Alyssa chose her next words carefully. ‘I have a possible person of interest I’m trying to either rule out or prove involvement.’ If it was true Rachel avoided athletes, and if she had encountered Beau and rejected his advances, Alyssa could easily envision the anger he’d feel at being thwarted, especially with that overinflated ego of his.

Nick’s posture went ramrod straight. ‘Who?’ he demanded.

The flash of anger in Nick’s eyes reminded Alyssa of Callie McCormick’s husband, Rafe, and the thought that Rachel’s brother could easily turn into another vigilante crossed her mind. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not at liberty to share that information with you. At least not yet.’

A few minutes later, after promising to call with any news, Alyssa ushered Nick out and went in search of Hal. She’d barely made it as far as the front desk when he rolled out of the conference room, flagging her down.

‘Got it!’

‘Hal, you’re the best! Let’s find out where that phone is.’ Alyssa was positive that if anyone looked, they’d see evidence of her heart trying to pound straight through her chest right now.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Thursday, May 23

A few minutes after ten, Holly parked outside the precinct. She and Sophie were hoping to catch her mom. They’d just finished their daily walk through the mostly deserted UNM campus where they stopped random people to show them Jersey’s picture, asking if they’d seen her. Of course, no one had, unless it was on the news or in the flyers they’d seen.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her mom to do her job; it was just that she and Sophie couldn’t sit still, or they’d lose even more of their minds. They had to do something. They’d already posted flyers all over Albuquerque, and several times a day they scoured Jersey’s social media accounts for anything that seemed off. And still, they heard nothing but crickets.

Since the precinct was just a few miles down the road from the university, the girls decided to drop in. While Holly drove, she instructed Sophie to send her mom a message to see if she had a couple of minutes to meet with them.

As she shifted her car into park, a tall, lean, good-looking guy about her age exited the precinct. Holly followed him with her eyes until her phone chimed, alerting her to a text.

‘It’s your mom.’ Sophie grabbed Holly’s phone from the center console and handed it to her.

Hi sweetie. Got your message. I’m right in the middle of things, so I won’t be able to see you girls right now. Sorry. I’ll call you when I get a chance. Love you.

Holly dropped her head back against the headrest, closing her eyes against tears that appeared out of nowhere, and released a heavy sigh. ‘Mom’s busy, so guess we’re going to have to catch up with her later. I don’t know what else we can do.’

Sophie swallowed, bent at the waist, and lowered her face into her hands. ‘Hol, what if we never hear from Jersey again? What if she’s… God, I can’t even…’ Each word wobbled on the precipice of a cliff neither girl wanted to go over.