She popped a few pills that she gulped down as best as she could with water cupped in her trembling hands. Then she sat down on the toilet seat and tried to gather her thoughts while waiting for the physical reaction to dissipate.

Missing? What did that mean? And without the car?

There were suspicions that something serious had happened, and two days before their planned meeting at that. He had already been missing when she had been trudging around in cold and slush outside the car dealership. That explained why he had no-showed, and it also explained why he hadn’t been in touch or replied to her message. What was more, it explained the secretive behaviour and suspicious demeanour of the two mechanics when she had turned up asking for Peter. Clearly they knew he was the subject of a search. The police had obviously been there and questioned them, sworn them to silence, and they had tried to deal with the unusual circumstances as best as they could. They hadn’t wanted to give away too much, but they must have been curious about who was asking for Peter.

Did that make her a person of interest for the inquiry? It should have done, naturally. But she had probably played her role well—that of an untroubled, innocent customer who didn’t know the name of the person she was asking for. Even if that was in no way a reflection of the truth. On the other hand, her lack of knowledge of Peter’s unexpected absence had been entirely genuine. In conclusion, there was probably no cause for Peter’s colleagues to tell the police about Jeanette’s visit.

Which was good, because she definitely didn’t want to get mixed up in this. Didn’t want there to be any visible points of contact between her and Peter. When he came back, they could start from scratch—no one could be allowed to think this relationship was any older than that.

If he came back. It hit her, and a knot grew in her stomach. According to the police, something serious might have happened—what did that mean? A heart attack somewhere out of the way? An accident, or a homicide? What did she really know about Peter? About his health or even his propensity for getting into dangerous situations? Nothing. She had thought she knew him better before all this terrible stuff had happened. Before the theft of the money.

The money. The six million he had coveted with such avarice after he—actually, the two of them, she corrected herself—had almost literally stepped across a corpse to get to it.