Anahera had no idea what the two were talking about—whatever the inquiry had been, it hadn’t appeared as one of the top hits when she typed Will’s name into a search engine. She’d read only about his heroism.
“And do you have the support of your superiors for this investigation?” Siobhan asked, reaching to the small table beside her to pick up a tiny porcelain cup that seemed to hold tea. She didn’t offer any to either Anahera or Will. “I have people I can call, ask.”
“You might not have noticed,” Will said, “but the police department doesn’t like having inquiries. Especially not corruption inquiries dealing with wealthy and connected people who might’ve gotten away with murder.”
The slightest tinkle of porcelain on porcelain. “Murder?” Siobhan put aside her tea. “You didn’t say anything about murder.”
“How many young women do you know who’ve disappeared mysteriously while going about their everyday lives, and then have been found alive?”
His words hit Anahera in the gut. She knew he was right; part of her had always known the most likely outcome, but she’d hoped. And she continued to hope. Maybe Miriama was being kept captive. A horrific thing to wish, but at least it would mean she was alive, that they could rescue her.
“I see.” Siobhan placed her hands very carefully on the wool of her dress. “Well, I will likely lose a rather significant client because of this, but murder is where I draw the line.”
Then she told them the name of the man who’d commissioned the watch.
39
“What will you do?” Anahera asked Will an hour later, after they finally broke free of the gridlock caused by a three-car accident. No fatalities, thankfully, but the tow trucks had taken their time getting there and hauling the wrecks off the road.
Now, they drove through the autumnal darkness. It had fallen with quicksilver speed, a black curtain sweeping across the world. With the lack of light had come a call from Nikau confirming the day’s searchers had found no signs of Miriama.
“Talk to him again,” Will answered, “try to get the truth.”
Anahera shoved her fingers through her hair, her heart a drum in her chest that hadn’t stopped thudding since Siobhan Genovese’s revelation. “Vincent’s always been such a straight arrow.” With a wife who didn’t have a single friend in town and whose online presence was doll-like perfection.
Her stomach churned.
“I’m more likely to get the truth from him if I can talk to him alone.” Will took a corner, his headlights flashing off the reflective barriers. “I’ll see if I can convince him to meet me tonight, but if not, it’ll be tomorrow.”
“I won’t say anything.” Anahera might be loyal, but she’d never again be foolishly trusting and blind. “Some of us used to wonder if Vincent felt trapped by his parents’ expectations, but he always did such a good job of appearing happy that we bought it.”
Will increased his speed to pass a tanker rumbling along the road. “Everyone has secrets,” he repeated after completing the maneuver. “It’s often the people who look like they have no secrets at all who turn out to have the biggest ones.”
Anahera’s mind returned to Siobhan Genovese’s elegant living room and to the conversation she hadn’t fully understood. “Tell me about the inquiry,” she found herself saying, the hushed darkness of the night enveloping them in a cocoon where questions could be asked and secrets revealed.
Will’s hands tightened on the steering wheel to the point that his bones pushed white against his skin. “I was in charge of keeping a woman and a three-year-old child safe in the buildup to the woman giving testimony against a man.” His words were clipped, a cop giving a report. Nothing but the facts.
“He was her husband and the father of her child, but he also happened to be a serial rapist who got careless—his wife began to notice the washing machine running in the middle of the night, after her husband got home ‘from work,’ saw rope, gloves, and duct tape in his car, and lined up his absences with the violent rapes in the area.”
He passed another tanker, this one festooned with lights that turned it into a traveling star. “When she questioned him about it, he punched her five times, knocking out three front teeth, then kicked her in the stomach and left the house. She took her son and came to the station with blood on her shirt. I was the detective on the case. I