‘Can you still do that if the guy shut the phone off?’ Crying had changed the tone of his voice into a guttural growl.

‘In a nutshell, yes.’ Alyssa leaned over to Cord’s desk and swiped a tissue, handing it to Rachel’s brother. ‘Turning a phone off stops it from communicating with nearby towers, but it can still be traced to whatever location it was in when it was powered down.’

Nick graciously accepted the tissue, wiped his nose, and sagged against the back of the chair. ‘Thank God for that.’ Then he sat up straight again. ‘If you need me to, I think I’d recognize the voice of the guy who answered.’

‘That’s good. If it comes to that, I’ll let you know. Now, have you told your parents about any of this?’

Nick actually snorted. ‘No. What would be the point? They’re still in denial she’s missing. It might interfere with their social engagements if they had to take an active concern in their daughter’s well-being.’

Alyssa wasn’t surprised by his response, but she was saddened. She couldn’t imagine not worrying about Holly or Isaac if they hadn’t been seen or heard from in days. Hell, she’d nearly lost her mind the second she’d realized Isaac was gone – and that was before she discovered he’d been kidnapped.

She shook the memory away. Her children were safe; this was about Rachel. Plus, something else was bothering her. ‘Nick, you already said you didn’t know much about this new friend of Rachel’s…’

Nick’s head snapped up. ‘Anna? The one she went to the party with? Have you found her? Does she know something?’

Alyssa held her palm out to halt his barrage of questions. ‘No, we’ve been unsuccessful so far in locating this mysterious Anna. No one at the party seems to know her.’ Nor had anyone by that name been reported missing, which could mean any number of things. Should they also be searching for Rachel’s friend, or had the girl simply vanished into thin air, never knowing her friend had disappeared? After all, Rachel’s roommate had claimed the girl’s visits were sporadic at best, with gaps of time between each.

But while the mysterious Anna was important, there was another question burning in Alyssa’s mind that she hoped Nick could answer. ‘You also said your sister didn’t talk about the guys she liked, but did you happen to meet any of the guys she hung out with, even if it was just friends?’ Like maybe a tall, linebacker guy with a chauvinistic, misogynistic attitude?

‘Sure, I met a few of them, but they were more pals than flirtations, and I rarely saw her with the same guys more than once or twice.’ He smiled at some memory. ‘And even though she was definitely one of the popular girls all throughout school, she avoided athletes like they had the plague.’ Then he cocked his head and asked a question of his own. ‘Why do you ask? Do you have a suspect?’