“Did she ever mention being followed?” Rhys asked.
“No.” Pilar folded her arms tight. “But the week before she disappeared, she was off.”
Gaby looked up. “Off how?”
“Distracted. Jumpier. I asked if some guy was bothering her.” Pilar swallowed. “She said no and changed the subject.”
“Did you tell the detective that?”
“Yes. He wrote it down, I think.” Her voice sharpened. “Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know. He made me feel like I was wasting his time.”
Gaby’s grip tightened on her pen.
Rhys noticed. He noticed everything. His hand brushed hers, there and gone. Grounding but not stopping her.
When they finished, Pilar followed them toward the front.
“Her mother called here every day for two weeks,” she said quietly. “After a while, the manager stopped taking the calls.”
When Gaby glanced at him through the glass partition, he looked away.
By the time they reached the car, her temper was no longer a spark. It was a low, controlled burn. “People keep using quiet like it explains why no one fought for her,” Gaby said.
Rhys unlocked the doors. “Quiet women are often easier to dismiss.”
She hated how calmly he said it. Hated more that he was right.
“Where to now?” she asked instead.
“Home, dinner, and to bed. Our next interview is bright and early tomorrow morning before our interviewee goes to work.”
“Not tonight?” she asked, glancing at the western sky. Red streaks only, no sun. “It’s not that late.”
“That’s what she agreed to.” When they were on their way home, Rhys glanced over. “How about I make us fettuccine and shrimp? There’s a bottle of white wine to go with it.”
“You want to cook? Aren’t you tired?” she asked, her head tilted back on the seat, eyes on him.
“No, and I’m a lot less frustrated than you.”
“Sorry. It’s just—”
“I know what it is.” His tone softened. “You look at those families and see yourself. Then you get angry because someone should have connected these dots years ago.”
Gaby stared out the window because that was exactly it. Annoyingly, he was spot-on again.
“You care,” Rhys continued. “It’s one of the many reasons I love you. But if you bring every victim home with you, you’ll eventually burn out. Or drown in them.”
She was quiet, watching the city slide past. “How do you do it?”
“Years of practice. Moderate emotional repression. And a touch of an acquired British stiff upper lip.”
That earned him a huff of laughter. “Seriously.”
“Compartmentalization isn’t about not caring. It’s about putting something down long enough today to be useful tomorrow.”
She considered that. More importantly, she considered him. A man with a knack for climbing inside other people’s heads without letting it get to him.
“You’ll have to teach me.”
