in an isolated spot—he was a local who knew her aunt and was considered a good man, a man who’d step in and help if you needed it.
Will had once spotted Nikau slipping a twenty into the hand of an elderly woman who’d been struggling after the death of her husband.
Nikau also spent considerable time hiking the various trails around Golden Cove, both for work and for pleasure, so Miriama wouldn’t have found it unusual to see him along her route. She’d probably run into him multiple times over the two years since he’d moved back to the Cove.
All of that was why Will had quietly checked the search map to make sure Nikau alone had never searched a particular area.
His relief at seeing multiple initials on all squares bearing Nik’s own initials had been an easing of muscles he hadn’t realized were knotted. The map didn’t totally clear Nik, however. If he’d hurt Miriama, the ocean would’ve been the natural dumping ground for a man who knew this landscape so intimately.
“Done your rounds?” Anahera asked, her wavy hair down around a face that gave nothing away and that had the hard edge of knocks taken and survived.
“Yes, no major damage.” He’d started on the cusp of dawn, been out for four hours. “I had to return Julia Lee’s dog—Cupcake the bulldog took shelter in Christine Tierney’s house, after apparently managing to dig his way out from under Julia’s fence and becoming caught in the storm. And I righted a trampoline over at Tania Meikle’s, but that was the extent of the excitement.”
No smile on Anahera’s face. Her expression was difficult to read, but he could guess that she remained conflicted about working with Will behind her friends’ backs.
“So,” she said, “we’re ready to go?”
“You sure you want to be seen getting into my vehicle?”
“Twenty seconds before I walked in here, I ran into Evelyn, made sure to mention that I needed to get some supplies from Christchurch and was catching a lift with you because my car was playing up.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her anorak. “That’s one thing I don’t miss about living in a small town—having everyone’s nose in my business.”
Grabbing his navy jacket but not putting it on over the finely pinstriped gray of his shirt, Will stepped outside the station, Anahera preceding him out. He locked up before leading her to his SUV. It wasn’t until they were inside and he’d thrown his jacket on the backseat that he said, “But you did miss some things about it?” Pulling away from the curb, he made automatic note of the cars on the street, the people on the sidewalks.
“You’ve seen the best of us in this hunt for Miriama,” Anahera said softly. “Rich or poor, wild or civilized, asshole or saint, when bad things happen, we come together.”
Will thought about that. And then he thought about the dark side of such closeness. “In a town this small,” he said, “there’s a tendency to imagine that you know everything about your neighbors. But everyone has secrets.”
Anahera’s laugh was cynical. “Is that your way of telling me you dug deeper into my sordid family history? You won’t exactly find any surprises.”
“No. But I did run a background check on you the day after you came into town. I had to see if you’d brought trouble with you.”
“What did you find?”
Will concentrated on the road in front of them, the trees that shadowed it so thickly canopied that they nearly shut out the sun. “That you had a reason to leave,” he said as they passed the spot where Peter Jacobs and his brother were in the midst of towing Vincent’s crashed Mercedes.
Will didn’t stop; he’d already been out here just before he returned to the station.
“I was sorry to read about the circumstances of your mother’s death.” Just because they both knew he had the information didn’t mean the words didn’t need to be spoken.
“Everyone was sorry.” Flat tone, her eyes fixed on the windscreen. “Just like everyone was sorry when my father hit her every night. Just like everyone was sorry when they glimpsed her bruises. And everyone was so sorry when she was found dead in the cabin they couldn’t be bothered to visit. But no one did anything to the man who caused it all.”
Will had read the case files, knew what she was talking about—and it wasn’t just the abuse. “There’s no reason to think your mother’s death was anything