Will. Why? What would that get him? Was it possible the nineteen-year-old wanted a reason to complain to Will’s superiors?
Given Will’s history, such a complaint could lead to his suspension or removal.
And without Will here to keep it active, Miriama’s case would slowly slip off official radar, just another woman who’d taken off for a more adventurous life. It wouldn’t be malicious and it wasn’t that his fellow cops were bad at their jobs, but they didn’t know Miriama, hadn’t seen the light in her expression when she spoke of her upcoming internship.
The last time Will talked to her had been when she’d brought him a piece of carrot cake, which felt like a lifetime ago. He’d told her she’d make him fat. She’d laughingly said it wasn’t a possibility, not with all the “long, angry walks” he took on the beach. “We have to make sure you don’t waste away, even if you are a cop.”
He hadn’t known until then that anyone had spotted him striding down the beach during the early morning hours before true dawn. She’d probably seen him from along the clifftop running route, a long-legged young woman who dreamed big and who was well on the way to achieving those dreams despite a bleak start in life.
“Anything else you want to tell me?” he asked the young psychopath in front of him.
“Just to stop wasting your time. It’s not like you have the budget.”
“Thank you for the advice,” Will said with deliberate mildness.
Kyle’s face tightened a fraction before he turned to stare back out at the water.
“By the way, Kyle.” He waited until Vincent’s brother turned toward him before he finished what he had to say. “Perhaps you should talk to Anahera about her failures.”
Walking away before Kyle could ask him any questions on the topic, Will allowed himself a faint smile. It faded in the next wave of wind, the sand gritty in his teeth… and the ghost of a three-year-old boy whispering in his ear.
22
The rain began to pound down around four that afternoon. It still took an hour for everyone to return to the fire station, the toughest of the tough staying out till the last possible moment. Despite having been gone for eight years, Anahera recognized pretty much everyone from before she left.
The only exceptions were three outsiders who’d moved in during her time away. Strangely enough for a self-absorbed and pretentious ass, Shane Hennessey had joined in the search, pairing up with a local who knew the area like the back of his hand. The soulful, moody-eyed novelist straight out of a gothic drama was drenched to the skin when he came in.
Anahera passed him a mug of hot coffee, having become Matilda’s assistant in the task. The other woman had rallied and was once again making coffee and ensuring everyone logged their searches on the map Nikau had put up.
“Thank you,” Shane said with a smile, Ireland rolling through his words so thickly that Anahera could almost see the velvet green hills. “It’s pissing down, isn’t it? But that’s the rage of the wild for you.”
“You don’t strike me as the outdoors type.”
“I grew up walking over some green hills of me own.”
If he laid on the Irish any thicker, she’d be drowning in shamrocks. But Anahera played along. “Do you know Miriama?”
His smile deepened to reveal dimples in both cheeks. “I’m guessing you mean in the biblical sense.” Dancing eyes. “She’s too clever for me, alas. Not that I didn’t try to rob that particular cradle.”
Amused despite herself, Anahera was about to tell him to grab a towel when Shane shoved back his dripping hair again and said, “She knows what and who she wants, does Miri. And it isn’t a washed-out novelist drinking himself to a slow death on some excellent whiskey.”
“The doctor, you mean?”
Shane lifted one shoulder in a move that could mean anything. “Doc’s only been around for a year. Pretty girl like that, I don’t think she was sleeping alone before he came along.”
“Shane!”
Looking up at the sound of his name, Shane said, “I’ll be off, then. Seems you’re too smart for me, too.”
“Wait.” Anahera put a hand on the rain-soaked sleeve of his jacket. “Do you know who she was dating before the doctor?”
“No, but she had a watch with a platinum band that she started wearing a couple of months after she turned eighteen.” He absently tapped his wrist. “Most people took it for a pretty fake with colored stones, but I