“By that question, I guess it’s safe to assume that she’s not?” I ask.

  “Destiny is nothing like her mother because she is strong and funny. But she’s definitely not quiet. This girl is loud and opinionated. She’s got a dirtier mouth on her than most of the guys I know. She’s a sweetheart, don’t get me wrong. But she’s definitely not some fragile little rose. Half the time her phone is in the room because her mother calls her so much and she doesn’t feel like answering when she’s out. I don’t know for sure, but I think she has a burner that she brings around with her.”

  “You didn’t have the number?”

  “No. We get along really well. I like hanging out with her. But we are not the kind of roommates who check in on each other all the time. She does her thing, and I do mine. If we’re going to hang out, we talk about it while we’re in the room and make plans. Both of us come from pretty similar backgrounds in that our parents like to tell us what to do all the time. All the time.”

  “And since you’re in college now, you don’t want to deal with that,” I say.

  “Is that such a bad thing?”

  “Not at all. I think it’s exactly what you should be doing. So from what I got from Josephine, Destiny is super shy and spends most of her time studying. Why don’t you tell me how you know her?”

  “She studies, for sure, but she also goes out a lot. It’s not unusual for her to stay out all night. We first met during an orientation weekend before school started.”

  “Last semester?”

  “Yeah. It was late July. All the incoming freshmen came to campus and stayed in their dorm rooms for the weekend so that we could get to know our roommates and look around. That’s the first time that I met her mom. I met her dad too. He seemed a lot calmer than her, but still pretty protective. Destiny was all prim and proper when they were here, but as soon as they were gone, it was like she flipped a switch. We hung out that Friday night, then she went out Saturday and didn’t come back until Sunday.”

  “Do you have any idea where she went?” I ask.

  “No.”

  This contrast between the way Josephine is describing Destiny and Natalie’s perception of her is not surprising. It’s not even totally unexpected. A lot of parents have warped ideas of who their children are, especially when they first leave home for college. It does create more of a challenge though. With the two very different ideas of who she is and the life she’s been living, it will be harder to track exactly what was going on before she disappeared and what might have happened to her.

  “Did she tell you about any plans that she had for the weekend before you went out of town?” I ask.

  “Not really. She said she was hanging out with some people. We don’t really have any friends in common, so I didn’t get any details.”

  “I know you explained her phone being in the room, but what about her other stuff? Josephine told me that everything was still here. What does that mean exactly?”

  “Her makeup. Her clothes. Her purse. That’s how her mom has her ID to get into the building. She didn’t have anything with her when she left.”

  The door opens, and Josephine and Noah come back in.

  “Thank you for your help,” I say to Natalie.

  I leave, and Noah and Josephine follow close behind.

  “What are you going to do?” Josephine asks. “You have to find her.”

  “We are going to look for your daughter. For right now, what you can do is find out any information from what you have access to. Look at her financial records. Call the phone company and ask for those records.”

  “I already have them. I’m on her bank account and her phone plan. She hasn’t used her debit card at all. And her phone hasn’t left the dorm.”

  “Okay, that’s a start. Let us do our job, and we will keep you updated as much as we possibly can,” I say.

  “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”

  “That’s all I have right now. I understand how upset you are. And I’m very sorry that you’re having to deal with this. But all we can do is take the investigation one step at a time. We need to find out when she left the dorm that night and see if we can trace her movements. Are you staying at a hotel?” I ask.

  “I got a short-term rental in the city.”

  “Good. Go back and try to relax. We will get in touch with you as soon as we have something to share,” I say.

  Josephine looks frustrated, but Noah and I walk back to the car.

  As soon as we get inside, I tell him what Natalie told me.

  “There’s something else going on. I don’t know if it has anything to do with Brianna or Haley, but I can tell you right now this will not turn out well for Destiny.”

  We’ve just made it back to the police station when I get a call from Dean.

  “Hey,” I say. “Good to hear from you. What’s up?”

  “I’m in Stoneville,” he says. “I had a meeting with a client about twenty minutes from here, so I thought I would stop in and see you. Want to grab some lunch?”

  “That sounds great.”

  I ask Noah if he wants to join us, but he sends me on my way, and I go to meet Dean at the bakery. As I am walking toward the door, I’m surprised to see Owen. Dean’s son grins as I throw my arms open for a hug.

  “This is a surprise. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “Pops thought it would be fun to surprise you. I wanted to introduce you to Jenna.”

  I’ve heard Owen talk about his girlfriend for a while now, but this is the first time I’m actually meeting her. That feels significant.

  A pretty girl with chestnut hair comes over and smiles at me. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she says.

  “You too,” I say. “I’m glad to finally meet you.”

  “Are you even going to say hello to me?” Dean asks.

  I laugh and hug my cousin. “Come on, let’s go inside. It’s cold out here.”

  We step into the bakery, and Dean looks around. “This place is cute.”

  “I said the same thing.”

  “You’ve been here?” he asks.

  “Hey, Emma,” Scarlet says, coming out of the kitchen.

  “I pretty much live here now.”

  We walk up to the counter and order food, then head to my usual table and sit down. It’s a different experience with so many people at the booth, but I’m glad to see a little segment of my family. There is a very obvious void however.

  “Xavier’s not with you?” I ask.

  “Cupcake found a yarn store,” he says.

  “Ah. Well, maybe I’ll get a chance to see them when she comes up for air.”

  “We’ll actually be in town for a few days. Cupcake wanted to do some of the historic spots around. I know you’re busy, but maybe we can hang out a little,” he says.

  “‘Busy’ is an understatement. But it’s so good to see you guys. How’s Heather?”

  “Great. The bed-and-breakfast is constantly full. She has a waiting list. She actually just filled her last reservation for Christmas.”

  “That’s amazing. I’m glad it’s doing so well,” I say.

  “Me too. I know she was worried that the initial success was just because of all the media attention from the murders. I tried to convince her that it’s an amazing place and people will want to stay there even without the true crime tour. Hopefully, she’s starting to see that now.”

  “What are you working on?” Owen asks.

  I give him an overview of the original case and the threads that are starting to come off it. When our food comes, I push all conversation of work aside and focus on just enjoying the meal with them. It is over much too fast, and a text from Noah sends me back to the police station.

  As I’m leaving, Xavier and Cupcake come down the sidewalk toward me holding hands. I hug them both.

  “I wish I could stay. I have to get back to the police station, but we’ll get together.”

  “Dean, did you eat without me?” Xavier asks as Dean comes out of the bakery.

  “You were at the yarn store.”

  “I picked out yarn for you,” he says.

  “And I got a croissant sandwich and potato salad for you.”

  I smile. It’s good to see some things never change.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut your time with them short. I know you don’t see them anywhere near as often as you used to,” Noah says when I get back to the station.

  “It’s okay. I’ll see them again soon. This is important. What’s going on?”

  “I got the reports back from the night Haley disappeared. There were no other reports of something specific like what Aaron described, but there was a call about a man harassing some women in a bar. The description they gave sounds exactly like what Aaron said.”

  “Show me,” I say.

  He gives me a copy of the report. In it, a woman named Cassie describes being out with her group of friends at a bar and a man harassing her. She told the police that he had physically touched her even after she told him she wasn’t interested. When somebody at the bar started to intervene and she threatened to call the police, he left, but she still wanted to put in the report.

  The description that she gave—a tall man with broad shoulders and dark hair—is generic enough. But it lines up exactly with what Aaron described and also what I heard from Scarlet. At this point, I am far from accepting that it’s just a similar-looking person.

  “A note attached to the report says there’s evidence,” I say.

  “Yeah, a video clip from inside the bar. It’s not very clear, but it shows what she was describing.”

  Noah turns a laptop toward me and starts playing a video. It is grainy and black and white, a far-outdated system even for a few years ago. But it’s not all that unusual for security at a bar. The position of the camera means the footage is at an angle.

  At first I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking at, but then I notice a group of young women, probably all in their early to mid-twenties, standing near the bar. A tall, muscular man walks toward them and says something to one of them, who I am assuming is Cassie. She shakes her head and turns her back on him. He tries to say something else, but she ignores him. The man walks away and sits at a table nearby, sipping a beer.

  A few minutes later, he gets back up and goes back over to her. She again rebuffs him, and he goes back to the table. When the group of women starts dancing, he walks over and gets in the middle of them. He suddenly reaches out and wraps his arms around Cassie, pulling her up against him to try to dance. She is obviously displeased by the attention and tries to push away from him, but he holds her firmly. Her friends start to pull him away, and he finally lets her go. A couple of guys approach them, and he heads for the door.

  “You can’t even see his face clearly,” Noah says.

  “Play that again,” I say.

  There’s something in the video I need to see again. Noah scrolls back and replays it.

  “There,” I say, pointing at the screen.

  He pauses it. “What?” he asks.

  “Run it back a few seconds. Just that little part. Watch the window behind them.”

  He goes through it again, and I point. As chaos starts to unfold on the dance floor, someone passes by the window. Because of the camera’s angle, there is a clear view of her face and the outfit she’s wearing.

  “That’s Haley Young,” Noah says.

  “Yeah. She passes by the bar right before this guy leaves. Only a couple of streets down is the place Aaron said they were when he saw the guy following her.”

  “We really need to find out where Destiny Lewis was Friday night.”

  We delve into trying to piece together a timeline of Destiny’s activities after she last spoke with her mother. While I scroll through social media, trying to find businesses in the area that might have cameras showing her movements, Noah contacts campus security. He’s trying to see if any disturbances or harassment lining up with what we have found have been reported. We already know that she left the dorm around ten Friday night, but from there, we don’t know anything else. The footage from the dorm cameras only shows her walking across the patio and turning left.

  When Noah comes back, I point out a gas station on the corner.

  “She went there after leaving the dorm,” I tell him. “She paid for two sodas with cash. The manager said that he has footage of her walking out of the store, and it looks like she was talking to somebody, but he doesn’t have any footage showing where she was standing. I’m going over there to look at it myself.”

  “Before you do that, you might want to stop by campus police,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “I just spoke with one of the officers who told me that he has had contact with Destiny.”

  “For what?”

  “He described it as suspicious behavior. Essentially, she was out in the middle of the night roaming around some abandoned buildings. Not actually inside them, but near enough that it looked like she had either just come out or was planning on going inside. That happened twice. Another time, building security called them because she was locked out of the dorm building and seemed drunk,” he says.

  “‘Seemed drunk’? They didn’t test her? She’s seventeen years old.”

  “Apparently, they thought it was easier to just get her into the dorm, give her a strict warning, and move on,” he says.

  “They didn’t contact her parents?”

  “No. Since they didn’t have proof that she was committing actual crimes, they did not inform her parents. They also let me know that there’ll be a vigil out in front of the dorm this evening,” he says. “It starts in about an hour.”

  “That should give us time to talk to the police first.”

  Meeting with campus police doesn’t give me a ton of new information. I read the reports of their contact with Destiny and see the officer was very lackadaisical about the interaction. On both occasions, when he found her near the abandoned buildings, he described that she was just hanging around. There was no sign that she was drinking or doing any drugs. He didn’t see any other people. She was just there, and he had the suspicion that she had either come out of the building or was entering it, but he didn’t actually see her enter.

  The second time it happened, he went inside to make sure that everything was secure, and he didn’t notice any problems. By the time he came out of the building, she had left. Even though there are only a few details to go on, I find this bit interesting. I tuck the information in the back of my mind as we head to the dorm for the vigil.

  People have gathered around the patio and are holding candles in cups. The sun hasn’t fully set yet, but it’s still a striking vision. It is also extremely familiar. I have been to so many gatherings like this. So many times I have stood beside family, friends, and even total strangers worried about a missing person or mourning a death. It’s a scene that repeats itself over and over, a marker of tragedy. When things like this happen, people want to come together. They draw strength from one another and mark these moments with a symbol of strength and solidarity.

  And yet there’s also deep sadness and vulnerability about it. Standing close together with candles as darkness gathers around them carries the feeling of fear and desperation. Beneath the surface intention of the candles being memorials and bringing light to chase away the darkness, there is the underlying current of being afraid of what the darkness holds and clinging to the light to try to avoid it.

  I’m surprised to see Christine and Kenneth Wright among the attendees. I walk up to them, and Christine offers a trembling smile.

  “I was hoping you would be here,” she says.

  “Have you found out anything?” Kenneth asks.

  “Ken,” Christine says under her breath, “that’s not why we’re here.”

  “It’s exactly why we’re here. Our daughter is still missing. How long is it going to take?”

  “Everybody!” a voice calls out over the crowd.

  I look over and see Natalie standing on one of the picnic tables.

  “I just want to say thank you everybody for coming tonight. I know we’re all thinking about Destiny. But it’s not just about her. This is for all of the women who can’t walk home in the dark. It’s for all of the missing and all of the lost.”

  A cheer rises up through the people, a somewhat odd reaction, but one that I can’t really think of a good alternative to. Natalie climbs down from the table, and Josephine hugs her. Natalie points in my direction, and they walk toward me. I greet them and gesture to Christine and Kenneth.

  “These are Brianna Wright’s parents,” I say.

  I’m expecting a show of empathy. Instead, Josephine’s face goes dark, and her posture hardens.

  “Why are you here?” she asks.

  Christine’s expression drops. “What?”

  “Why are you here?” Josephine repeats.

  “Our daughter is missing,” Kenneth says.

  “I know all about your daughter. I looked her up. My daughter isn’t anything like yours. My little girl is an angel who didn’t deserve anything to happen to her.”

  “Are you saying Brianna did?” Christine asks, obviously horrified.

  “Okay,” I say, trying to step in between the two women. “We don’t need to do this. This is not the place.”

  “Your daughter was out partying all the time and doing who knows what with Lord knows who. Destiny never would have stepped foot in a place like Fallout Zone.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kenneth asks.

  I’m surprised to hear Josephine mention the club. “Josephine, come over here and talk to me,” I say.

  “I’ve seen the pictures. She was in there half-naked dancing all over people. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “That’s enough,” I say firmly.

  Kenneth wraps his arm around his wife’s shoulders and turns her away. She’s sobbing as he guides her off the patio. By now, everybody at the vigil is looking at us. Natalie’s eyes are wide. I step off to the side, and Josephine follows.

  “How could they be here?”

  “I know you’re going through something extremely difficult right now. But there’s no excuse for you to talk to them that way. They are missing their daughter too. And I know what pictures you’re talking about, and they are not nearly as bad as you just made them out to be. And even if they were, there’s no excuse for you to try to vilify a teenage girl who is missing.”