“That’s it. She said her name was Lindsay.”

20
Tuesday, June 22, 10:52 a.m.

The messages had come from an account created on VeilMail, an app that could be used to send encrypted text and email messages.

Please stop looking for me. You’re putting me in danger.

Where are you? How do I know this is you?

We left the armoire.

Where are you?

That was all she had.

Lindsay had a client last year who had used—or “allegedly used”—the service to communicate with a man who claimed the client hired him to burn down his restaurant. At least at that time, there had been no way to trace the origins of incoming messages.

Lindsay had spent most of the morning calling tech experts to confirm that VeilMail remained a black box, which meant it was impossible to know for certain who sent the messages. She was pretty sure she had mentioned VeilMail to Hope when she was prepping for that arson trial, but anyone could find the service on their own with a little research on the dark web.

We left the armoire. If someone had been watching Hope in New Jersey, they could have easily seen the two of them through the open curtains at the garage apartment, struggling to move the large piece of furniture.

And even if Hope was the one who sent the messages, she might not be doing so voluntarily.

Or it was just like Scott said, and whatever Hope was going through, she wanted to go through it on her own.

Scott had taken the early train back to the city for a big deal he was closing that day, but Lindsay had cleared her calendar for the entire week after finally getting word from Mrs. Gondelman that the handyman could meet her at Hope’s cottage that afternoon with an extra key. The hotel had given her a late checkout, so she at least had a place to work until then.

She was cranking through all of the emails she had deferred the day before when a new call came in. She didn’t recognize the number.

“This is Lindsay,” she said.

“This is Detective Decker. Just checking in. Did you hear anything from Hope?”

Had she? There was no way to know. But she did know that as an officer of the court, she shouldn’t outright lie to a police officer. And she also knew she didn’t trust this guy, and that he was certain to interpret the text messages from the previous night as surefire proof that Hope had taken off and didn’t want to be found.

“I’m still looking for her,” she said. It was an unresponsive reply, but truthful. He didn’t seem to notice she hadn’t technically answered his question. “Are you?” she added.

“Of course,” he said warmly. “I told you that when I saw you yesterday.”