He did manage to look H. Graham in the eye then. “Listen, we can keep talking and go over it a thousand times, but none of it will change the fact that no one’s heard from her since she left. Her agent, her mother, her friends. She’s very good at keeping people up-to-date. She’s been in touch with no one, and now we’re all worried.”

The older cop was more direct. “No sign of anyone breaking into your house? Neighbors didn’t report anything odd? Strangers hanging around?”

“No. Nothing. Not that I’ve noticed.”

“What was the—” Graham glanced at her notes “—spot of bother with the reviewer?”

“It was just a fuss. An online thing. Sutton received a bad review. She’d had a terrible day, she responded, and the whole thing blew up.”

“Blew up, how?”

He hesitated.

“If it’s online, I’ll be able to find it. Why don’t you just tell me now and save us both some time? Was she in danger?”

“No, she wasn’t in danger, just embarrassed. People can be cruel. She took pride in her work, and when she responded, she was very...blunt. Told the reviewer to shove it. It seems innocuous, ill-mannered, yes, but in the scheme of all that happens online, it wasn’t such a horrible thing to say. But a blogger picked up on it and wouldn’t let it lie. He started hassling her.”

“You mentioned this in your 9-1-1 call. What sort of blogger, and what sort of hassling?”

“Have you ever heard of a website named Stellar Reads?” She shook her head.

“No?” He knew he sounded incredulous. Who couldn’t have heard of Stellar Reads? Apparently Officer H. Graham, who was staring at him with a raised brow.

“I don’t spend a lot of time online, sir.”

“Right. Well, it’s a site where people can rate books, leave reviews. When Sutton popped off, the blogger wrote an essay about it, posted a one-star review. Instead of just staying out of it, Sutton responded, tried to justify the choice—something writers aren’t smart to do. It always backfires. And it did here, too. The blogger called out all of his friends and they attacked the hell out of Sutton. Really nasty stuff, tore her work apart, gave her hundreds of one-star reviews even though they hadn’t read her books. Some of her loyal readers got into it and they were attacked, as well. Put Sutton through the wringer, claims of authors behaving badly, all of that.

“Anyway, there was a reporter from one of the trades who wanted to interview her. Sutton took the call, told the reporter she hadn’t been involved and all of it was a smear designed to make her look bad. Saying my account has been hacked, no one ever believes that. They just think you’re trying to cover your arse.

“Sutton tried to calm the whole situation by posting on her Facebook fan page explaining that she had never been in touch with the reviewer, hadn’t left the comments, that someone had impersonated her. She explained about losing our son, and you’d be amazed at the things people said. Horrible, appalling stuff. We closed the account and tried to walk away. Thank heavens, someone else came along and did something stupid, became the flavor of the week, and the fervor died down. But after everything that happened... She couldn’t handle it, had a bit of a collapse. It broke something in her.”