once." That part's almost true. "It was the most relaxed I've felt in years."
The detective writes something in her notepad, and I can see the skepticism written all over her face. "Your car was found on the side of the highway burnt out. How do you explain that?"
"It broke down. Rafe was driving behind me, and when he saw me pull over, he stopped to help. We couldn't get it started, so we just left it there and took his car instead. I figured I'd deal with it when I got back."
"And you didn't think to report it?"
"I should have. I know that now. But at the time, I just wasn't thinking clearly. I was so caught up in everything that the car was the last thing on my mind."
The detective looks at me. "Can you confirm this story, Mr. Ferretti?"
"Every word," I say. "We met at a coffee shop a few months ago. We started talking, and we just clicked. When she told me how stressed she was, I offered to take her away for a while. We spent the last few weeks here just enjoying each other's company."
Riley leans against me, her hand resting on my chest, and she looks up at me with an expression so full of affection, I almost forget we're lying through our teeth.
"It's been perfect," she says. "He's perfect."
The detective doesn't look convinced, but before she can ask another question, there's a commotion outside. I hear raisedvoices, and then two men push past the officers and into the room.
Riley gasps and jumps off my lap. "Dad?"
