I watch her carefully as she answers. She’s looking out the window. Her hands rest on her lap, still, her fingers in constant flux. “Not well.”

“But you know Sophia, right?” Sullivan described this woman as a family friend.

“I do. But the last time I saw her was at Cassandra’s funeral. She was twelve.”

She’s still staring off to the side, which allows me to observe her undetected. Her dark hair is cut in layers and falls in waves around her. This woman has legs for days. Those long legs extend up to the front of the helicopter.

Silence resumes. Her fingers tap her thigh, and one ankle bounces. If she hasn’t seen Sophia in three years, they can’t be close. Why would Jack reach out to her?

“Do you have a feel for how realistic it is that she ran away?”

If she didn’t run away, if this is a kidnapping, then the trajectory of our investigation will change fast.

“No. There’s a world of difference between twelve and fifteen. And she lost her mum. That one event will change a person. But…” Her words trail. Her fingers trace the outline of the harness. “The girl I knew wouldn’t have run away. She had a good head on her shoulders. Sweet. We keep in touch via WhatsApp. When I got home after our meeting, I read through all of our prior messages. She seemed happy.”

That’s what I feared. That we would not be dealing with a missing persons case for long. That soon we would call it an abduction case. Given Sullivan’s net worth, the scenario is reasonable. A ransom carries with it some good news. For one, they’ll keep her alive. And two, while Arrow doesn’t have expertise in runaways, that’s not the case with kidnappings. We handle K&R, or kidnappings and ransom, all over the globe.

“How long before we get there?” she asks.

“Little over an hour. We’ll head down along the coastline, then cut in. Sullivan has his own helipad, so that’s where we’ll land.”

“He has a helipad at his house?”

“From what I understand, estate is the correct nomenclature.” My attention splits between the controls, the view of the Pacific coastline, and my passenger’s long legs. The jeans are tight on her ass and thighs but loosen below the knee, and, due to the way she’s sitting, they end several inches above her ankle boot, revealing smooth, pale skin. She’s either a sunblock adherent or she doesn’t spend a great deal of time outdoors.

She leans to the glass, checking out the panoramic view. To our left lies a seemingly endless stretch of sandy beach lined with rows of houses packed together, the black line of the 101, and the hills and valleys that rise into the San Rafael Mountains. To our right, as far as the eye can see, the wide-open sea sparkles with the occasional white of crashing waves.

“You were friends with his wife. But you’ve never been to their house?”