Zara rejoins us. “I got Lukas to put a trace on her phone,” she says. “It hasn’t been on since eleven last night. He’s pulling the call records for us now.”

  “Good,” I say. “When you were over at her place, was her car still there?” I ask.

  Judge Stewart nods. “It was, which was why I actually felt silly that we’d already called in a missing person’s report. But when I searched her place there was no sign of her. Purse and phone were both gone.”

  “No signs of a struggle?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. I want to check it out myself to make sure. But a federal judge can probably tell when someone has been fighting for their life not to be abducted. Still, we need to check it out. But it sounds like Hannah never made it home last night.

  “Okay, I say. Thank you for all your help. We’ll get started right away.”

  “Tonight?” he asks, stepping forward as he wrings his hands together. “It’s just…my wife is right. Time is of the essence.”

  “Yes, sir,” I reply. “We’re starting right now.”

  He only looks mildly relieved. “Thank you. And if it does come down to it, if they want money, we’re willing to pay anything. No negotiation. We just want her back.”

  “May we use your key to her apartment?” I ask.

  He retreats into the hall and comes back a moment later, pulling the key off his ring. “It’s Wedgewood Apartments, off Old Georgetown Rd. Number Six-oh-one.”

  I give him a final nod and we excuse ourselves from them and the detectives, heading back out to the car.

  “So? What do you think?” Zara asks.

  I sigh as I slip in behind the wheel. “I think it’s going to be a long night.”

  Chapter Three

  When I pull up to Wedgewood Apartments, there’s already a local Bethesda P.D. unit sitting outside. Zara and I step out of the car and approach the officer on the scene.

  “How long have you been here?” I ask.

  “About an hour,” he replies. “My partner is up on six, keeping an eye on the door.”

  “Anyone in or out?” I ask. He shakes his head. I indicate to Zara that we should head in.

  “You’re so much more serious on the job,” she says once we’re inside the lobby. Wedgewood is not some crappy apartment complex on the edge of town. The entire lobby area has been designed by someone with good taste. Everything looks modern, sleek. Despite the building being older. They must have renovated which no doubt has kicked the rent up.

  “What do you mean?” I push the button for the elevator. It seems like a quiet Sunday evening and since it’s chilly out, it doesn’t look like any of the residents want to brave the weather.

  “You just…you’re like laser-focused,” Zara says, a small grin playing on her lips.

  “I’m always like that.”

  “You think you’re always like that. But in reality you can be pretty chill when you want to be.”

  I roll my eyes at her as we step into the elevator. I’m the last person anyone should consider chill. Relaxing just isn’t something I do. The building is only eight stories tall, so it looks like Hannah should have a good view from six.

  The other officer stands in the hallway from the unit downstairs. We show him our badges and he nods. “Has anyone been through here?” I ask.

  “A couple of residents. One lady asked me what I was doing. That’s it.”

  I nod and pull Judge Stewart’s key from my pocket. “Gloves,” I say, pulling a pair out of my jacket pocket and slipping them on before slipping the key in the deadbolt. “Keep a sharp eye.”

  “Only if I get to drive back,” Zara teases.

  The deadbolt clicks and the door opens on a dark foyer. The entryway leads into an open kitchen and living room. It’s not a ton of space, but more than enough for one person. There’s a small bathroom off to the side. The living room faces out on Bethesda, and in the distance I can see the top of the Capitol building and the Monument. Not a bad view for someone only a few years out of college. Off the living room is a spacious bedroom with its own private bathroom. Everything in the apartment is clean and tidy, tidier than my place.

  “See anything out of the ordinary?” I ask.

  “Just that her taste in books leaves something to be desired,” Zara replies, looking through the few books on her shelf. “I bet she hasn’t read half of these.”

  “Not everyone loves ghost sex.”

  “Hey,” she says. “It’s called paranormal romance and I’ll thank you to stay out of it.”

  I look around for any sign of a struggle, or indications Hannah knew she was leaving and not coming back for a while. But nothing seems out of place. Her clothes are neatly arranged in her closet and there’s a suitcase inside, which means if she did leave of her own accord, it was unplanned.

  I check her bathroom, finding all her makeup and hair products. Stuff she probably wouldn’t have left behind if she could help it. Her cabinet is full of medications, which I start examining one by one.

  “Zara?” I call.

  She comes into the bathroom. “Hey, nice countertops. Is that travertine?”

  “I don’t know what that is,” I reply. “Look at this.” I hold out the bottle for her.

  “Lorazepam? Isn’t that for anxiety?”

  I suppose that’s not uncommon. There’s another, unmarked bottle near the back. I shake it a few times, and the rattling inside indicates it is very full.

  “Whoa,” Zara says opening the bottle. Tiny clear pills fill the bottle to the brim. “Ex?”

  “I’m not sure. We’ll need to get them tested. But she’s got at least two grand worth here if it is.”

  “You think she’s dealing?”

  I can’t say for sure yet. There aren’t any other unmarked bottles in her cabinet, and most dealers I know aren’t foolish enough to leave their merchandise on display like this. But I’m starting to lend more credence to the kidnapping theory. If she was in trouble with someone over drugs, they might have decided to take their payments out of her rather than wait for her to pay them back.

  “Could this mean her parents were right? Someone took her?” Zara asks.

  I pinch my features together. “It’s nothing more than a theory at this point. We don’t know anything yet. But unmarked drugs don’t help things. I’ve seen stuff like this before, where the kidnappers don’t even want a ransom. They might just want to teach her a lesson. Or use her as an example, which could make our job infinitely more difficult.” I hand Zara the bottle. “Let’s get this back to the lab so they can figure out what we’re dealing with here.”

  She places the bottle in an evidence bag. “You’d think if they were upset about drugs, they would have come looking for them.”

  She’s right. If this was drug related, why take the girl, and not come back for the merchandise? This place should be a wreck. “I suppose that’s what we need to find out.”

  “C’mon, on a scale of A to D, how did I do?” Zara asks as we pull up to the FBI’s underground parking lot entrance. Gus stands watch at the gate and checks both of our IDs before opening it, even though he’s known us both for years. The man in the booth does his normal scan, making sure the car doesn’t have any kind of explosive devices or other potential dangers strapped on it. You can never be too careful these days.

  After they drop the pylons and wave us through, Zara shakes my arm. “You’re killing me here!”

  “Why is your scale only A to D? What happened to F?”

  “Oh, I don’t get F’s,” she replies, smug.

  “Never? Not even in something insanely hard like Organic Chemistry?”

  Zara shakes her head. “Nope. I don’t get D’s either, but I figured asking on an A to C scale would have been too cocky. Now come on! Tell me what you thought!”

  I smile. Making her squirm is something I have to admit I enjoy. “I dunno. Passable, I guess. Maybe a B minus.”

  “B minus?” she practically screams. “Are you kidding?”

  “Whoa there,” I say, pulling into an open spot. “No need to blow the windows out.”

  Zara punches me on the shoulder. “You’re screwing with me, I know it. That was a solid A performance back there. With the Judge. And then at the apartment. I was smooth.”

  I shoot her a side glance. “A minus at best. And that’s because I’m feeling generous.”

  “Whatever.” She steps out of the car at the same time I do. “I was made for field work. I can feel it.”

  As we make our way through the underground entrance and the first level of security, I go over what we know so far in my head. We need to get Hannah’s phone records first, just so we can figure out the last people she spoke with before her phone went down. If we’re lucky, the call will lead to the person who sold or gave her the drugs. At least it will give us a starting point.

  “What are your first impressions?” I ask as we retrieve our bags from security.

  “Girl from a nice family gets involved in the drug trade and screws over someone she has no business dealing with,” Zara says. “They come back for retribution.”

  “Maybe, it’s a good theory, at least. I’d expect something like this if Hannah was a bit younger, maybe still in her early twenties. But she’s been out of college a few years now. She has a stable job, responsibilities. Why get involved with something like this?”

  “Maybe she has a secret addiction, or is looking for some excitement,” Zara says, swiping us through to our office block. Once inside we take the elevator up to level four. “But if she was taken, how in the hell are we going to find who’s responsible? It isn’t like they label these bottles with their gang signs.” She shakes the bottle in the evidence bag for emphasis.

  “That’s what we need to find out,” I reply, heading for my desk. “Get those phone records and start going through her socials. I’m going to run the basic background stuff. See if I can’t figure out who this girl is and what might have motivated something like this.”

  “What about the boyfriend?” Zara takes a seat at her station, focusing hard on her computer while she talks. Having come from Intelligence Analysis, she’s a whiz on anything computer related. In fact, before she was approved for field work, she used to work through the nights, electing to sleep during the day because she said it made her more productive.

  I check my watch. “It’s already past ten p.m. He’s not going to be much good to us tonight. We’ll hit him first thing in the morning.” I’m already antsy about talking to the boyfriend. After how my last case went, with Victoria’s husband, Gerald, being such a good liar that I couldn’t see through his deception, I’m more than a little gun shy. Part of me feels like I’ve lost my edge, my ability to intuit a person’s motives just by how they speak, and stand. All the tiny little things that a person does unconsciously, that telegraphs their true intentions. I missed those with Gerald, and it nearly cost two children their lives. I can’t afford to be that sloppy again.

  “Well, well, aren’t you two burning the midnight oil.” I look up to see Agent Nick Hogan standing a couple of stations away, a white mug in his hands.

  “Evening, Nick,” I say.

  “Big case?” he asks. Nick and I have always been something of rivals, though I don’t even really know how it started. I think we both just have those kinds of personalities, where we have to keep proving ourselves the best over and over again, otherwise we feel a little worthless. Nick was with me on our last big sting, the one that got me suspended. Because of my inaction, he ended up shot, but thankfully recovered well. He says he doesn’t blame me for it, though with him I can definitely tell that’s not the whole truth. There’s something else going on there that he doesn’t want me to know.

  “Not sure yet,” I reply. “Judge’s daughter is missing. We’re trying to determine how serious this one might be.”

  Nick takes a sip from his mug. “Sounds thrilling.”

  “Yeah, and what are you doing here so late?” Zara asks as she types furiously on her keyboard, not looking up. “Trolling the criminal database for your next date?”

  “Funny,” he replies, though he doesn’t grin. “No, I have my own cases, thank you. And they’re not exciting. Just time-consuming.”

  “The best ones,” I say, running Hannah’s name through a general background and credit check. I want to get a look at her financials too. See if she really is living on her own or if she’s still taking handouts from her parents. Did she need money? Or were the drugs more for a thrill?

  “Yeah? You want to trade?” he asks.

  “I’m sure you’re more than capable,” I say.

  He lingers for a moment longer. I can’t tell if he’s really bored or if he’s looking for something else. And honestly, I really don’t care. I don’t have time to deal with Nick Hogan right now.

  Eventually, he leaves, allowing me a moment’s respite as I can finally look away from my monitor for a moment. I glance back at Zara, who shrugs. She dives back into her work. “Oh! The phone records just came in from Lukas.”

  I’m behind her chair in half a breath. “Looks like it’s mostly outgoing calls. Only two incoming.”

  “Last incoming was from a Tyler Lozano. And all her last outgoing was to a Margaret Webb.”

  “Let’s get a workup on both. Tyler, that’s the boyfriend. And the other one is the friend from college Judge Stewart mentioned. We’ll need to interview them tomorrow.”

  “You got it.” Zara gets to work.

  I feel bad for initially thinking this might have been nothing more than Hannah wanting some time to herself. And now I find myself in the unenviable position of trying to find two women who someone doesn’t want found.

  Chapter Four

  “You look like hell,” Zara says as I pull up.

  “Thanks.” She gets in, gasping as she looks in the cupholder.

  “Is that a Cocoa Frappe Single Serve with a dollop of whipped creme and cinnamon top?”

  I grin. “Maybe.”

  She grabs it and takes a long sip, relishing the dessert in a cup. “Oh, that’s better than sex.” She reaches down to my cup. “What did you get?” When she opens the top her face turns sour. “Black? Really? Not even creamer?”

  “What can I say? I’m a simple kind of woman.”

  Zara turns, looking in the backseat. “I see my boyfriend has been here. You’ve got hair everywhere.”

  “I dropped him off at doggie daycare this morning,” I say. “I got tired of feeling guilty for leaving him alone.”

  “They were okay with that?” she asked. “Given his history?”

  I shrug. “Ever since he was re-trained he hasn’t so much as growled at anyone, including other dogs. But they said they’d have to take it slow, keep him with people first and watch him carefully. If nothing else, he’ll get a lot of human interaction.”

  “I’m glad you did that; he’s such a sweet pup,” she says, taking another sip.

  “Get any sleep?” I ask, pulling away from the curb. First on our list of stops this morning is Hannah’s boyfriend’s place. After what happened last time, I’m not taking any chances. And if it looks like for even a microsecond like this guy had something to do with her disappearance, we’re taking him in. No questions asked.

  “I’m still adjusting,” she says, yawning. “Usually I’m going to bed around now. Not getting started.”

  “Pitfalls of the job, I’m afraid.”

  “Anything come back on the pills?” she asks.

  “Nothing yet, the lab still has them. In the meantime we’ve got some questions to ask.”

  It takes another thirty minutes to get over to Tyler Lozano’s apartment. It’s on the east side of town, not close to Bethesda at all. Which is strange, I would have assumed he and Hannah would have lived closer.

  The apartment building is decidedly less fancy than Hannah’s. There’s no lobby, like her mid-rise. Only a two-story siding-clad set of buildings all clustered around a central area with a pool that’s been covered up for the winter. I check his address in my notes and we head for eighteen fifty-six, in building four.

  I knock on the door a few times, hoping it’s still early enough he hasn’t left for work yet. The door opens a crack and I see a bloodshot eye covered by a mop of brown hair staring back at me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Tyler Lozano?”

  “Hang on a minute.” He shuts the door and calls out. “Tyler! Cops are here.”

  “Wow, is it that obvious?” Zara asks. “I mean, I know the pantsuits don’t exactly scream carefree, but couldn’t we be Jehovah’s Witnesses or something?”

  “I don’t think Jehovah’s Witnesses dye their hair platinum blonde,” I say. “Plus the butt of your weapon is sticking out of your coat.”

  Zara looks down and pulls the front of her jacket in front of the weapon, only for it to flop back again. “Well, shit,” she says, pulling it in front again. Like a bad cowlick, it flops back. “Whatever. Let ‘em see it.”

  The door opens again, and this time we’re greeted by the fresh face of a man who looks like he’s trying to be everything his roommate is not. He’s clean-shaven, with a button-up shirt and tie on, though his shoes are untied. It looks like we caught him in the middle of his morning routine.

  “Yes?” he asks.

  I lean closer to him. “Are you Tyler Lozano?” He nods. “Do you know Hannah Stewart?”

  “She’s my girlfriend. Why?”

  “When was the last time you spoke with her?” Zara asks.

  “What is this? What’s going on? And who are you?”

  I show him my badge, and Zara does the same. “I’m Agent Slate. This is Agent Foley.” When he sees our badges he takes a step back. I’m afraid he’s going to close the door on us, but he leaves it open. I can’t help but wonder if that was involuntary, or if he’s worried we might suspect him in Hannah’s disappearance.

  “Has something happened to her?” he asks, his voice trembling slightly.

  “We’re just trying to collect some information,” I say. “Can you tell us the last time you heard from her?”