Trent walked in at eight twenty-five, cutting it close to the start of their shift, which was eight thirty. “Good morning.”
“Yes, it is.” She was grinning, unable to push down the memories from the weekend of rolling in the sheets with Carter.
“I’m not even going to ask.” Trent headed for his cubicle. It faced hers, and the partition was just high enough to afford a modicum of privacy. They could see from the bridge of each other’s nose up.
“Well, I’m going to ask why you’re cutting it close.”Why did I do that?She was bound to get some story about his girlfriend, Kelsey, pulling him back to bed. Things were comfortable between Amanda and Trent, so why was she trying to upset that balance? A part of her thought the more open they were about their relationships, the easier it would be to ignore their underlying attraction toward each other.
“You’re not the only one in a… healthy coupling.”
Amanda laughed. Sex was clearly screwing with his brain because he never spoke like that. “Uh-huh.” Her cell phone rang, saving her from feeding this awkward conversation. She caught the caller’s identity just as she picked up. “Spencer?” He was her half-brother, the product of an affair her father had twenty-nine years ago. His mother, as it turned out in the small world of Prince William County, was Emma Blair, a crime scene investigator Amanda often worked with.
“Amanda, I need your help.”
She didn’t know him well, but the tone of his voice alerted her that something was wrong. She sat up straighter. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t reach my girlfriend, and it’s not like her to ghost me. Please help me out here.” Spencer’s words ran together.
“Just slow down a bit. When did you see her or speak with her last?”
“I saw her on Wednesday.”
“Of last week?” It seemed straightforward, but details were crucial.
“Yeah.”
“And you had plans she missed or…?” Amanda was trying to figure out what alerted Spencer to a problem.
“We didn’t have any plans since Wednesday, and I was on call this weekend. I still tried calling and texting her, but no response. When I called her just now, her phone went straight to voicemail like it was off. It’s never off. Amanda, her phone is her job. She’s a real estate agent.”
Spencer was a firefighter for the Triangle Volunteer Fire Department, as one of its paid employees. He should be skilled at keeping calm under stress, so what about this had him so worked up? “All right, well, maybe her phone ran out of charge? It can happen.” She grabbed onto an innocent explanation to calm him down.
“I told you. Her phone is her livelihood. Unless it’s the middle of the night, that thing is on. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if the ringer was on even then. And this morning, I went to her house. She wasn’t home.”
“She could be at work already. Maybe she had an early showing. It is Monday morning.” Amanda struggled to see his side.
“She doesn’t go in on Monday mornings. I’d call her daughter to see if she has heard from Christine, but the kid’s not my biggest fan. It would be a shame to worry her if this turns out to be nothing.”
“It probably is nothing.”
“I thought you’d take me seriously.”
There was a prolonged silence, which Amanda struggled to fill. She wasn’t trying to be difficult. “You said Christine has a daughter. How old isshe?”
“Nineteen.”
Spencer was only twenty-eight himself, so Amanda could understand why the daughter might resist the relationship. “She’s not exactly a kid, but if her mother up and disappeared, I’d think she’d be concerned. Wouldn’t she call you in that case? Or file a missing person report.” For that matter, one could be in the system already, and Spencer didn’t know about it.
“Knowing Riley, she went off with friends for the weekend. Home is just a base point during the summer. The rest of the year, she’s in DC, where she goes to school.”
Amanda remembered what it was like to be that age. Her biggest responsibility was getting to class, so during breaks from school, she was footloose. Riley sounded like she lived her life much the same way. If she had gone away for a few days, she wouldn’t necessarily be concerned about reaching her mother. And there was the possibility Christine was avoiding Spencer. “I don’t know what you expect me to do.”
“Amanda, can’t you track her down? Make sure she’s all right? I tried calling Christine’s boss this morning, but he’s not disclosing anything to me.”
Amanda could understand that he wouldn’t want to part with employee information. She could just tell Spencer to file a missing person report and leave it at that, but she felt a touch of obligation toward him. After all, he was her blood, if only by half. “I can call him and see if he’ll talk to me.”
“That would be great, Amanda. Thank you.”
“No promises. I’ll just see what I can do.” It was a slow morning so far, but that was subject to change. “What’s her full name?”
