“We know they had a helluva fight.” He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking he was missing something. Something important. Maybe he needed coffee. “Come on, let’s get a refill,” he said, standing up.

As they walked together to the lunchroom, he said, “On the surface it looks like a fight. She and he get into it, it gets physical, he’s injured, she leaves in a huff, calls her sister, and takes off.” He looked over at his partner as they reached the break room. “And then what?”

“He’s found by Knowlton, who calls nine-one-one.”

Rivers kept the story going as he worked the Keurig machine, putting in a semi-biodegradable pod of coffee. He hit the button, and the coffee maker started gurgling. “Meanwhile,” he said, “Megan Travers and her car disappear into the night. Her cell phone is turned off or dead. All the searches turn up nothing. She’s just vanished.”

“So she’s either dead, her car was run off the road in the mountains and covered in snow, down some precipice, or she’s hiding somewhere and is damned good at it, or she was kidnapped, but no one’s trying to ransom her.”

“So, possibly a prisoner—maybe a sex slave?”

She frowned, lines creasing her smooth brow as the machine steamed and coffee drizzled into his waiting cup. “Or hiding out?”

“Or somehow James Cahill did her in?”

“Even though he was injured—comatose when he was discovered.” She tilted her head to stare at him as if he’d gone off his rocker. “You think he had an accomplice? Someone who would kill her? A paid assassin?”

“Lame,” another voice from a nearby table said.

Rivers looked over and found Arne Nagley, one of the deputies, seated at a round table and huddled over the newspaper, working the daily sudoku.

Nagley looked up from his puzzle, his eyes a crystal blue, his red hair clipped close to his skull. At six-four, he had to be pushing three hundred pounds, most of it muscle. His nose wasn’t straight, had been broken twice in his days as a right tackle for the Washington State Cougars. “This is Riggs Crossing, man,” he pointed out. “Not fuckin’ Chicago.” Then, as if he realized his opinion wasn’t called for, added, “Just my two cents, for what it’s worth, but you two, you’re the detectives.” He went back to the paper, but Rivers noted the edge to his voice and remembered that Nagley had applied for the position Rivers had landed, a perceived slight, as Nagley had worked for Riggs County for over a dozen years, and Rivers, from San Francisco, had been perceived as an outsider.