“Unfortunately, I have to get going,” he said. If she was set on investigating, she could figure it out for herself. He didn’t want to encourage her.

“Call me if you come across something that can help us,” he said.

She scoffed and crossed her arms. “You refuse to answer a few simple questions and you want me to call you?”

He smiled. “That’s right, counselor. That’s how this works.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Vanessa Adams rented a one-bedroom walkup apartment on the north side of town, in a neighborhood where rents that had once been affordable were steadily ticking up. By the time they arrived around midmorning, the parking lot was nearly empty and most of the residents appeared to be at work.

“Like I told you, I don’t think anything’s missing,” Vanessa’s sister said to Brandon as she unlocked the door. “I was here just yesterday.”

Kate stepped into the apartment, and Brandon followed, casting a look over his shoulder. Antonio had stopped to interview a man in a paramedic’s uniform who appeared to be leaving for work.

“It’s kind of messy,” Kate said from the tiny kitchen, which consisted of a small patch of linoleum flooring. She stepped toward the sink.

“Wait,” Brandon said. He could see from her face that she wanted to do something about the pile of dirty dishes. “It’s best not to move anything.” He pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and handed them to her. “If you want to open closets or anything, use these.”

She bit her lip and looked at the gloves, as though accepting them might be some kind of admission. She took them, and he pulled out a pair for himself.

“Mind if I . . . ?” He nodded toward the hallway.

“Whatever you need to do.”

Brandon left her in the kitchen, giving her some privacy. She was on the verge of tears. The reality of the situation seemed to be taking hold.

With every hour that ticked by, the benign explanations—Vanessa had had car trouble and hitched a ride to a friend’s, she’d called an Uber, she’d gone away with a boyfriend—were becoming more and more implausible. What was becoming clear to her sister, and had been clear to Brandon the moment he saw that passenger door hanging open, was that something unexpected, and unexpectedly bad, had happened to Vanessa on that highway.

But right now they were stalled. They still had no body, so for now they were dealing with a missing-person case instead of a homicide, which meant everything was slower, including getting the warrant needed for Vanessa’s cell phone records. Without that phone dump, they were flying blind, trying to piece together what she’d been doing in the hours and minutes leading up to her disappearance.