She paced once, the short length of the office forcing a tight turn near the door.
“I’ve spent years reading case files where a supposed ‘voluntary departure’ started with an email that sounded exactly like that.” She jabbed a finger toward the screen. “A neat little exit note that made everyone feel better about not asking too many questions. And later, once we got the rest of the story, we found out that the victim had been threatened, or drugged, or was dead before the message was ever sent.”
Astrid closed her eyes briefly, then opened them, hating that possibility but unable to reject it.
I couldn’t argue with Madden. Not about that.
“And the credit card?” I added. “All that tells us is that someone used her account to buy a ticket. Could’ve been her. Could’ve been someone else who had access to her wallet, or her computer, or anything with autofill set up.”
“Carson dismisses that,” Madden said. “He says there’s ‘no evidence of a crime.’ No signs of a struggle, no screaming witnesses, no bloody handprints leading to the dock, so statistically she just decided to leave, and we’re all overreacting because we care about her. Or because—” her mouth twisted “—we’re still traumatized from the last time a girl vanished on this island.”
That landed between us like a stone.
Gwen.
My chest tightened, the way it always did when her name came up, even indirectly. It wasn’t just Madden who still carried that weight. Every time I walked past one of those posters, every time I caught myself scanning crowds for a face I knew I’d never see again, that summer came back in high-def.
“I’m not letting this happen again.” Madden’s words came out like brittle steel.
She stopped pacing, planted her feet, and uncrossed her arms. Her hands curled instead, fists forming and releasing at her sides like she needed something to hit that wasn’t a person. “I’m not going to stand here and watch them shrug and turn away because it’s complicated and inconvenient. Because the victim is an adult whose choices they can hand-wave. I’ve spent years watching cases fall apart because somebody at the beginning decided it was easier to assume a woman made a bad decision than to consider the possibility she was in danger. I am not doing that again. Not here.”
Her gaze swung to me, pinning me in place. “Will you help?”
It was a simple question. Three words. But they hit me like a live wire.
There was a part of me that wanted to say no. To remind her that she’d once parroted the worst things this island said about me. That for years she’d been one more person who believed I was the boy who hurt Gwen, or at least the boy who failed her. That working alongside her felt like inviting someone to rip open an old wound that had never quite healed.
But under that was something older and louder. The memory of long-ago search parties. Flashlights cutting through darkness. Carson’s voice on a bullhorn, calling Gwen’s name into the trees. The sick, hollow certainty that we were already too late, even while we told ourselves we weren’t.
Priya’s name would never be printed on posters in quite the same way Gwen’s had been. She was older. An outsider. Easier to reframe as someone who’d walked away.
That made it worse.
If the system was already folding up its tents because the story looked tidy on paper, somebody needed to keep digging. I’d been forced out of the Navy because I refused to let a predator skate by on technicalities. That part of me hadn’t changed just because I no longer wore a uniform.
Madden’s eyes held mine steadily, but there was a flicker underneath the anger now. Something like fear. Or maybe it was just the rawness of a woman whose faith—in systems, in people, in her own instincts—had taken hit after hit.
She’d been the last person I expected to ask me for anything.
And yet here we were.
I blew out a breath as the weight of the choice settled across my shoulders. It felt a lot like every other time I’d stepped into something messy, knowing it could end badly for everyone involved if we were wrong, but knowing we’d never forgive ourselves if we didn’t try.
“Yeah.” My voice came out rougher than I intended. “I’ll help.”
Ten
MADDEN
Maria Blackwell’s house sat back from the road, a two-story salt-washed colonial with peeling shutters and a wide oak shading the drive. Priya’s apartment was a small efficiency unit above the detached garage that loomed at the end of a worn concrete path. Mid-July humidity draped over everything like a wet blanket, making my clothes stick to my back. I hadn’t missed this part of summer on the Outer Banks during my years in California.
When we stepped onto the small stoop beside the garage, Maria answered almost at once, dishtowel still in hand, as if we’d interrupted her mid-chore.
“Can I help you?” Her eyes flicked between us, lingering on Rios with a faint crease of recognition before landing on me.
I summoned a polite smile. “Hi. I’m Madden Reilly, and I believe you met Rios yesterday.”
Maria’s expression tightened. “You’re here about Priya?”
