Looking at Lindsay Kelly now, Carter wondered how representative that sergeant’s opinions were. Maybe he was just a loudmouth who’d been eager to spread a little bit of gossip to a willing listener outside of his small town. “Like I said, I followed up as any investigator would have under the circumstances. I know your friend gave her boss a bogus story about hiding out from an abusive husband. And I know you played into that false impression when you came here looking for her.”

They were at a stalemate, each aware that the other may have cut some corners in the interests of doing what they thought was right.

Part of him—the mean side—wanted to add that if Lindsay hounded her friends the way she was hounding him, he totally understood Hope’s decision to lay low. Instead, he said, “I’m sorry you haven’t heard from your friend, and your loyalty to her is admirable. But we have someone with no roots here, living under an assumed identity, with a falsified bio, who borrowed cash from her boss before what appears to be moving on. You have to admit her background is . . . suspect.”

Behind him, Carter’s phone buzzed against the living room coffee table. He left the front door open and went to answer it. He could tell that Lindsay was considering stepping inside, but he gave her a look that kept her in place.

“Carter.”

A few seconds later, he had the excuse he needed to end the conversation. “Got a callout. A missing person report that needs a detective.” He grabbed his keys from the console table next to his television and locked the door behind him.

“Are you actually going to look for that poor person?” she called after him as he walked to his car. “Unlike you did with Hope?”

As Carter backed out of his driveway, he realized that her words had landed. Would he? It was a fair enough question. He heard the echo of his own voice, a few minutes earlier: I am actually good at my job. There was a time when he really had believed it.

10
Saturday, June 19, 8:10 p.m.

Lindsay had never been to this restaurant before, but she could tell it was the kind of fussy place where the waiters were under strict orders to refill the wineglasses before the customer needed to. She reached for the bottle of Barbaresco anyway and gave it a tip.

“What about SP?”