David screws up his face. “She’s my girlfriend,” he says, as if that’s answer enough.
The detective’s eyebrows arch questioningly. I’m watching her watch him. Did she catch him lick his lips or run his hand through his hair? Something tells me Baker sees all and then some.
“What I’m really wondering is if you two had any recent arguments or relationship troubles?” Baker continues. “Anything that might make herwantto take off without saying goodbye?”
I’m thinking:Hell, yes,but David’s blank expression veils his emotions.
“No, not really. I mean, she drank a lot last night. She wasn’t herself, so we had a little heated discussion outside, but it was no big deal.”
I figure the detective will pounce on the fight that David tried to downplay, but to my surprise she goes in a different direction. It’s almost like I can hear alarm bells ringing in her head.
“From my experience, alcohol and water do not mix,” Baker says gravely.
“She hates lake water,” David says. “She’d never go swimming.”
“When people drink, they often say one thing but do another. We need to search the lake—now.”
Baker gets on her cell phone.
“Hey, Tom,” she says. “I’m at the Dunne residence following up on the missing person report.” She gives the address. “We need three divers on the scene ASAP to search for a body in the water. Yeah, that’s right. The missing woman is Fiona Maxwell. Last knownwhereabouts were this address. Evidently, she had a lot to drink last night and may have gone for a swim. The boyfriend says he’s called the cell, and it goes to voicemail, but let’s try to get a last known location on it—you know how to do the paperwork. And send a K-9 unit, too. Maybe we get lucky, and she had enough common sense to stay on land.”
Baker ends the call, but her expression remains somber.
“I’m sure you’re worried, but let’s have faith. We need to let the search teams do what they do best and hope we find Fiona alive and well. Do you know how to reach her family? Someone should let them know what’s going on. And who knows, maybe she’s been in contact with them.”
David draws his mouth into a straight line. He appears to shrink before me. “No… I’ve no idea about her family,” he admits.
“What about where she’s from?”
“She’s got a place in New York. That’s all I know.”
“Are you even Facebook friends?”
David shook his head. “I don’t think she’s on social media.”
“I see,” says Baker, but if she thinks like I do, she finds it odd that a young woman would have no social media accounts. “What about an employer?” Baker continues. “Anybody she might check in with?”
Again David shook his head. “She’s self-employed, so no.”
Baker pauses, waiting for him to elaborate, but David leaves it at that. Based on his earlier responses, there’s a good chance he has no idea how Fiona makes money, and he probably doesn’t care.
Baker is as unimpressed as I am. “I see,” she says, looking at her pad of paper, but she has very little to write down. “You mentioned things got a bit heated last night. Can you tell me more about that?”
David shifts his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. “It was nothing. Just a little misunderstanding, that’s all.”
I cough. It’s a reflex reaction. I didn’t mean to call attention to myself, but bullshit doesn’t go down easily.
Detective Baker whirls around. I try to make myself invisible.No shocker, it doesn’t work. I’m frozen like a thief caught in a spotlight.
“Didyouhear anything last night?” Baker asks, stepping toward me.
From over her shoulder, I catch David’s eyes harden.
My heart skips a beat. I’m afraid to say the wrong thing. I still need this job, but I have no interest in protecting my boss or endorsing his lies with one of my own.
“I mean, no, not really.” I hate how my voice shakes. Even though I’m telling the truth, I fear I sound deceitful. “I was too far away to pick up their conversation, so I can’t say what it was about, but they both sounded kind of upset.”
Upset.There. Now, that’s a fine word choice. I could have saidinfuriated, wrathful,orirate,which would have all been accurate. Butupsetsays enough. David can elaborate from here, and Detective Baker isn’t going to let him squirm out of it.
