Don't Look for Me(63)

Nic pulled away.

“What if it’s not that? What if he knows where her body is? And that’s why he knew it was safe to wait. That no one else would find her and that she…”

“Stop,” Reyes said. “Don’t let yourself go there.”

But Nic had to say it out loud.

“No one else would find her because she’s dead.”

Reyes reached in his pocket and took out a piece of paper. It was a copy, white on one side and folded in quarters. He held it out for Nic.

“What’s this?” She took the paper and unfolded it. It was some kind of invoice, something billed to the police department.

“I wanted to close the door on the truck with the missing taillight. I wanted to close the door on the chief. Move on to another truck. Another theory. Maybe the property with the fence.”

Nic looked closer at the receipt. It was for thirty-seven dollars and change. Billed from an auto parts store in Waterbury.

The item on the invoice was listed only as a number.

“That number,” Reyes explained, “it’s for a taillight bulb and cover—fitting a Chevy Silverado.”

Nic grabbed her phone and pulled up the photo of Chief Watkins’s truck.

“Watkins drives a Silverado,” she said, staring at the photo of the truck that may have picked up her mother. “You think he fixed it himself?”

“Yeah. Which means he knew someone saw him, saw the truck that night. Otherwise he’d have gone to the auto body shop right in town. And he didn’t drive that truck the whole time you and your father were here searching for your mother. I didn’t think much of it, but…”

“Now it fits.”

“Which means,” Reyes continued the thought, “that Edith Moore probably did see your mother that night. She told her boyfriend she was going to New York to meet friends. Then came to see Kurt—maybe they’re lovers. The storm rolled in and she knew she had to get out of it so she didn’t get trapped here. She waited until the last minute, then drove toward Route 7.”

Nic picked it up from there. “She saw Chief Watkins pick up my mother, but she thought nothing of it. Then the next time she saw Kurt, he mentioned the missing woman and she told him what she saw.”

“That could have been the next day or a few days ago. Look, Kurt Kent may be a loser bartender, but I don’t see him plotting such a complicated crime. It could be that everything Edith Moore said is true, except for the small detail that she was here visiting Kurt before the storm.”

“What about the purse? And the letters?”

“She could have seen them. We can’t know without recreating the scene.”

“And Watkins?” Nic asked now.

“I know…”

“What did he do with my mother?”

Reyes started the ignition and pulled away from the curb.

“Let’s find out,” he said. “First, we get your car. Then we find the chief and ask him straight up what’s going on.”

Nic felt a wave of relief.

Reyes was right about everything. Kurt Kent was not a bad man. Edith Moore was just lying to her boyfriend, that was all. Maybe she had come forward as soon as she found out about Nic’s mother—or maybe she waited to make sure she was the one to get the reward money. But either way, it didn’t mean they knew where her mother was. Only what Edith Moore had seen.

It was Watkins with his truck. The broken taillight. No way that was a coincidence.

Edith Moore saw her mother get in that truck. Watkins’s Silverado.

Watkins was the one who knew where her mother was.

Reyes was smiling now. “You feel better? Your breathing has slowed.”

Nic smiled back. “I think she’s alive. I think Watkins drove her somewhere. Helped her leave. I don’t even care that she walked away, or why she did it.”

Reyes patted her knee. “I know. And we will get her…” He stopped speaking but Nic could tell he was holding something back.

“What?” she asked.

“I found something else. On your father’s credit card statements.”

“Just tell me.” Nic braced herself for what she knew was coming.

“There are some hotel charges. Local ones, in your town.”

Nic stared out the window, feeling the traces of hope leave her. “I knew, but I still didn’t believe it. Not completely.”

“There’s one other charge that I can’t explain. At a gas station near West Cornwall.”

“That’s just south of here. When was that?”

Reyes didn’t answer. And then he didn’t need to.

“The same day. The day she disappeared,” Nic said.

“Look, maybe it was her—the charges are on the same statement.”

“But then she wouldn’t have run out of gas,” Nic said. “If she’d filled up in West Cornwall, she would have made it well past Hastings coming home.”

Reyes was silent again. He’d come to the same conclusion.

“This can’t be right,” Nic said.

“I can call them, find out the exact time of the charge.”

Nic closed her eyes, hard. This couldn’t be happening. Her father couldn’t be involved.

“Do you want me to call?” Reyes asked.