Nic took a seat on a hard metal chair across from his desk.

“I’ll leave you two.” Mrs. Urbansky left, still smiling.

Watkins wore a beige uniform with short sleeves and a blue tie. There were patches sewn on the chest. A badge was pinned there as well. She had thought it then and she thought it again now, how he looked like a Boy Scout leader.

He leaned back and stretched his arms into the air, clasping his hands behind his head.

“Is this about the call?” he asked. “From the woman who says she saw your mother?”

“Yeah,” Nic answered. She went on then to explain about the truck and the letters on the orange purse, and about Edith Moore and how she’d been driving from town that night.

Watkins nodded as though taking in the information.

“Okay,” he said. “I get it. Why you came back. I would do the same if it was my family. Gotta sleep at night, right?”

“Something like that.”

“So how can we help?” Watkins asked. His tone was patronizing.

She rambled off the list she’d made, things about the DMV and dark pickup trucks in the area, and finding their owners and asking where they were the night of the storm, driving their trucks.

Watkins groaned, but he humored her, listening, nodding. Then he leaned forward, clasped his hands in front of him on the desk. He had the authority moves down to a nice little dance. This was something else she now remembered, how he had provoked her with the comfort he seemed to find in his position of power.

“You should have someone with you,” Watkins said then. “She could be after that money. It was too much for around here. That kind of money—makes people a little crazy.”

“I’m meeting her tomorrow at ten—at the Gas n’ Go.”

Watkins nodded, palms now pressed into piles of papers. “I’ll get Reyes to meet you. Remember him? Officer Reyes?”

“Yes,” Nic said. But not exactly. She remembered a lot of cops—the two local policemen and the state troopers. Their names, faces, had all melded together behind the uniforms.

“Are you staying at the inn?”

“I guess so.”

“All right. Meet Reyes at the diner next door—nine thirty? If she seems legit, we can run the registrations for dark-colored trucks.”

“Thanks,” Nic said. She stood to leave. Watkins stood as well, something clearly weighing on his mind. Thoughts spinning, turning, finding their way.

“Hey,” he said, stopping her at the door. “Is this because of the handwriting analysis? Because, you know, an inconclusive report is not the same as a negative report.”

Nic had no idea what he was saying, and her face gave her away.

Watkins turned suddenly, finding a box in the back corner of his office. He sifted through it. Pulled out a thin bundle of papers stapled together.