Oliver Hale was long gone from Motham, she reminded herself.
And she was a professional senior staff member. A transfer to Motham wouldn’t be hard to arrange—there was nothing much for her to do here, as proven by the last three years of crushing boredom.
Poodle parlors versus missing persons cases. She let out a snort; it was a no-brainer.
And on top of that, the most recent missing person was her former best friend. She couldn’t leave it like that, pretend that the old times with Natalie didn’t mean anything. They’d been each other’s support team at school. Besides, the reason Natalie had wanted to work in Motham in the first place was niggling like a needle in Clare’s brain.
Natalie had always had a morbid fear of monsters. Why would that have changed? It didn’t make sense—it couldn’t be because Clare had gotten work in Motham. That seemed too simple somehow.
Lips pursed, she got up from the table, walked out of the interview room and into the open-plan office.
Ron was still sitting where she’d left him, slurping down another mug of coffee and reading a magazine, his feet on the desk. It was nearly midday, and she doubted he’d done a stroke of work since she left.
Probably because there was none to do.
The one job of any import was Mabel setting her own pooch parlor on fire. It was clear as the nose on Clare’s face that there were no other suspects. Writing that up would barely keep her occupied for a day, and then…
And then?
She stared at the phone on the desk. She knew the Motham PD’s number off by heart, she could just call Saul now. Tell him she’d take the job on a transfer.
Stop it. Get on with that fucking report.
Her brother and his wife and her little niece Poppy were coming to tea tonight. She’d let her heels cool, not make a rash decision. (Gods had she learned that from her one trip into spontaneity!)
She sat down at her desk. But instead of pulling up the incident report form, she pulled up Motham City online news.
She read the headlines avidly.
Twenty-eight-year-old human, Natalie Spriggs, a secretary at Viper and Skink accountants’ firm, is the latest suspected victim in the missing humans case. Reportedly she was last seen buying lunch at Bellamy’s baked goods, and left there at 1.10 pm. She took a call from her mother at 1.12 when the call was abruptly cut off. There has been no sighting since. Details have left police and security services baffled. The only common link in these cases is that there are no clues, no eyewitnesses—these humans are literally disappearing into thin air. If you have any information, please call the Motham Police hotline on 0303.
Try as she might, Clare couldn’t deny the buzz of excitement in her veins. This case was the kind of investigation she’d always dreamed of working on.
What’s more, she’d just promised Jo that she would do everything she could to find Natalie. She had to fulfil that promise.
Her chair scraped hard against the office floor as she jumped up. Ron looked up and popped his pale blue eyes at her.
“Something bite you, did it?”
She gave him a withering look. “I have to make an urgent call,” she muttered, grabbing her cell from her bag and striding out of the room to call Saul.
“I’m going back to work with Motham Police.”
Clare grasped her fork tightly as she uttered these words, staring down at her dinner plate, knowing that her mom, her dad, her brother Adam and his wife Trina were all eyeballing her.
Adam and Trina’s baby girl, Polly, was the only one who let out a little crow of delight. Totally unrelated, but still, it made Clare smile.
“I thought you hated working in Motham,” Adam said.
Glancing back at her plate, she played with her fork. “I didn’t hateallof it.” She’d never told them why she’d been so vehement about leaving Motham. Instead, she’d just told her family she couldn’t hack the lack of morals in the place. The lack of morals of one particular individual, at least. She cleared her throat. “I’ve just found out that Natalie Spriggs was one of the missing humans.”
“Natalie?” Her father’s brows ruffled. “Your old buddy?”
Clare nodded.
“Oh, the poor girl!” her mom burst out, horrified.
“What was Natalie doing in Motham?” her dad asked. “She got pretty upset when you took a job there, didn’t she?”
