Hazel turned the air to high and sighed back in her seat as the cold rushed out.
“I didn’t sleep well last night,” she admitted.
“Me neither,” he said, turning a vent so it blew into his face. “If this heat holds up, I may need to shave.”
She looked at his beard and grimaced.
“I’d have shaved weeks ago.”
He smiled.
“I woke up at 3:11 on the mark. Dead asleep, and then just wide awake.”
Hazel frowned and stared out the window.
“I did, too. 3:11 exactly. Two nights in a row.”
He glanced at her.
“Really?”
“Yes, but I… I heard Orla. She said my name - Hazel - just like that. I opened my eyes, and sat up, but no one was there.”
Abe looked troubled. More than troubled.
“Did you hear her too?” Hazel asked.
He shook his head.
“How could I know? I’ve never met her, but no, I didn’t hear her.”
Hazel studied his jaw, where he was chewing his cheek. She felt sure he was holding back.
“But you heard something? Right?”
“I don’t know, Hazel. It seemed odd how I woke up out of the blue. I wondered if I heard something.”
“Turn on Hammond,” she directed him.
They were tracing one of Orla’s usual routes. Abe wanted to see all the places she might have ridden to.
“The police asked me a few questions, but they haven’t been back,” Hazel murmured. “Are they doing anything?”
Abe shook his head.
“I work with a lot of cops. Some of them are great. When someone commits a crime, they’re on it. Unfortunately, they don’t work well with ambiguity. Detective Moore has been assigned to this case. He and I have butted heads a lot. He thinks Orla took off. When Darlene disappeared, he said the same thing.”
“A girl running away while on vacation with her family? That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s what I said.”
Hazel shook her head, glared out the windshield.
“Even though everyone who knows Orla says differently? How is that okay?”
“Because people don’t know it’s happening. It’s that simple. Until you’re a victim of a crime or know someone who is, you don’t understand the criminal justice system. And I’m not saying it’s all bad. It’s not. But there’s a lot of missed opportunity in investigations because they waste time. One issue is that most parents will claim their kid wouldn’t run away. Even if the kid runs away every other week, packed a bag, and stole a wad of cash. They’ll still insist it’s not a runaway. Cops get jaded, start seeing every missing person’s case as a runaway.”
“So, what do we do?”
“This.” Abe beckoned toward the road. “We investigate, we figure it out. For my part, I’m writing an article that’s going to blow this thing wide open. People will be aware for the first time that we’re not talking about one missing girl, but six. Good luck finding a person who’s not terrified by that. That puts pressure on the police. They form a task force, more manpower gets assigned to the cases, more money funnels into the investigation. It’s bureaucracy, a slow-moving glacier, but once she picks up speed…”
“So, they’ll help us if they’re getting paid more?” Hazel grumbled.
“Not exactly, but in a way, sure. Otherwise, the administration has to allocate the funds more evenly. The job of the press is to inform the people. The people then have to mobilize, make their voices heard, put pressure on the politicians. It’s coming, Hazel. But in the meantime, we’re following the leads, because otherwise they’d get cold long before the police got to them.”
Hazel nodded, and tried to find his words uplifting.
“There’s a detective in Petoskey who’s been working Susie Miner’s case from the beginning. He also believes there’s a connection, though he won’t admit it on the record. He’s committed a lot of hours to this case. The problem is, he’s the only detective in the office. He’s overloaded.”
“And you think us driving around, searching for clues, is helpful?”
“I know it is. I’ve met people who solved the murders of family members, who found missing kids. The closer you are to the crime, the more access you have to the truth.”
Chapter 15
Orla
Orla watched the young man move through the room. He was awkward, long arms past his waist. His greasy, dark hair hung over his face, shielding his eyes. He moved through the room mopping up her vomit.
The medicine Crow gave her in the morning upset her stomach, likely a result of her refusal to eat breakfast. It was a futile, and foolish, rebellion. Starving herself would only make her weak and incapable of escape, but when Crow presented her with a bowl of mush sprinkled with raisins, she’d still turned her head away.
He warned her the medicine would make her throw up.
“Good,” she said. “A quick way to get it out of my system.”
And it had been.
The doctor cursed when she’d thrown up. Unfortunately, he’d merely returned a short time later, the smell of her vomit sour in the room, and injected the medicine into her arm.
Now she lay dazed, not having eaten all day, the sedative effects wearing off.
She’d noticed the man before. He’d been standing in the hallway when the doctor had rushed in, his hands shoved in his pockets, staring at the floor.
“Help me,” Orla croaked.
The man froze, the mop clutched in his hand. After several seconds, he returned to his mopping as if she hadn’t spoken.
“He abducted me,” she whispered. “My name is Orla Sullivan. Please…”
The man continued mopping in silence, lifting the mop into the bucket and then plopping it onto the tiles.
As he pushed the bucket toward the door, wheels squeaking, he glanced at Orla.
For an instant their eyes connected.
His widened and then darted away.
Orla lifted her fingers, reaching, but he’d already slipped from the room.
Chapter 16
Liz
Liz waved at Patrick as he entered the diner.
“Abe, this is Patrick Sullivan. Patrick, Abe Levett. Abe’s a reporter at Up North News.”
Patrick narrowed his eyes.
“I thought that paper mostly wrote fluff about left-leaning political heroes.”
Abe shrugged.
“What paper doesn’t write those?”
Patrick nodded.
“I see your point.”
Liz patted an empty chair, and Patrick sat down, eyeing the other patrons in the restaurant wearily.
He looked tired, skin sagging beneath his blue eyes, lips turned down. If he’d showered and changed his clothes that day, you wouldn’t know it.
Liz remembered those days, the first weeks after Susie disappeared when showering was an afterthought. Sometimes she’d climb into the shower at two a.m. and let the water rush over her. A few times, she fell asleep beneath the hot spray and woke up shocked when the water had turned cold.
“How’s Fiona?” Liz asked, signaling to the waitress to bring another coffee.
“Wound up like a ten-day clock. If I sneeze, she practically jumps into the ceiling.”
“It’s hard,” Liz recalled. “Every sound could mean…”
“She’s home,” Patrick finished. “But she’s not.”