“Where has she been?”

“Who took her?”

“How did she get to the gas station?”

“Why was she in Montana?”

Much like he’d been doing since we’d come in, Marcos held up his hand to stop Scott. “I told you—she’s in a state of severe traumatization. We are not pushing her to answer any questions until she’s been cleared by the medical director, but unfortunately she’s been away at a conference and her plane doesn’t get in until after eight.”

“What time does she get in?”

I placed my hand gently on Scott’s arm. “He said eight o’clock tonight, honey.”

This was the third time we’d been around this circle. Scott needed rest. He said he’d slept last night, but I’d felt him tossing and turning next to me all night long. He had crept into the chair underneath the window sometime before three and never came back to bed. He’d barely eaten anything all day. It’d only been a little over twenty-four hours, but he already looked like he’d lost weight. Thankfully, Abbi had gotten him to eat a banana this morning.

“And what’s being done before then?” he asked. His dark hair stuck out at random angles from running his hands through it so much.

Scott had always been convinced that there’d been a series of missteps with Kate’s case from the beginning and that the police hadn’t done their job right—starting with not filing a missing person report until after she’d already been missing for forty-eight hours. He said they had wasted valuable time focusing on him when they should’ve been out looking for her.

“Are you sure you want to be involved with a murder suspect?” my mom had asked me when she found out we were dating.

I had laughed her off. “That was years ago, and they ruled him out as a suspect almost immediately.”

Everyone knew the spouse was always a suspect whenever their partner went missing. The FBI wouldn’t have been doing their job if they hadn’t put Scott through the wringer. He’d come up clean, even passed both polygraphs, but that wasn’t good enough for some people. Nothing ever would be. Thankfully my mom wasn’t one of them, and she had grown to love Scott like one of her own. My brothers had too.

“We have a team on the ground gathering any evidence from the gas station and tracing the forest around it. They’re searching the area for any clues.” Marcos was dressed nicely in a well-cut suit. He had sandy hair and intelligent blue eyes that hadn’t moved from Scott yet.

“When can we see her?” Scott asked.

My breath caught. This was really happening. Kate was alive, and we were going to see her. None of this had seemed real until now.

Marcos cracked his knuckles and kept his gaze steady. “We’d like to get you to see her as soon as possible. A familiar face might help coax her out of her shell.” He cleared his throat. “We’re hoping you’ll work with us in sharing any information she provides you with during your visit. Anything, even if it seems insignificant.”