I’m safe.

Not going to happen twice in the same place.

Nothing will hurt me.

Please, God.

I finish telling the detectives everything I know, and I breathe in. They don’t stop. They continue peppering the air with questions, seeking details that I must admit, in the turmoil of the moment, have turned into a messy blur. Lee implores me to remain calm as she and her partner continue scribbling notes and exchanging glances. I know that what happened just now is probably like nothing they’ve ever handled before.

“We need to find her,” I repeat, my voice breaking.

Lee puts down her notepad.

“We’re on it, Adam.”

CHAPTER TWO

LEE

While Montrose collects the broken wineglass in case there are prints from Sophie Warner’s attacker and a tech takes a sample of Adam’s blood to compare with some small spatters on the glass, I methodically walk the perimeter of the first cabin, looking for evidence. Sophie, thirty-three, is my age. She’s a mother, which I’m not. She works at Starbucks headquarters in Seattle, where she is a graphic designer responsible for many of the coffee giant’s in-store promotions. From what Adam said, there have been no problems at home and there was no reason to believe that his wife knew the man who took her or, for that matter, why anyone would take her.

The sun bears down on me. The trail dividing the brambles up to the road above is dry, hard, compacted soil. Sword ferns and trilliums, undisturbed, edge the path. I cannot make out any footprints. I can see, however, evidence that matches Adam’s account of being cut by the brambles as he ran after his wife. When I reach the top, I look down at the way I came. The cabin blocks most of the view, but a sliver of the shore and the bulkhead where Sophie was sitting is visible. I spin around. At my feet is an indication that someone might have stood there observing the cabins below. I collect a single cigarette butt and take a photograph of loose gravel next to the trail leading to the Wisteria. Slight indentations in the gravel indicate that a car or small truck might have been parked there. No telling when, of course. Or if it had anything to do with what happened down by the beach.

I meet Montrose inside the shingled single-story cabin, which is flanked on one side with a mammoth, anaconda-like vine of its purple-hued namesake.

“How’s he holding up?” I ask.

He gives me a little shrug. “Seems okay, considering. Find anything?”

“Not really. A cigarette butt. Looks like it’s probably been there awhile,” I tell him as we move through the cabin. The kitchen sink is stacked with a bowl used to mix waffle batter and a couple of plates. The green tops of a handful of strawberries lay on a paper towel on the counter. I can see Adam on the deck through the kitchen window. He’s sitting now, his daughter in his lap, his phone pressed to his ear.