Astrid scrubbed a hand down her face. “Um… it would’ve been around eleven-thirty, I think. I don’t know for sure since I don’t have her paperwork documenting. I didn’t think anything at first. Kids oversleep. But when she didn’t show by ten, I got worried and called. No answer. Then I went by her apartment. No answer there either.”
My brain was already running scenarios as I continued asking questions. “Does she have a roommate? A boyfriend? Somewhere else she might’ve spent the night?”
“No roommate. It’s just a teeny studio rental. And no boyfriend that I’m aware of.”
“Could she have picked somebody up at a bar?” Sawyer asked. “Some of them are open ’til the wee hours this time of year.”
“I suppose anything is possible, but she’s never struck me as the type.”
“And she’s never done something like this before?” I pressed.
“No. Never. She’s the one who keeps all my other students in line.”
“Have you spoken to the police?”
“I tried to file a report before I came here, but they said since she’s an adult and it hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet, and there’s no obvious sign of foul play, they can’t do anything.”
There were dozens of entirely valid reasons for the girl not to show. But after my years as a military cop, I had even more horrific scenarios in my head. The twenty-four-hour rule existed procedurally for a reason, but I well knew that a fuckton could go wrong in that span of time. If it had, time would be of the essence.
I exchanged a look with Ford and Sawyer and got nods from them both. One corner of Ford’s mouth hooked into a wry smile. “You can take the cop out of the Navy…”
Astrid brightened faintly. “You’re police?”
“I was naval police, yes.”
She set a hand on my arm. “Will you help?”
“I’ve got no jurisdiction here, but I can absolutely help you ask around. I’m gonna need some more information.”
Six
MADDEN
The Sutter’s Ferry Police Station looked even smaller at night. The squat clapboard building couldn’t have been more different from the sprawling precincts I’d grown used to in Los Angeles. Just a single story, with one halogen bulb buzzing over the door drawing moths into its cone of light. But inside, it still held the ubiquitous scents I associated with police stations—the faintly musty odor of overworked air conditioning and the sharp bite of burnt coffee.
The wall just inside the door was covered in outdated flyers, including a MISSING poster with a familiar face. My step faltered as I took in this latest computerized rendering of what they thought my cousin looked like after all these years. Cheeks still round, hazel eyes still bright. Dark hair loose around her shoulders. She didn’t look like me here. Would she have grown out of the resemblance that had made people believe we were sisters when we were young? Would I even know her if we passed on the street? Given what everyone now surmised had happened to her, the assumption was that she was dead. That was horrible enough, but after my years as a prosecutor, seeing the worst humanity had to offer, I knew that there were other options that were incalculably worse.
Tearing my gaze away from the poster, I hurried to catch up with Astrid as she marched toward the front desk, phone clenched in her hand like she’d bludgeon the officer who sat there if he didn’t listen to her this time.
“—been exactly twenty-four hours. I want to file a missing person’s report for my grad student.”
“Of course. I’ll just take down the…” He trailed off as he spotted me. “Madden?”
It took me a second to place him. He was taller and broader than he’d been in high school, his shoulders filling out the crisp uniform shirt in a way that spoke of years in the gym. The blond hair he’d once let grow shaggy was now shorn short enough to hide the natural curl I remembered threading my fingers through during stolen moments behind the bleachers. His jaw had squared out too, losing the boyish softness that had made him seem younger than his eighteen years when we’d graduated.
“Grant Willoughby.” The name felt strange on my tongue after all these years. “I had no idea you’d become a cop.”
My high school boyfriend grinned at me, and for a split second, I caught a glimpse of the boy who’d taken me to junior prom in his father’s borrowed pickup truck. “Protect and serve.” He tapped the badge pinned to his chest with obvious pride.
Knowing this was likely to veer toward the kind of small-town catch-up conversation that could eat away precious minutes while Priya remained missing, I tempered my own smile and kept my voice brisk. “Well, we could certainly use some of that protection and service just now. As Astrid said, she’s here to file a police report for her missing grad student.”
Grant sobered immediately, the easy grin sliding off his face as he straightened in his chair. “Of course. I’ve got the form right here.” He swiveled toward the computer terminal, waking the screen with a sharp tap of the keyboard. The monitor flickered to life, casting a pale glow across his features. “Let’s get the basics down first—full name, age, last time you saw her, that sort of thing.”
Astrid rattled off the answers in a voice stretched tight with barely contained anxiety. The heel of her free hand pressed against the counter’s edge like she needed the physical support to keep herself upright. I watched the concern settle over Grant’s face as he entered each new piece of information.
A door down the short hallway creaked open, and Chief Bill Carson stepped out. I blinked in surprise, not expecting to see him here this late. As head of the department, there was no question he’d normally be home by now, likely asleep. But maybe it meant something significant that he’d stuck around. Surely he would have known Astrid would be back right at the twenty-four-hour mark, determined to make this official. The smallest whisper of that old faith in the system surfaced as he strode toward us.
“Madden Reilly.” His weathered face, lined and leathery from decades of island sun, registered what looked like mild surprise. The years had carved deeper grooves around his eyes, like driftwood that had been blasted by sand and sea and time. “Didn’t realize you were back on-island.”
