“Then it’s Emma, and feel free to go ahead and start talking.”

He removed a file from the bag that matched his suit perfectly. “It’s going to take some more time to pinpoint where Ms. Bender ended up, but it is possible to do my job in reverse. I’m not going to bore you with how I narrowed your scope, but I think I’m on the right track.”

“Bore me a little bit,” she said, not wanting to waste her time if Nathan was wrong.

“When a person runs from a life they don’t want, it’s much easier to do alone. Those are the ones who are almost impossible to find, but Ms. Bender ran with her brothers. Two brothers who are still in school,” Nathan said with his finger up. “There’s a way to search for new students in schools.”

“That’s got to be a large number to get through,” Emma said, saying what Cain was thinking. “And if it’s that easy, then she’s not safe.”

“It is if you don’t narrow your search, and sometimes people who have no experience with this don’t want to put in the legwork to find that needle in a whole country. What you have to think is that Ms. Bender didn’t do all this to stay in New York State. Anything close to home would make her easy to find, but I checked New York just in case. No, I think she’d feel more comfortable with some distance between her and her family.”

“That makes sense.” She glanced down at the file he handed her. “Where do you think she is?”

“I’ve narrowed it to three possibilities. There’s a small town in Arizona, a smaller town in Montana, and a place in Wisconsin. That’s a start, but with some time I can narrow it enough that it’ll be easy to find her.”

That was good news, but it also made her worry. “Like Emma said, exactly how easy would it be for someone else to do this? I don’t want this woman dead before I can talk to her.”

“It’s not impossible, and we need to consider that whoever else is looking for her has someone like me. If that’s true, we need to hurry. Once I find her and you talk to her, I can do for them what I did for Dallas and Kristen.”

“Whatever it costs, make sure you find them.” She gave him the file back and sat back. “I think it’s time we cement our relationship, Nathan. Name a price and I’ll pay it. After Dallas and Kristen, I didn’t think we’d need to meet again, but I’d like to have you on retainer to make sure things like this are taken care of.”