“An ex-boyfriend of mine was majorly dog obsessed. He raised several puppies while we were together, so yeah, I’ve spent a lot of time around puppies.”
“One of my nieces is the same way,” Marin said with a soft smile. “She’s been texting me suggestions nonstop since I told her about Ember.”
“I love that,” Charlotte said. “How old is she?”
“Thirty-six,” Marin said, then laughed at the surprise on Charlotte’s face, because she’d been imagining an adorable little girl texting Marin about puppies. “Yes, my nieces and nephews are grown. I’m a great-aunt already. I’m the baby of the family, remember?”
“Right.” They reached the aisle with chew toys, and Charlotte selected a package of puppy teethers, then tossed it into Marin’s cart. “I’d be happy to come over when you bring her home and help you get her settled, if you like.”
“That would be great, actually.”
“Definitely, and before that, let’s plan our wine night to get you set up for online dating.”
“Maybe this weekend?” Marin suggested.
“Weekends are actually really busy for me with work. I can meet up, but it would be tricky.”
“How about Thursday night? I don’t teach on Fridays.”
“Thursday should be perfect. Let’s plan on it.”
They went through the self-checkout, and then Charlotte helped Marin load her new purchases into the Outback before they went their separate ways. As Charlotte pulled into her driveway ten minutes later, she slowed automatically to check the mailbox, surprised to find a manila envelope wedged inside from the Middleton County Sheriff’s Department.Holy shit.She’d been waiting on this for so long she’d decided it wasn’t coming. It had been months since she’d requested a copy of the file from her mother’s disappearance.
Charlotte’s fingers tingled, and her stomach tightened. The sheriff’s department had closed her mother’s case within a few months ofher disappearance, but what if Charlotte found something in here that gave her a new lead toward finding out what happened?
Since returning to Middleton, Charlotte had looked up as many of her mom’s old friends as she could find, but none of them had anything useful to tell her. She was still trying to track down her mom’s best friend, a woman named Beverly Sinclair. Charlotte remembered Bev being around a lot, almost like an aunt, and yet, they’d lost touch after her mom’s disappearance. Charlotte hoped Bev might have something useful to tell her.
The problem was, Bev had left Vermont twenty years ago. She’d moved to Massachusetts with her husband, but they weren’t there anymore, either, as far as Charlotte could tell. There were alotof Beverly Sinclairs on the internet, and Charlotte had messaged as many of them as she could, but so far, the only responses she’d received were to say they weren’t the Beverly she was looking for.
But now, Charlotte had the sheriff’s report. She sat at her kitchen table and opened the envelope. The file looked alarmingly thin, all things considered. She’d known the sheriff’s department hadn’t spent much time investigating her mom’s disappearance, but even so, this seemed light.
The private investigators her dad hired after the sheriff’s department closed their investigation had done so much more legwork. She’d have to ask him if he still had any of their documentation, because she’d like to look through it too. She skimmed a report about her childhood home being searched but didn’t learn anything useful.
She flipped to the next page, which contained an interview with a man named Allan Svenson. Who was that? The name tugged at something in Charlotte’s memory, but she couldn’t place him. Maybe he was another professor at the university? When she was little, it had felt like her parents’ entire lives revolved around that university, and consequently, so had Charlotte’s.
The interview had been transcribed from an audiotape by Deputy Lou Bouchard, noted as LB, Allan Svenson as AS.
LB: How do you know Mrs. Danton?
AS: We’re colleagues.
LB: Phone records show you call her an awful lot for someone who’s just a colleague.
AS: We teach in the same department.
LB: Is that all? Some of these calls are pretty late at night. You want to try again?
AS: We both like to talk about history. We enjoy each other’s company. Is that a crime?
LB: It’s a crime if you two were having an affair and she wanted to end things, so you did something to her before she could leave you.
AS: That’s not what happened.
LB: I hope you’re not lying to me, because if you are, you should know that I’m going to find out, and it’ll be worse for you than if you just tell me the truth now.
AS: I didn’t hurt Terri, and I don’t know where she is. That’s the truth.
The interview ended shortly after, but the report included his phone records and her mother’s, showing they did indeed talk on the phone a lot, especially late at night. Charlotte got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
