“On it.” She stifled a yawn.
“No sleep last night, huh?”
Diana gave him a sorry smile. “I’m betting I got more than you did.”
“How does the saying go? We can sleep when we’re dead?”
“Don’t say that.”
“We’ll get through it. I’ll check back later.” Bobby leaned over her and brushed his lips to her forehead and then walked away.
Diana raised her hand to her forehead, touching her fingertips to the spot he’d kissed. As sweet as the gesture had been, she couldn’t help thinking how she wished he hadn’t done it.
How she wished he’d kissed her lips instead.
She shook the unhelpful thought from her mind and focused on the monitor. One missing person form after the next. So many women. How many were victims of violent death? At the hands of loved ones they trusted? At the hands of predators?
Diana understood the feeling of being prey. Even before she was kidnapped and hunted in the woods, she’d understood. From the time she was small, she’d been aware of men looking at her like a cat eyed a bird. At night she’d avoided going places alone. Even in daylight, if she heard footsteps behind her, her heart raced.
No doubt these women had felt that, too.
She scanned the missing persons description then scrolled down the page. Moving her eyes over license plate and vehicle information, she studied the section marked Other Information, a classification including the complainant, the reporting officer, and the clothing and jewelry the woman had worn when she’d disappeared
“Diana?”
She didn’t recognize the voice at first. It was so out of context. She turned around.
Louis Ingersoll peered into the office. “Hey.”
“Louis? What are you doing here?”
He didn’t meet her gaze; instead, he focused on her neck.
Diana’s hand flew to her throat. She clutched the delicate heart necklace in her fingers. “It’s from Sylvie. A gift for being in her wedding.”
His focus shifted to her eyes. He smiled.
She glanced at the conference room, hoping Bobby wouldn’t pick this moment to emerge, then repeated her question. “Why are you here?”
“I’m helping the police. Same as you.”
“Helping? How?”
“I saw a guy at our building the other day. You know, when you were there.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s fabulous, Louis.”
“I’m an important witness. Right now, some girl is fetching the guy in charge. Detective Perth?”
“Perreth.”
“Right. After I’m done here, want to get lunch?”
“Ah, I can’t—”
“Mr. Ingersoll?” a female officer called from the hall.
“That’s me.”
The officer peered into the aisle between cubicles. She gave Diana a smile then focused on Louis. “If you’ll follow me, Detective Vaughan will be right with you.”
His face flushed red, blending skin and freckles and hair. “I thought you were getting Perreth.”
“Detective Perreth left. But Detective Vaughan can—”
“Forget it.” Louis spun toward the exit.
“Wait.” Diana stood, calling after him. “It’s important, Louis. What you saw.”
“I want the man in charge, not your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend, Louis. We broke up.” Diana flinched. There she was, explaining things again.
“You used to talk to me, Diana. We talked all the time. What happened?”
What happened? How was she supposed to answer that? Louis’s feelings happened. He started looking at her as if he had a claim. He started acting as if he deserved an explanation for every decision she made. He started giving her gifts.
Diana felt bad for Louis, but what could she do to satisfy him, short of falling madly in love with him? Something that just plain was not going to happen.
“I heard you wanted to see me, Louis,” Bobby said, walking into the room with two cups of delicious-smelling coffee from the Starbucks across the street. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Louis pushed past Bobby and out the door.
“What was that about?” Bobby asked. He set one of the cups in front of Diana.
“Oh, good coffee. Thank you.” Diana took a sip then explained Louis’s story and his explosion over Perreth’s sudden absence.
“I know he’s your friend, Diana,” Bobby finally said. “What I don’t understand is why.”
Things might have changed between her and Louis in the past months, but it hadn’t changed so much that she didn’t remember exactly why she’d valued his friendship. “He never judged me.”
Bobby’s brows snapped upward. “And I did?”
“No. Not really. But I felt like I was letting you down just the same.”
“Letting me down? How? You never let me down.”
“I can see that now.” Bobby had thrived on helping her, taking care of her. The only person she had let down was herself. “I suppose my failings were mostly in my own head. But at the time, Louis seemed safe. It really never occurred to me that he wanted more than friendship. Not until after you and I broke up.”
“And then?”
“He started coming over to my apartment more. He’d stop to see me at the university every time the food service company he works for had a delivery downtown. And he started giving me gifts.”
“Don’t tell me he gave you a music box.”
“Very funny.” Diana waved away the joke. “A necklace. Emeralds.”
His gaze flicked to her throat, as if checking to see what jewelry she was wearing.
“I’ve never worn it. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.”
“You gave it back?”
She shifted in her seat. “I tried to.”
“But?”
Diana knew she should have insisted Louis take back the gift. But somehow, she couldn’t push it. “He just felt so fragile. So needy. I… I was afraid I’d break his heart.”
“Where is it now?”
“Home. I put it in my drawer and forgot about it.” At least she’d tried to forget. With Louis checking her throat nearly every time she saw him, she hadn’t much chance.
“He clearly sees you as his property.”
“And you sound like you think she’s yours.”
Both Diana and Bobby turned to the voice. Stan Perreth stood at the back of the office, as if he’d been there all along. And although his words were addressed to Bobby, he was looking straight at her.
***
By the time Sylvie and Bryce made it to Madison, it was past noon, so Diana and Bobby met them at a nearby restaurant for lunch. Diana was grateful to get out of the taskforce office. Perreth hadn’t said anything more and neither had Bobby. Both men had just gone back to work. But Diana had found the exchange disconcerting all the same.
Even though Sylvie had barely been gone, a lot had happened. Diana was anxious to hear what Sylvie and Bryce had learned about their brother, but it was Bobby who dropped the first bombshell.
“I did a little research this morning on your half-brother, Curt Tillman,” Bobby said, once the waitress had left them to their meals. “He has a criminal record.”
“Oh no,” Sylvie said out loud.
“He did eight years for manslaughter.”
Diana had never nurtured any idealistic illusions about family, not like Sylvie had. After all, she’d grown up under Norman Gale’s controlling thumb. But this? A birth father who was a serial killer? A half brother who, at the very least, had murdered a man? She could only imagine how hard this new revelation was on her sister. Especially now, when Sylvie needed all her strength to cope with the changes her body was going through.