“I can step down from the State Police, take a local job, be a detective in a local precinct. I can figure out how to coordinate life between your job and mine. I can even envision kids one day. What I can’t see is how to step from what I have now over to that.” She shook her head. “But the truth is I really don’t know why I’m hesitating. If my feelings for you need more time to develop or I just need to let go of the fact I’m single and let the word couple now define who I am. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just scared.” She leaned her head against the back of the couch, wishing she knew her own heart better.
Rob didn’t immediately answer, taking time to absorb the words and finally nodding. “I think part of it is you don’t see yourself flourishing in that new picture, Evie. You’re in it, making it work, but it’s not somewhere you develop and bloom in fresh ways. That’s what I hear in your words. It’s not adding ‘more and better’ to you, just taking away some of what you are right now.”
She hated to think that maybe he was right. “You’d make a wonderful husband, Rob. I know my life would be blessed being with you. I also know I’m damaging things between us by not being able to say yes. I deeply regret that. I just can’t put into words why I’m hesitating. A great guy wants to propose and I’m not saying yes, yes!? It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know what else to say except I need more time to figure out what is going on in me.”
“Evie, you trust me—easier than you can say the words I love you. Do you wonder why that is? Maybe I haven’t sparked something in you you’re hoping to find. Or maybe what you’re hoping for doesn’t exist. If it does, it’s possible I’m never going to be the guy who can click with that. I can answer the question why I want you in my life. I love you, Evie. I would treasure having you with me for the next fifty years. I’d enjoy building a home and family with you. But you need to be able to answer why you want me in your life,” he continued. “I’m a safe place in the storm, a refuge away from the life-and-death reality of your work. I’m a good guy, a good provider and someone to relax with. I’m good company who likes you being around. All that is a solid foundation. What’s the rest of it, Evie? That’s been enough for an exclusive relationship. But the rest of it? Am I the guy you can’t live without?”
“Right now you are,” she whispered. “I lose you, Rob, I lose the safest person I’ve ever known.”
He held out his hand, waited for her to grasp it. “You are safe with me, Evie. And if what you really need is to acknowledge that your heart isn’t yet ready for marriage, you should feel safe enough to say that to me. We’ll take a break. A year, two years, let time help sort this out. If you can take this step, I want to marry you. If it’s not going to happen—at least not now, is my earnest hope—then let’s step back. I don’t want to damage something I value more than I can say by pressuring you, but we can’t simply stay where we are. Let’s either go forward together or step back together.”
He was right, and his reasoned, careful, logical summation was one of the reasons she felt so safe with him. “How long are you going to let me think about this?”
“Why don’t we talk about it again on, say, Valentine’s Day?”
He was giving her enough time to let her heart settle. “Yeah. Okay.” Her smile was full of regret. “I’m being a lot of trouble.”
He chuckled. “You’re worth it, Evie.”
She had to blink away tears. “Something inside me must be broken,” she whispered, “for this to be so difficult for me. My parents are happily married. It’s like this alien thing crept in and confused me somewhere along the line.”
He laughed at the image. “We’ll get through it.”
“I’m truly sorry for this place we’re in. I never have wanted to cause this kind of turmoil.”
“You are a bit of a distraction on occasion,” he conceded, “as my attention isn’t always focused on the meeting I’m attending. Does she, or does she not? It’s all right. Like I said, I saw the vulnerable part of you from the beginning. That it shows itself when you’re considering a change to the very center of your life doesn’t surprise me. Saying yes to marriage, reorienting your life, should be a very big deal. You are a cautious turtle in many ways—you don’t move very fast, and you hide very quickly.”
She wrinkled her nose at the image but knew he was correct. “I’m scared of getting hurt,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Are we okay?”
“Yes.” He crossed his heart like a little boy. “Promise. We’ll settle this by Valentine’s Day. You work better with a deadline.”
She laughed, but it also made its own kind of ache that he knew her so well. “I didn’t want to talk about this tonight. I guess I’m glad we did.”
“It was time.” He leaned forward and kissed her, drew a smile. “Yes, we’re good,” he promised. He picked up the remote. “Find us a half-hour comedy. We need something to laugh at together.”
She was grateful. “Thanks.” She took the remote and began searching.
It helped, having said the words that she was okay with for now. Evie relaxed with Rob, enjoying the comfort he offered far more than the sitcom. She felt him idly twisting a lock of her hair around his finger even as he laughed with her. He was a good man—different in his priorities, his style of living, from her. But she could trust him with her heart, and that mattered most of all. If she wanted it, theirs would be a safe marriage for her. There was enormous appeal in that.
When their evening came to an end, he drew her into a hug at the door before walking her out to the car. “I love you, Evie. You know that.”
“Yes, I do.” She met his gaze, and the smile came easily. “I know that,” she repeated. “God blessed me with something truly extraordinary when you asked me out on that first date. I don’t doubt that.”
“Good.” They walked together to her car, where he took her keys to open the door, then kissed her good-night. “Text me when you arrive. When you’re halfway down the state, I don’t worry so much about you as when you’re driving across town. I know the drivers here, their bad habits.”
She laughed. “I will. Valentine’s Day is a definite, even if I have to haul myself back from the other end of the state.”
“Before that we’ll fit in a couple of dinners, lunches, walks—whatever is doable when we’re this close. I don’t apologize for wanting to make it as easy as possible for you to say yes.”
She tugged his head down and kissed him. “This matters too. I’ll see you.”
He helped her into the car, closed the door. Her return smile was a little shaky, but as she backed out, she was feeling lighter than she had been on the drive here, knowing a decision was coming . . . and when. This relationship would be settled in a matter of weeks, either moving toward a wedding or the mutual decision to move apart. Things wouldn’t be staying the same.
Finding a missing college student suddenly seemed like the much easier task.
“I didn’t expect you this early after your evening with Rob,” David said, entering the room with his mug of coffee plus one for her.
Evie glanced at the clock, saw it was just after eight. “I realized I wasn’t going to sleep in today, so I thought I might as well come in and sort some more names. Thanks for the coffee,” she added.
“I’m working through Saul’s suspended cases,” he said, “looking for one he might have shifted over to on his own time. Maybe he went from the card game in Englewood Saturday night to check out a lead on one of the suspended cases.” David gestured with his mug, not joining her at the desk as he sometimes did but not heading back to work either. “Your evening go okay?”
Evie heard in the question the “we’re partners” tone—interested without prying. She smiled at its camaraderie feel. “It was fine.”
“Hmm,” he said, looking at her more closely. “You’ve been crying.”
She had some, on the drive from her hotel, thinking about the frightening possibility she would make the wrong decision.
“No, it’s okay. He’d like me to decide what I want by Valentine’s Day.”
“Ahh.” David leaned against the wall, shifted his weight to get comfortable. “An interesting choice of day on his part. He really wants a yes.”
“I know.”
“Think about it, pray about it, decide,” he said, turning serious.
“If I’m distracted some the next couple of weeks, that will be why.”
“You’d like to push it aside for now, focus on work?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then from experience I suggest you find the thickest report that needs the most concentration and start reading there. While you do that, I’ll take a break and go get a box of Dilly Bars from the Dairy Queen so you can retreat to ice cream and chocolate whenever your mood needs a lift.”
Evie felt a small smile start near her heart. “That sounds wonderful.”
“Cold feet about marriage doesn’t mean it’s not the right decision,” he said, pushing away from the wall.
“I wish that was all this is. You’ve wanted to be married for years, and can’t. It must be odd, watching me struggle to make this step you’re eager to take when the door finally opens.”
He shook his head. “Maggie struggles to take the step to faith that I made so easily. You struggle over the step to get married. Different struggles, but from considering the two of you ladies, not so different at the core. Are you loved, can you love back, is it safe to commit to this forever relationship? You’re both surprisingly cautious, given each of your chosen careers.”
“When does Maggie get into town?”
“Thursday midmorning. She has the charity event Friday night, then it’s back to New York on Monday. She officially moves to Chicago at the end of the month, but movers will begin bringing furniture and belongings to the Barrington home in a few days.”
“Any ideas for a housewarming gift?” Evie asked.
“What she loves are flowers. Find something in a pot that reminds her of spring coming and you’ll hit the sweet spot. Anything else you need while I’m out?”
“I’m good.”
David lifted a hand and headed out.
Any one of the task-force members would have been good company, but David was particularly great, both for the work angle and her personal life. He liked people, liked her, and asked good questions. Evie took his advice. She sorted out the work on the desk and picked up the thickest document, the FBI report, and started reading.
Eleven
The morning’s sunlight was giving her a headache, and last evening’s discussion with Rob weighed on her concentration. Evie rubbed aching eyes as she studied the case board. She was probably overthinking this. It wasn’t hard to find cases that were similar to Jenna’s. She’d chosen fourteen from the FBI report from the last dozen years, plus she still had the three cases the original cops had thought sounded similar. The problem was narrowing it down further.
She was sure she had something here, yet there were too many cases to all be her guy. Two, maybe three, might be his. Assuming—and that was still a big reach—that Jenna hadn’t been a one-time-only crime.
Evie shook her head to try to jar her concentration back into focus. It was now nine o’clock on Saturday morning. She was certainly a touch sleep-deprived, not a good way to proceed to make significant decisions. She picked up her empty coffee mug to get a refill. The only positive thing at present was that none of the photos on the board showed much similarity to Jenna. She hoped that by going through the full files, she’d be able to eliminate at least half of the possibles, which would then leave her with much less to ponder.
“Evie.”
The urgency in David’s voice drew her into the conference room. “Got something?”
“Something,” he replied, paging through a thick folder. “Take a look at this.”
He slid the folder toward her and began thumbing through a stack of thinner folders. “You’re holding the research for one of Saul’s suspended cases,” he explained.
She opened it, found newspaper clippings, scanned through them, and halfway into them realized what David had. “Well, this is indeed interesting.” She was looking at newspaper accounts of Jenna’s disappearance.
“My PI was looking into your missing college girl.”
“Which case connected to it?”
David pulled out a smaller folder. “Tammy Preston. Give me a minute to read the details. I looked at these suspended cases earlier, but the red flag only went up when I saw that research folder.”
“Take your time—you’ve certainly got a captive audience. Are you going to finish that coffee?”
“Just poured, it’s yours,” David replied with a smile after a glance at her.
She nodded gratefully, drank most of it, and then began sorting through the other items in the folder. Articles on a Wisconsin high school football team and its star running back. Several Jane Doe remains discovered. A variety of announcements for musicals, theater performances, and concerts in Chicago during a two-week period eight years ago. Then the news on Jenna’s disappearance.
“This isn’t good.”
Evie looked up at the tone in David’s voice. She’d heard a lot of cops say those words over the years, and with that tone the words were underselling how bad it actually was.
“A Wisconsin family hired Saul to look for their missing daughter, thinking she might have traveled from Wisconsin to Chicago,” he murmured, studying a sheet in his hand. “She had a history of taking off, was of age, revolving boyfriends, living with a girlfriend rather than renting on her own. But she had always called, stayed in touch with the mom. Then it just went quiet. A pretty girl, but not striking. Five-foot-four, auburn hair, one hundred forty pounds. Twenty-one when she went missing.” He slid the photo to her. “Something about her led Saul to look up the newspaper articles on your Illinois college student. You’ve been looking at cases possibly related to Jenna. Is this girl one of those? Tammy Preston?”
“No, I don’t recognize the name or photo. But I can check the full FBI report and see if I passed over the name. Time-wise, do both our cases overlap? My girl went to a Triple M concert the night she disappeared. And now your PI looked into my missing girl?”
“Think God is trying to tell us something?”
Evie wondered, shook her head. “I don’t know anymore.”
“Tammy was last seen on a Sunday night. She had attended a concert two nights before.” David handed her the slimmer file. “Look at the band, page three.”
She turned pages. “‘A Triple M concert,’” Evie read, a sense of dread coming over her. She looked over at David. This bit hard.
“Yeah.” He sighed. “My PI suspended his investigation because the family had asked him to spend no more than five thousand dollars for his time, but he was on the scent of something telling him these cases were similar. He might have tagged onto the concert link. The parents were thinking their daughter had left on her own, had hooked up with a new boyfriend they would find questionable, but Saul was wondering if it wasn’t something else.”
Evie went back to the beginning of the folder, reading the paperwork in Saul’s neat handwriting. “‘Tammy wasn’t in college. That’s why she’s not on my board, why she didn’t get picked up in the search for similar cases years ago. But she’s the right age and lived near a college campus.’”
“The date she went missing puts her a year after Jenna.”
“That could fit.”
“After two years with no contact from her, the police elevated Tammy to a suspicious missing. Her body has never turned up.”
Evie took a deep breath, let it out. She was holding a case file that was likely also her guy. “Someone likes Maggie’s music, likes those who like Maggie’s music? Is he traveling around to her concerts, or is it any concert that attracts a college crowd?” she wondered. “Jenna Greenhill. Tammy Preston. Two missing college-age women, living within a hundred miles of each other, both attend a Triple M c
oncert the weekends they go missing. The raw numbers say it could be random, but it doesn’t feel random.”
“Find a third, it’s not random.”
She pushed back her chair. “I’ve got an Indiana case on the board that had a missing driver’s license, my best prospective match for Jenna. They had recovered a body days later. Let me go pull the full file.”
Evie sat at her laptop, found the FBI report and case number, figured out how to get from her Illinois police account over to the Indiana police database, then sent the full case report to her printer. She grabbed up the first ten pages, leaving the rest to print, and was reading as she walked back to the conference room. “Case highlights: Virginia Fawn, a student at Indiana University, went missing on a Saturday night. Body was found on Thursday three miles outside of town. Probably smothered. Her purse was near her body, cash and credit cards in her wallet, but no driver’s license.” Evie scanned the summary for more details. “Boyfriend repeatedly questioned. Where was she before she disappeared?” Evie searched the pages. “The day of her disappearance, a credit-card charge at Famous Eddie’s Burger Palace, 4:42 p.m., followed by a credit-card charge at State Fairgrounds, 6:12 p.m., for eighty-four dollars and change.”
“Stadium seating, forty bucks a seat plus tax,” David guessed.
“It sounds like a concert,” Evie agreed. “Let me get the rest of the report off the printer. Maybe the interviews will tell me what band was playing.”
“No need. I’ve already got it.” David had turned to his laptop and was searching the band website history page. “Triple M played at the Indiana State Fair, April 28, 2010.”
“A date match.” They stared at each other.
“Three cases,” David said, fury in his voice. “He’s been using Maggie’s concerts as his hunting grounds.”