Nic shrugged. “We’ll find out tomorrow.”

“So odd after all that searching, and the reward money . . .” Mrs. Urbansky said, apprehension in her voice.

She wasn’t wrong—the search parties had been thorough. They had begun at the edge of the dense fields that lined Hastings Pass and Route 7, and moved through the tall, sharp stalks until they ended. Some of the property bled right into other fields. Some was divided up by split-rail fencing. Others were met with lawns belonging to old farm houses. When all was said and done, Nic, her father, the police, and volunteers, had covered thirty-two square miles of land. Which was a lot of land.

Houses were checked as well. Five miles in every direction from where the car was found. No one had seen Molly Clarke the night of the storm.

It all played on a loop now, a recurring bad dream.

Hastings. She’d spent much of those four days swinging between panic and sedation. She’d spent much of it in that bar. She could see the acknowledgment on Mrs. Urbanskys’s face.

“But you never know, right?” the woman said, smiling now. “Come around, sweetheart. I’ll take you back to see the chief.”

Chief of police Charles Watkins. Most people just called him “the chief.” Average height. Full head of hair. Nic remembered him better than the others because he had been in charge of things, or at least that was how it seemed.

Mrs. Urbansky had made a point to tell her about his dead wife—Died of heart disease, and at such a young age! She’d said it as though Nic might be interested, as a single woman herself. Never mind that Nic was just twenty-one and Watkins was old enough to have a dead wife, even if that wife had been relatively young when it came to dying.

She’d said it after the note was found, when the mood had lifted off the town just like the cloud cover from the storm. Hearing Mrs. Urbansky’s voice now brought it back—the feeling as everyone began to believe that this was not a tragic accident but instead a scandal. A fun story to tell at the bar, the wealthy woman from the southern part of the state, the richer part, the enviable part. Unhappy Housewife Leaves it all Behind; Walks Away from Kids and Husband . . . And with the fun story, relief that their misery hadn’t ensnared an outsider. A sign that their plight wasn’t as dreadful as it seemed.

But, yes, it was, Hastings. It was every bit as dreadful.

Chief Watkins was in his office. The smell was the same—carpet cleaner and printer ink. A hint of mildew from the dying leaves outside.

He got up, nodded in her direction. After the time they had spent together, they were somewhere between a hug and a handshake. The nod served the situation.

“Sit,” Watkins said.