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Do you have friends at UAF?

He replies immediately.

Loads. Why?

Think you could ask around if any students have gone missing in the last year?

On it, Nancy Drew.

Roslyn’s at her desk when I arrive, typing a mile a minute on her clunky keyboard.

“Morning, Ellery. How are you faring after the last few days?”

“I’m fine.” I pull a chair over. “Are you writing about the attack?”

“No.” She leans back. “While it’s my duty to report the facts, we can’t risk drawing the attention of outside law enforcement or internet conspiracy theorists. Townsfolk generally find out that kind of news from other folk.”

So much of what goes on here must go unreported. No wonder I was struggling to dig up anything on Nick’s family.

“Does that not sit right with you, dear?” she asks.

“No, I understand.”

“I struggled with it when I was young. I wanted to shed light on the truth no matter the cost. But a reporter’s job is also to know who’s going to pay the price for the truth and if it’s worth it.”

I nod, because she’s right, and because there is no other answer.

“So what brings you in? I thought Nick filled you in on all the pertinent details and that would be the end of your little research project.” I think I catch a smirk. “Unless that ‘historical romance’ you’re writing is finally coming together?”

“Um, yeah.” I let out a nervous laugh. “I’ve got a new project. I was wondering, what can you tell me about the Renards?”

There’s a sparkle behind her glasses, and I know I’ve found my partner in crime. Roslyn gives me a quick, unfiltered history lesson on the clans, the coven, and the humans, and how the Pact came about. Plus, all the drama between family members over the years. Then we analyze Constantin’s behavior over strong black coffee. Well, hers is black. Mine is sweet and milky. I tell her Luca’s theory, but pretend it’s my own so I can keep his name out of it.

“Could be something there. That’s for certain. Constantin has never made a secret of what he thinks of the Pact. He’s the only one still around that stood in the grove two hundred and thirty-odd years ago, and he’s always felt like the clans got the short straw. It’s a long time to be chained to one place.”

“What about Dominic?”

“Bit of a playboy, that one. Always out on the town in Fairbanks. Dumb as rocks. Anna’s no picnic, but at least she has her wits about her.”

Dominic’s not a scheming mastermind, which leaves two people who could be. Before she gets back to work, Roslyn shows me how to pull the daily police blotter and missing persons bulletins straight from the state troopers’ public records portal. The ones that never make it into print and that you’d never find with a regular search, filtering by date and region the way she’s done it for decades.

“Why are you showing me this?”

She doesn’t look up. “Because I’m seventy-nine, and I’ve run this paper since the Nixon administration. In all those years, I’ve met exactly one person in this valley who’s asked a good question.” She drags the mouse across the screen. “It’s a part-time position. Pay’s bad, and the hours are worse. You’d be covering the Elks Lodge pancake breakfast and whatever Jessalyn’s complaining about this month until you’d rather be dead.”

It’s the first job anyone’s offered me that I want.

“Don’t answer now. Seasonal work ends, this doesn’t. A permanent position, one where the town trusts you with what never makes it into print, will go a long way to convincing the council you plan to put down roots. Let me know by the holidays.” She taps her red pen against her teacup like a gavel. “And Ellery. Only choose it if it’s something you want. Lord knows, I’ve seen enough women stick around this town for a man only to end up bored out of their skulls.”

I let Roslyn get back to writing the feature story for this week’s edition, with absolutely no mention of the attack, and set up at my desk.

Using Roslyn’s tricks, I comb through the newspapers and community pages of Fairbanks and a dozen satellite towns. Six missing persons come out of it. Summer workers up here for resort and bar jobs. A couple of local kids from a town out east near the Canadian border. A middle-aged man on a hunting trip and an Australian girl traveling solo. Most skew young, but I can’t pin down a pattern.

Using the wisdom passed down to me by Willow, I do a little social media stalking. Of course, Constantin and Anna don’t exist online, but Dominic is all over it. A decade of party photos, unbothered by the fact he still looks like a college senior. No fangs-out, “watch me drain this girl dry” posts, more like getting friendly with whoever catches his eye.

Starting with the most recent, I scroll through one by one, reading the captions, noting the people and locations tagged. He spends a lot of time in Fairbanks and Anchorage. A picture grabs my attention, a familiar head of bouncy blond curls. I cross-reference my list of missing persons. Sure enough, Dominic has his arm around the Australian tourist, both of them all over each other outside some club. It was posted nine months ago, a couple of days before she was reported missing.

Just before twelve, Luca calls.