I look at the picture on the phone and see a pretty woman who looks many years younger than her years. Just like her daughter described, she has the hood of a sweatshirt pulled up over her head, so only a small amount of the pale blond hair shows up around her face.

  “She’s up there on those shelves too,” Bruce says, gesturing at the built-in bookshelves.

  I walk over the shelves, and Xavier hops up to stand beside me and look at the pictures. Marcy is wearing a hoodie in most of the pictures, but there are a couple that show her without them. I memorize her face so I know who I’m looking for and thank Bruce and Stephanie.

  “I’m going to go see if I can speak with Detective Bronson now,” I say. “I’ll keep you updated on everything I’m able to find out.

  “Thank you,” Bruce says. “Please find her.”

  “I’ll let you know what I find out,” I say, carefully skirting around the plea.

  “What are you going to do?” Xavier asks when we’ve left the house and are climbing into the car.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “What are you going to do?” he repeats. “What do you think is going on?”

  “I’m going to go talk to the detective like I said I was going to,” I tell him. “I want to know what they have to say before I really decide. If this woman isn’t really missing, if she has just decided that she needs some time away from her usual life and her husband, then that’s her right, and I’m not going to interfere. But I don’t know enough yet to know that. Usually, someone doing that would be back, or at least would’ve made contact with someone, in a shorter time than this. I just need to find out more.”

  Rather than calling the detective ahead of time, I drive directly to the department. Xavier and I go inside, and I walk up to the reception desk.

  “Dean Steele for Detective Peter Bronson,” I say.

  “Just a moment,” the receptionist says and calls back to the back.

  A few seconds later, a man walks out of the back and glances at the receptionist for confirmation before coming toward me with his hand extended.

  “Detective Peter Bronson,” he says. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m Dean Steele. I’m a private investigator,” I tell him. “This is Xavier. I was contacted by Clayton Bassinger about Marcy Bassinger’s disappearance.”

  “Yes,” he says without hesitation. “Why don’t we go back to my office?”

  “That would be great,” I tell him.

  We follow the detective to the back of the department and into a sparse office. We sit down as he settles across a desk from us.

  “You say that Clayton contacted you?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I tell him. “I just came from Bruce’s house, and I met Stephanie. She mentioned that she spent some time with you today talking about the case.”

  “She did,” he says. “She didn’t mention that the family had reached out to a private investigator. Especially not one of your caliber.” He must have seen the quizzical look on my face because Detective Bronson smiled. “I recognize your name. You’ve worked on some high-profile cases.”

  “The highest-profile ones are mostly me helping my cousin,” I say.

  “The FBI agent,” he says.

  “That’s right. Emma Griffin. She’s the one with the real reputation.”

  He chuckles. “That’s probably true. Either way, I didn’t know that the family was considering reaching out to a private investigator.”

  “Stephanie didn’t know,” I tell him. “Clayton reached out to me without confirming it with his father or his sister. She wasn’t particularly pleased when she came to the house and I was there. She said she was working with you and was handling things that way. Which was pretty much the same sentiment Bruce had before I spoke with him.”

  “Is he on board now?” the detective asks.

  “He is,” I say. “And I hope that you’ll be willing to accept my help and work with me on this.”

  Getting the cooperation of the police always makes my cases easier. It gives me access to the information they have that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to get, and it gives me a head start on my investigation rather than starting completely from scratch.

  “What do you know about the case so far?” he asks.

  “Not much. Bruce told me he and Marcy got into an argument the day that she disappeared. Apparently, both of her children and her husband tried to get in touch with her over the rest of the day and the next morning, but she wouldn’t answer or reply, so they reached out to the police to report her missing. Clayton doesn’t think that his mother would do anything like this. He seems very confident something is seriously wrong. Bruce insists he doesn’t know anything about it and doesn’t have anything to do with it, but he says he’s sure people are going to suspect him,” I say.

  “That’s not far from the truth, I suppose,” the detective says. He extends his hand to me. “I would be grateful for your help.”

  “Thank you,” I say, shaking his hand.

  “If there’s anything to help with, that is,” he says.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure anything is really going on, to be honest with you,” he says. “I think she just left to cool off for a bit and will be back. Maybe Clayton is thinking only about how long it’s been, but she’s done things like this before. Stephanie told me that she had left for several hours or even a couple of days before and came back on her own acting like things were just fine.”

  “Does that mean you aren’t actively investigating her disappearance?” I ask.

  “No, we are,” he says. “Since she has been gone for a few days at this point and there’s been no personal contact with her, we are trying to trace her movements and get answers for the family. To be honest, it isn’t very much. Right now, we know she got money out of her bank account and she made a reservation at a local hotel. That tells me she just wanted some time away from her husband after a big argument and decided to treat herself to a little bit of a getaway.”

  “How do you know about the bank and the hotel?” I ask.

  “We have security footage of her getting money out of the ATM and did cold calls to the hotels around the area to find out if any reservations were made in her name. We got lucky with that one.”

  “Can I see the security footage for the ATM?” I ask.

  “Absolutely. Give me just a minute,” he says. “Can I get either of you something to drink while I’m getting it?”

  “Coffee would be great,” I say.

  “Water,” Xavier requests.

  Detective Bronson gives an acknowledging nod and leaves the office. He’s back not too long later with our drinks and a tablet to show me the footage. There’s nothing interesting about the footage. It shows a car pulling up to a drive-through ATM, the window rolling down, and an arm coming out. The face of a woman framed with a hood is briefly visible as she leans to put her card into the machine and input her personal identification number. She sits back for a second, then reaches for the money and accepts her card back from the machine. The window rolls up again, and the car drives away.

  “Can I see it again?” I ask.

  I watch through the footage again, trying to see anything unusual in how she’s acting or anything that happens, but the entire transaction looks smooth and without hindrance. Marcy doesn’t seem bothered or like she’s stressed in any particular way. She just accepts her money and drives casually away. The footage isn’t particularly clear, so I can’t see the expression on her face, but she doesn’t try to give any signal to the camera that she is in distress, doesn’t seem shaky or nervous, and I can’t see anyone else in the car.

  “It seems like she was just getting money,” I say.

  “That’s what I thought too,” the detective says. “She doesn’t look like there’s anything going on. She’s just grabbing cash, probably because she thought that maybe her husband would freeze her card or close their joint account or something because he was angry about their argument.”

  “Did you find out anything from the hotel?” I ask.

  “I haven’t spoken with them yet,” he says.

  “I can do that,” I tell him.

  “That would be great,” he says.

  “Perfect. We’ll go there right now.”

  Detective Bronson gave me the details of the hotel manager, so I am able to ask for her directly when Xavier and I arrive at the hotel.

  “I’m Kaila Jenkins,” a woman in a dark-blue suit, with her dark hair hanging to her shoulders, says as she comes out of her office after the clerk went to get her. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Possibly. My name is Dean Steele. I’m a private investigator. I’m looking into the disappearance of Marcy Bassinger. Detective Peter Bronson gave me your information. He told me that Marcy has a reservation here,” I say.

  “Yes. I can confirm that she did make a reservation, but I can’t give you her room number without a warrant.”

  She doesn’t realize that she just provided me with more information than she intended to. Xavier and I briefly exchange a glance. He caught it too. That means that Marcy is still here.

  “That’s perfectly fine,” I tell her. “I just wanted to ask if your security cameras caught her checking in, entering, or leaving the hotel at any point. We are very concerned about making sure that she is healthy and in good condition. Seeing her, even on the footage, would be extremely helpful.”

  “I haven’t checked the footage. You say that you are working with a detective?” she asks.

  “Yes. My investigation is in cooperation with the investigation through the police department. I am working directly with Peter Bronson. He intended on coming here to speak with you himself but entrusted it to me, so he gave me your information,” I say.

  She seems to think about this for a few moments and then nods, resigned to giving me the information.

  “I can have the security officer bring up the footage for you and see if you can identify her. I do know that she used online check-in, so she didn’t have to visit the front desk when she arrived. I don’t know if that will make a difference in your ability to find her on the footage,” she says.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  She contacts the security officer, and soon Xavier and I are in his office, scrolling through the footage from the day that Marcy checked into the hotel. We know what time she used the online check-in system, and it doesn’t take long for us to see a figure enter the hotel in a hooded sweatshirt. Carrying a duffel bag, she goes straight by the front desk and into the elevator. The camera inside the elevator is focused on the top of her head, but just before stepping out, Marcy looks up directly at it.

  “That’s her,” I point out to the security guard. “That’s Marcy Bassinger. Can you look for her for the rest of the day and up until today?”

  The guard scrolls through the footage to make it go by faster to try to capture more images of Marcy. We see her come downstairs over the next day and a half to accept food deliveries, leaving, and coming back in twice.

  “Did we miss her leaving?” I ask when I see her come in for the second time. “Did I not see her?”

  “I didn’t see her either,” the guard says. “She must have used a side entrance. They don’t have cameras.”

  “How about the stairs?” I ask.

  “No cameras in the stairs,” he tells me. “Just in the elevator.”

  We scroll all the way through until today’s footage but don’t see Marcy anymore.

  “Can we see that again?” I ask.

  He goes through each of the sightings again. In all of them, Marcy is wearing a hooded sweatshirt or jacket, just like her family told me she would be, but no one interacts with her. The food is sitting at the edge of the counter, and she simply picks it up and goes back to the elevator. I already know that the manager of the hotel isn’t going to give me any more information about her room or let me check on her, so I tuck away the information I got from seeing the footage and go back to thank Kaila Jenkins before leaving the hotel.

  Rather than going straight back to the police department to talk to Detective Bronson again, I call Bruce Bassinger.

  “Hi, Bruce,” I say. “I have a few things I’d like to talk to you, Stephanie, and Clayton about. Would we all be able to meet somewhere?”

  “They’re here at my house,” he tells me. “You can come back over here.”

  “That would be great. Thank you,” I say. “I’ll be there soon.”

  Xavier and I grab a quick bite to eat on the way to Bruce’s house, and as we’re eating, Xavier looks over at me.

  “She wasn’t trying to hide that she was there,” he says.

  “Marcy?” I ask.

  “Yes. She used online check-in and didn’t have to give an ID at the desk, but she went right through the front door and used the elevator. She didn’t care if anyone saw that she was there. She wasn’t trying to hide it at all.”

  “She did use the side entrance at least once,” I point out.

  “Which could just mean that she parked over there and it was more convenient. Or there were a lot of people at the elevator and she didn’t feel like waiting,” he says.

  That stays in the front of my mind when we get back to Bruce’s house and go inside. Clayton and Stephanie are sitting in the living room, nursing cups of coffee, both looking as tired and on edge as their father. I still feel some resistance as I come into the room, but I ignore it.

  “Thanks for letting us come back here,” I say to Bruce. “It’s better when I can talk in person rather than over the phone, especially since I want to talk to all of you. I went to the police department and spoke with Peter Bronson. He agreed to cooperate with me on the investigation, which makes my job much easier.”

  “Did he tell you anything? Did they find anything?”

  “They did find that she took money out of the ATM,” I say. “And there is security footage that shows her pulling up, getting the money, and driving away. Nothing seems out of the ordinary about it at all. She also made a reservation and checked into a hotel. I was able to watch some security footage from the hotel, and she was seen a few times. She looks calm and at ease.”

  “So, you’re telling me that she just left?” Bruce asks. “She just walked out and has decided not to say anything to us?”

  “No,” Clayton says, shaking his head. “No, absolutely not. I refuse to accept that. My mother would not just leave and be gone for three days without making any contact with us at all. It’s not something she would do.”

  “It’s actually interesting that you’re saying that to me again, and it brings me to something I wanted to talk to you about. I mentioned to Detective Bronson that you feel confident your mother would not do this on her own accord, but he had a different perspective. He said that this has happened before, that Marcy has left and been gone for a period of time on other occasions. Is that true?” I ask.

  The family exchanges glances, and I know I haven’t been told the full truth about Marcy.

  “Like I said, we don’t always get along perfectly,” Bruce says. “We’ve had some problems before, and she’s left the family.”

  “For how long?” I ask.

  “A few days,” he says. “A couple of weeks once.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” I ask. “That makes a major difference to this situation.”

  “Because this time is different,” Clayton says. “This time she’s not just not at home. She isn’t responding to anything or calling us. Every other time she left for a while, she would at least call or text to check in with Stephanie and me. There was never a time when she was just gone and didn’t make any sort of contact with us for the entire time.”

  “That’s what makes the difference,” I tell him. “You told me that this wasn’t like your mother, but you didn’t tell me that there were specific circumstances you can base that off of. That makes this situation something else entirely.”

  “Does that mean that you think that something bad could be happening?” Stephanie asks.

  “It means now I know that there is something going on. I don’t know what, but something is going on. I know for a fact that she checked into the hotel and that she has been there. I don’t know what she has been doing in the time since. Is there anything else that you haven’t told me?”

  Bruce looks at his children. “I need a second to talk to Dean alone.”

  They look reluctant, but they get up and head into the kitchen. I lean a little closer to Bruce to show him that I’m listening to what he has to say.

  “When we were arguing, Marcy told me she doesn’t have any reason to be alive anymore,” he says.

  “She said that to you?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he said. “I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to think about it. She’s never said anything like that before. We argue. Everybody argues. But she said she just wanted it to be over. Then after that, she was talking about starting her own life, so it seemed like just a quick thought that went away. I didn’t know what to think. Now that I know she’s in that hotel and she’s not responding to anything…”

  “I’ll talk to the detective and see if I can arrange for a welfare check,” I tell him. “I can’t guarantee they will be willing to do that, but I will let you know.”

  “Thank you.”

  Xavier and I go back to the police department and meet up with Detective Bronson again. I fill him in on what I found out at the hotel and what we saw in the security footage.

  “Would it be possible to do a welfare check on her?” I ask. “Her husband is very concerned for her well-being and thinks that she might be suicidal.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s not really an option right now,” the detective says. “Since you say that you saw her on the footage and she seemed fine, there’s really no reason to initiate a check on her. Besides, she checked out.”

  “What?” I ask.