“How did you find out about the prostitution?” Irina asked, her voice so incredibly gentle.

Liza closed her eyes, not wanting to think about those days. “I went to file a missing-person report at the police department. They pulled up her arrest record.” She drained the rest of her tea and let out a harsh breath. “So I went looking for her.”

Irina’s eyes widened. “You went looking for prostitutes? How did you know where to go?”

A chuckle tickled her throat as a memory resurfaced, unexpected yet welcome. “That’s what Tom said. I met him during that time. He got his friends involved in searching for Lindsay.”

Irina’s brows drew down in a frown. “You met Tom Hunter while looking for prostitutes?”

The chuckle became a belly laugh, long and loud and far more cathartic than it should have been. “Oh no,” she said when she caught her breath. The very idea of straitlaced, Dudley Do-Right FBI Special Agent Tom Hunter looking for a hooker . . .

She wiped the tears from her eyes. “God, that’s too funny. No, he wasn’t out looking for a hookup. It was the next day. He’d come to my school to tell the jocks to stay in school. He was already a college basketball star by then, so I guess the administration hoped the kids would listen to him.” She sobered and sighed. “I was skipping the stay-in-school assembly to go back to the police station, because no one on the street had seen Lindsay. Tom left the assembly, literally ran into me, and my school papers went everywhere.”

“He helped you pick them up.” There wasn’t even a question in Irina’s voice. Tom Hunter was a gentleman. A truly good man.

“Of course he did,” Liza said, unable to keep the trace of bitterness from her voice and hating herself for it. It wasn’t Tom’s fault that she’d developed an impossible crush. Nor was it Tom’s fault that he didn’t feel the same way. “He saw the police report on Lindsay. He took me to a detective friend of his, and she was instrumental in finding Lindsay’s killer.”

Irina was studying her too closely. “That’s how you became friends? You and Tom?”

“Yep.” And Liza was finished talking about Tom Hunter. “But back to your original question. Lindsay is the main reason I’m going to nursing school. She sacrificed too much for me not to.” She checked the time on her phone, abruptly realizing that Abigail should have been back with her brush several minutes ago. “Where is Abigail? I hope she’s all right.” She started to get up, but Irina motioned at her to stay put.

“I’ll go find her. Have some more tea.” Irina pulled a muffin from a basket on the table and plated it for Liza. “Eat. It’s got no raisins. I made the batch especially for you.”

“Thank you, Irina,” Liza murmured, touched. She thought she’d managed to hide her aversion to raisins from the woman, but she should have known that Irina missed very little.