He made a call on his way back into town, asking Tom Taufa to meet him at the café. The other man was waiting when he got there. “I was at the fire station,” he said as he let Will into the café’s back room. “That’s Miri’s corner there.”
A much newer computer sat on a spacious desk, along with several cameras.
Metal jangled as Tom took a key off his key ring. “I have to get back to Josie—she’s not doing so good. Stay as long as you like, keep the key in case you want to look at stuff again.” He dug in his pocket. “I asked Josie about the computer after you called and she said there’s a password.” Handing over the piece of paper on which he’d scribbled the mix of numbers and letters, he said, “Josie knows it because technically the computer is the café’s, for accounts and things, but she mostly got it for Miri to use.”
“Thanks, Tom.” Will was already turning back to the computer as Tom left, but he didn’t expect to find anything private, not when Miriama knew Josie also used this computer. Still, he had a quick look. The only emails on it related to the café.
Miriama must have an email account—if nothing else, she’d have needed one to apply for the internship—but chances were high it was a web account she nearly always used from her phone. He’d found no emails on her home computer either, and her browser history and bookmarks hadn’t included any webmail sites. The same proved true here.
Given Miriama’s age, her reliance on her phone for communication was unsurprising.
Photo editing software made up the bulk of what was on this computer. Will checked Miriama’s current projects, then slotted in the memory cards from her cameras, but nothing jumped out. Shot after shot taken in pursuit of her signature portraits, plus several finalized images—including one of a bare-chested Dominic in bed, his smile intimate, and a stunning one of Pastor Mark sitting stoop-shouldered on a church bench, but none of it told him how to find her.
He took the memory cards regardless, and made a mental note to dig deeper later. Right now, he had another priority: he needed to follow up on Fidel Cox. Locking up the café, he returned to the police station.
The system spat out the correct case file after a single inquiry.
According to the notes of the officer who’d driven in to record Matilda’s complaint on behalf of Miriama, the police had sent Fidel’s photo out across the country and received exactly zero tips in response. Fidel was an experienced hunter, so everyone figured he’d “gone bush” until the heat died down.
It had probably not helped the search that Fidel Cox was one of the most nondescript individuals Will had ever seen. His mug shot, taken in the aftermath of a drunken brawl a year before his molestation of Miriama, showed a man with pale brown skin, black hair, and brown eyes. He was neither big nor small, neither tall nor short. He had no distinguishing marks, no tattoos, no scars. No feature on his face that stood out.
Fidel Cox was a man who could blend in anywhere. If he hadn’t wanted to slink off into the wild, all he would’ve had to do was change his name and grow a beard or shave his head. Either would’ve dramatically altered his looks.
Was it possible he’d come through Golden Cove and been missed?
Will had already made a short call to the tourism center on the way back from Matilda’s, been told that aside from the Japanese couple Nikau had taken to see the gold-mining shacks, Golden Cove hadn’t had any visitors in the previous five days. As far as the center was aware, there were no hikers on the local trails, either. Still…
He picked up the phone and called the tourism center again. It was Glenda Anderson who answered this time, not her part-time student assistant. The fifty-something woman with bright pink hair and a penchant for stilettos was a legend in the town after her years dancing in the cabaret show of a cruise liner.
“Have they found that poor child?” she asked, clearly recognizing Will’s number. “My heart’s just sick about it. She is such a sweetie. Always saves me a piece of that cheesecake I love.”
Will’s eyes went to the trash bin where he’d thrown the takeout container in which Miriama had brought him his carrot cake. “No,” he said. “But I’m