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I heard someone walking in the hallway. I’d left my door slightly ajar.

“Ashley?” I called out. It wasn’t quite one o’clock yet. Ashley rarely made it back from lunch early. I put the purple folder under the blotter on my desk and walked out into the hallway.

It wasn’t Ashley. It was Amy Pasko. She must have made a wrong turn coming down the stairwell. She saw me, and relief flooded her face.

“Thank goodness,” she said. “They pointed the way out of here, but I appear to have bungled it.”

“It’s easy to do,” I said.

She furrowed her brow. “I think I know you,” she said. “I saw you on the news. Er… the internet. You’re working with Detective Dennison?”

“I am,” I said. I extended a hand to shake hers. “My name is Mina Sobel.” Though she could have read that just as easily on the door behind me.

“Right,” she said. “I was actually hoping I’d see you today.”

“Oh?” I said. Then I don’t know what made me do it, but I found myself adding, “Why don’t you come in? If there are any questions, I can answer them for you.”

She looked unsure, but as I walked back into my own office, she followed me.

Amy wore a pair of purple scrubs. I knew she worked at a surgical clinic about an hour south of here. She took a tentative seat across from my desk.

“I hope Detective Dennison was able to put you at ease,” I said. “He can be a bit intimidating.”

“Oh, he was fine. But yeah. I can see that.”

“Why were you hoping to see me?” I asked.

“Sorry. I just meant that when I saw there would be a woman on this task force, I was relieved. I suppose that’s kind of prejudiced of me. I just want to make sure there’s someone looking at all of this with an objective eye. The detective I dealt with back in Ingham County was dismissive.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I said. “I can’t imagine how difficult the last two years have been.”

“Do you have a sister?”

The question took me a little off guard. She looked beyond me. I realized she could see the personal photos I had on the credenza behind me. Most prominent was the last formal portrait my parents had taken for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, just a month before they died. Beside it, I had my favorite picture of Lock and me. A candid from our wedding day. The photographer caught us in a private moment. I leaned against Lock’s chest; he rested his chin on the top of my head as we both watched the sunset from atop the bluff on his property. We were both in profile.

But there was another photo on the shelf below both of those. From the position of my chair, I knew Amy Pasko couldn’t see it. I’d framed my favorite photo of Lock. I took it with my phone at a benefit last year. He wore a tux and had a glass of bourbon in his hand. I’d said something a little naughty and his eyes glistened with mirth just as I snapped the picture.

“No,” I said. “I’m an only child.” With my pulse racing, I did something bold. I angled my chair so she had a clear view of Lock’s photograph.

The image of that police sketch swam in front of me. This was crazy. Foolish. But I had to know. I had to prove the absurdity of my own thoughts.

I saw her lean, taking a closer look at Lock’s photograph. She studied it, furrowing her brow. Then her eyes widened as she caught my gaze and she pushed her chair away from my desk.

EIGHT

It wasn’t until I pulled into the garage that I let myself feel relief. From the moment Amy stared at Lock’s photo and registered… nothing, I’d turned to stone in my mind. She had seen the man she believed had abducted her sister and described him with enough detail to help render a composite sketch of him. She studied Lock’s photograph from no more than a foot away from it. I couldn’t read minds. But in my years as a prosecutor interviewing and cross-examining witnesses, I had a pretty good sense of body language and facial expressions.

She did not recognize Lock. Lock couldn’t be the man who had dated or abducted her sister.

How could I have ever let such intrusive thoughts take hold of me? In the last ten years I’d sought therapy. I tried to unlearn my tendency to catastrophize everything. And yet, I’d let myself go right down that road against the only person I ever trusted.

I went into the house and kicked my heels off in the foyer. I heard Lock’s voice coming from his study. He was on the phone.

“Yes, Mother.”

The great and powerful Olivia Bennett Manning. Lock’s desk phone was the only landline we kept. It was the only number she’d call when she wanted to reach him. As if she wanted to keep Lock physically tethered to her when they spoke.

They hadn’t spoken since Christmas. She had three and a half months to stockpile her grievances.