“Yes.”
I frowned. “Uh, okay. How long has he been missing?”
“Since the night before last. Thursday night, to be exact.”
“Are you sure he isn’t just out of town for some perfectly innocent reason?”
“I’m sure. We had a… meeting… Thursday night, but he never showed.” She stared at her clenched hands.
“What kind of meeting?”
She looked up, red spears of color appearing on her high cheekbones. “Is that important?”
“Is there some reason you can’t tell me?”
Her eyes flickered. “Maybe.”
Maybe?
Her answer annoyed me, but I tried to ignore it. “Have you tried calling him?”
“Of course. Many, many times. It keeps going to voicemail.” She wrinkled her brow. “Liam always takes my calls.”
“Maybe he’s somewhere where they don’t have good cell reception.”
She lifted her chin. “Liam had no plans to go out of the area. He went to work as usual on Thursday morning but apparently never made it home.”
“How do you know that?”
“I… I went by his place Thursday evening, but his car wasn’t there.” She ran a hand over her pale blonde hair. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it.”
I didn’t know Liam well enough to know if blowing people off was his thing. What I did know was I had a murder investigation, and Liam James missing for a day didn’t really feel like an emergency to me. “I suggest you give it another day. He’ll probably turn up.”
She scowled. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“What would you like me to do, Angela?”
“I seem to remember you kicking into gearimmediatelythe minute Dr. Thornton went missing,”she hissed. “This is exactly the problem with you, Sheriff. You play favorites.”
“I’m not playing favorites.”
“Of course you are. You don’t like me or Liam James, and so you don’t care that he’s missing. But the minute you can’t find your boyfriend, you move heaven and earth to locate him. How is that not playing favorites?”
Heat touched my face. “I had my reasons for believing Dr. Thornton was in trouble. It was a very different scenario.”
“How convenient.”
“I guess you can think what you want, Angela,” I rasped.
She leaned forward, eyes wide. “Are you seriously just going to blow me off? I’m telling you something isn’t right. You need to listen to me, Sheriff. I demand you listen to me.”
I held her angry gaze. Her pompous tone and attitude made me want to tell her to go jump in a lake. It was true I’d leapt into action fast when Max went missing. Part of why I’d moved quickly, though, was because River and Max had always had an adversarial relationship. I’d known Max’s not calling or blowing off his meeting with River wasn’t possible. And most of all, I’d mobilized fast because Lucas had come to meadmittingRiver had kidnapped Max. If I tried to explain any of that to Angela, she wouldn’t listen. She didn’t care about the facts. She just wanted her way.
I studied her, struggling to do the right thing. If I pushed my pride away, there were small things I could do to check up on Liam. I could see if there had been any accidents between here and Dallas. I could check the hospitals. I could see where he’d last been when his cell pinged a tower. Did I want to do the rightthing though? Or was grinding her guts more important to me? The Raidens had a way of bringing out the worst in me.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to ask, “Is Liam dating anyone? Maybe he spent the night at their place.”
She relaxed slightly. “No. He’s not dating anyone.”
