Reyes shrugged. “A woman is missing. Gone. I never met her. I barely know you or your family. But, I mean, what the hell? If a woman vanishes and it’s your job to find her—how does that not keep you up at night? Make you want to do something the next day? She can still be found, even if she doesn’t want to be. Those four days, everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off—how can it hurt to slow down and do a more methodical search? She has to be somewhere. And just because we don’t know where that is doesn’t make it unknowable.”

Reyes shifted in his seat, like he had felt a sudden wave of something uncomfortable inside him. Something he wanted to get out because it was hard to sit with. It shot through the air like electricity, and Nic suspected this was the very thing that drew people to him. The waitress. An old couple in the diner whose eyes followed him out the door. Even the car they passed back in town, a woman driving, waving at him. Big smile that she was hoping he would see.

Nic had come to know men, the things they found to lure women. There were those who didn’t have to try. Who couldn’t stop it if they wanted to. That was the attraction of Officer Jared Reyes.

Men like Reyes were almost as good as vodka.

They drove to the Gas n’ Go. Reyes pulled the car over and turned off the ignition.

“Is that her?” he asked.

A small white sedan was parked on the other side.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s got New York plates,” Reyes said. “Come on.”

They walked to meet Edith Moore as she stepped outside her car. She was in her late thirties it seemed. Slacks, sweater, loafers. Short brown hair. Glasses. Her face wore the appropriate expression of empathy and eagerness.

“You must be Nicole,” she said, extending her hand. “Edith Moore. Nice to meet you.”

Her eyes moved quickly to Officer Reyes. Her expression changing. Nic hadn’t told her she was coming with the police.

“Jared Reyes,” he said with a nod. “Hastings PD.”

Edith Moore nodded then. “I’m glad you came. I hope I can be helpful.”

“Well, let’s see,” Reyes said. “Take us through it. The night of the storm.”

They drove in the Chevy. Reyes in the front with Edith Moore. Nic in the back, dead center and leaning forward as far as she could to see through the windshield. They drove toward town on Hastings Pass for a mile and a quarter, then made a U-turn, driving slowly toward the intersection.

“This is about how fast I was going. It was all I could manage with the rain. I couldn’t see a thing beyond the headlights.”

“But you saw Molly Clarke somehow,” Reyes said.