“Yeah, it happens,” he allows. “To kids.” He swerves slightly to dodge a dead opossum. “Not to a grown woman. Mom says her daughter was strong. Did yoga or something like that twice a week.”

“Maybe her attacker subdued her with something,” I say. “Like that guy in Portland that kept the bottle of chloroform in his glove box.”

“Always ready to collect some young woman,” Montrose says. “Maybe. But look at where this happened. It wasn’t some parking lot at a mall where a guy would hang around like he’s fishing or hunting.”

“Right,” I say. “The beach where she was taken isn’t exactly remote, but it does take some effort to get to it.”

“If she was taken.”

“He said she was,” I say.

“Yeah, he did,” he says as we drive past billionaire Bill Gates’s compound near Alderbrook Resort. Montrose points that out every time we do. But not this time. He’s holding on to the wheel tightly. His knuckles are white. He’s concentrating on two things: his tremors and Adam Warner’s story.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

“Maybe she left him,” he offers. His tone is less than emphatic. “Maybe he’s lying. Maybe he’s responsible.”

I knew that Montrose was going there. I could see the way he looked at Adam when we were taking his statement. I don’t want to defend him. I want the evidence to dictate the outcome of the investigation. But I know Adam. I have known him a very long time. I remember when he used to come over and hang out with my brother and how much I wanted to be a part of their little club. But that was a nonstarter. I was a girl. Even worse, I was a kid sister. Out of all my brother’s friends, I liked him the most. He had the best smile, and he used it on me all the time, making me feel special. So there. I liked him.

Not that I would tell him all that.

“You could knock me over with a feather if Adam Warner’s lying to us” is what I say. “We grew up together. I’d put my money on almost any other kid in Shelton that I knew back in the day over Adam.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t work the case,” he says flatly.

I ignore his tone. “I’m fine. It was a long time ago.”

He takes his eyes off the road and glances at me.

“If you say so,” he says.

My office at the Mason County Sheriff’s Office has a window that overlooks a withered old plum tree, its bark a silvery patina that reflects sunlight back into my face. Every year an arborist comes out to inject fertilizer, test the soil, and clip off more dead limbs. It’s a historic tree, planted by one of the town’s founders, but anyone can see that it’s about done. There was a time when I felt that way about Shelton. The town’s primary employer, a sawmill, expanded and contracted for decades, leaving everyone in town wondering where it would end up, robust or shuttered. It’s survived so far. Barely. Everything about our town—our festivals, our sports teams, our commerce—had been about timber. Sure, we had a gorgeous Pacific Northwest setting, set against the verdant foothills on the pristine waters of the southern end of Puget Sound. That alone, we all know, would never have been enough to make us a tourist destination. Too far from Seattle or Tacoma to be a bedroom community. We survived because we’re stubborn. We’re the children of loggers.