Don't Look for Me(23)

Reyes nodded as though he got it—her need to be near any small part of her mother.

They turned right out of the diner and drove along Hastings Pass toward Route 7 and the Gas n’ Go. Reyes studied the fields on both sides. Brow furrowed. Eyes pensive.

“I’ve been up and down this road,” he said, glancing at the cornfields. “Must be a hundred times since your mother went missing. Every time, thinking about what we might have missed.”

Nic was surprised.

“I thought the investigation was closed.”

Reyes shrugged. “A woman is missing. Gone. I never met her. I barely know you or your family. But, I mean, what the hell? If a woman vanishes and it’s your job to find her—how does that not keep you up at night? Make you want to do something the next day? She can still be found, even if she doesn’t want to be. Those four days, everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off—how can it hurt to slow down and do a more methodical search? She has to be somewhere. And just because we don’t know where that is doesn’t make it unknowable.”

Reyes shifted in his seat, like he had felt a sudden wave of something uncomfortable inside him. Something he wanted to get out because it was hard to sit with. It shot through the air like electricity, and Nic suspected this was the very thing that drew people to him. The waitress. An old couple in the diner whose eyes followed him out the door. Even the car they passed back in town, a woman driving, waving at him. Big smile that she was hoping he would see.

Nic had come to know men, the things they found to lure women. There were those who didn’t have to try. Who couldn’t stop it if they wanted to. That was the attraction of Officer Jared Reyes.

Men like Reyes were almost as good as vodka.

They drove to the Gas n’ Go. Reyes pulled the car over and turned off the ignition.

“Is that her?” he asked.

A small white sedan was parked on the other side.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s got New York plates,” Reyes said. “Come on.”

They walked to meet Edith Moore as she stepped outside her car. She was in her late thirties, it seemed. Slacks, sweater, loafers. Short brown hair. Glasses. Her face wore the appropriate expression of empathy and eagerness.

“You must be Nicole,” she said, extending her hand. “Edith Moore. Nice to meet you.”

Her eyes moved quickly to Officer Reyes. Her expression changing. Nic hadn’t told her she was coming with the police.

“Jared Reyes,” he said with a nod. “Hastings PD.”

Edith Moore nodded as well. “I’m glad you came. I hope I can be helpful.”

“Well, let’s see,” Reyes said. “Take us through it. The night of the storm.”

They drove in the Chevy. Reyes in the front with Edith Moore. Nic in the back, dead center and leaning forward as far as she could to see through the windshield. They drove toward town on Hastings Pass for a mile and a quarter, then made a U-turn, driving slowly toward the intersection.

“This is about how fast I was going. It was all I could manage with the rain. I couldn’t see a thing beyond the headlights.”

“But you saw Molly Clarke somehow,” Reyes said.

“My lights caught her. The road is narrow. I could see both sides of it.”

When they were just before the mile marker Edith thought she remembered seeing, she pulled the car to the side. “It was right about here that I saw her, and then the truck coming from the other direction, heading into town.”

Nic went through the rest of it with her. The things she’d already said on the phone, about her mother and how she’d waved them down. And the purse with the three letters. Nothing they asked now brought forth any more detail—not about the truck or the driver.

“Can you be any more specific? The color, license plate, symbols, bumper stickers—anything?” Reyes asked.

Edith thought carefully. “It was dark in color, like I said. It might have been black, a very dark gray. Charcoal. But not a light gray … maybe dark brown, I can’t remember much else about it. The rain was coming so hard…”

But then another thought seemed to come over her as she was trying to recall the truck.

“You know,” she said. “Now that I’m here—there is something else. But I can’t be sure.”

Nic looked at her with urgency. “What is it?”

She paused, squinted her eyes, lifted her arm and pointed at the road.

“When I saw it drive off with your mother and it passed me, I looked at it through my rearview mirror. I’m not sure I saw two taillights. I think one might have been out. At the time I thought it was just a distortion from the rain. It was so heavy it was like looking through a pool of water. So I thought the two lights had just looked like one.”

Reyes studied her face. “And now?”

“Now,” she said. “I think it’s possible there was just one taillight.”

“Which one was out?”

Edith Moore shook her head. She didn’t know. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t get the plate number or the make and model. It wasn’t on my mind that I would need those things.”

Reyes was uncomfortably silent as he stared at Edith Moore. He seemed irritated, shifting into a more hostile stance.