Chapter 8 #2
That’s where the first real crack formed. Not because he seemed dismissive. But because he seemed… certain. Too certain. As if he’d already decided the shape of the story before hearing all its pieces.
That certainty was the exact opposite of the man I remembered from Gwen’s case, who hadn’t rested, who hadn’t let up, who hadn’t allowed convenience to stand in the way of possibility. A man who once told my aunt, We’ll chase every lead, no matter how small.
Now he was implying that there wasn’t a lead to chase.
Astrid made a strangled sound, and Carson’s expression shifted into that controlled sympathy again.
“I understand you feel blindsided, but I’m simply relaying what my officers observed.”
Astrid’s fingers curled into fists at her sides. “And the ferry? You said you were checking that, too.”
“We checked the manifests. There’s a ticket purchased under Priya Shah’s name on the first ferry out, the morning after you last saw her. Credit card on file matched the one she used to pay her rent.”
Astrid looked like he’d slapped her. “That doesn’t—”
“One of the deckhands we spoke to thinks he remembers seeing her in line,” Carson continued smoothly, skating over Astrid’s protest. “Young Indian woman traveling alone, carrying a backpack and rolling suitcase. It’s not a perfect confirmation, given the number of visitors we see this time of year, but it’s consistent with the rest of what we’ve found. ”
Consistent. Evidence lined up in a neat row. If I’d been reading it in a case file, it would have looked tidy. A little too tidy.
“Then why didn’t she answer her phone?” I demanded. “Why send an email instead of calling Dr. Thompson directly? She had time to buy a ticket, pack a suitcase, board a ferry, and write a formal goodbye to her advisor, but she couldn’t spare a five-second voicemail?”
Carson’s mouth thinned. “Ms. Reilly, we can’t extrapolate intent from the absence of a phone call. People handle stress in different ways. Sometimes they avoid tough conversations.”
“Yes, sometimes they do,” I agreed, heat rising in my chest. “But we also both know how often emails like this get used to create the illusion of choice in situations where there isn’t any.”
“Madden.” Astrid’s voice was a warning and a plea.
I ignored it. Once I got going, it was hard to stop; that had been both my greatest asset in court and my biggest liability in life.
“You’re telling us she conveniently packed up, bought a ticket, vanished on the earliest ferry, and fired off a canned email to cover her tracks—right after a night where she was supposedly just working quietly at a bar and then failed to show up for the job that determines her future? ”
Carson’s eyes cooled a few degrees. “I’m telling you that there is no evidence of a crime.
No sign of a struggle at her apartment. No reports of distress on the ferry.
No witnesses indicated she left the island with anyone against her will.
Every data point we have suggests she made a sudden decision to leave. People do that, Ms. Reilly.”
“Not responsible grad students in the middle of a field season,” Astrid burst out. “Not Priya. She doesn’t even like taking a day off. You’re talking about her like she’s some flaky tourist who decided on a whim to bail on a beach week.”
Carson turned his attention back to her, adopting that conciliatory expression I was rapidly growing to hate. “Dr. Thompson, I understand that you’re upset—”
“Do you?” Her voice cracked, and she pushed on anyway. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re taking the first convenient explanation that lets you close the file and walk away.”
He sighed, the sound heavy with put-upon patience. “We have limited resources, Dr. Thompson. An adult leaving under her own power is not a crime. We can’t treat every abrupt departure as a kidnapping because it makes people uncomfortable.”
The words scraped something raw in me.
“’We can’t treat every abrupt departure as a kidnapping.’” I repeated softly. “That’s interesting language coming from the man who preached ‘leave no stone unturned’ when my fifteen-year-old cousin disappeared.”
His gaze snapped back to me, sharp now. “That was a child. This is not. Gwen’s case was entirely different.”
“Different because she was under eighteen,” I said.
“Different because you could justify pulling out all the stops. Press conferences. Search parties. Volunteers combing the island. But the bare bones are the same, Chief. A girl vanished. People who knew her insist it’s out of character.
And your first instinct—then and now—is to assume she wandered off with someone voluntarily. ”
Something flashed across his face then. Not guilt, exactly. Irritation tangled with something that looked uncomfortably like weary defensiveness.
“We did everything we could for your cousin,” he said, and for a moment, the smooth professional facade cracked. “I have lived with the fact that we didn’t find her for over a decade. Don’t stand here and imply that my officers or I treat this lightly.”
“I’m not implying anything. I’m saying the pattern looks the same from here: You decide what’s likely, and you shape the investigation—or lack thereof—to fit.
” I’d seen officers do that. Tailoring the evidence to their own preconceived notions rather than following where the evidence actually led.
But I hadn’t thought Carson would be one of them.
His jaw flexed.
Beside me, Astrid looked between us, eyes wide. “Can we not make this into a pissing contest over ancient history while my student is still missing?”
“She’s not missing.” Carson seized on the one thing he could redefine.
“Not anymore. You have an email from her. We have evidence she left the island of her own accord. Unless something concrete arises to contradict that, there is no basis for continuing this as an active missing person investigation.”
“Concrete like what?” I demanded. “A body? Is that what it takes now?”
He stared at me, and in that moment, I saw exactly how he’d held onto his job this long. There was steel under the salt-bleached exterior. The kind that got more rigid, not less, when pushed.
“What I see,” he said slowly, “is someone who spent years in big-city courts learning to see monsters in every shadow. And someone who experienced a terrible loss as a teenager that understandably warped her idea of what’s probable.”
The words landed like a slap. My spine snapped rigid.
“This girl is not your cousin, Ms. Reilly,” he went on, relentless now.
“And Sutter’s Ferry is not Los Angeles. We followed procedure.
We acted on the information we had. We conducted welfare checks, followed financial trails, and spoke to witnesses.
We found no evidence of foul play. None.
You may not like that conclusion, but that doesn’t make it any less valid. ”
Astrid choked out, “So that’s it? You’re just… done?”
He glanced at her, softening his tone half a notch. “We’ll keep the file on record. If new information comes in, we’ll reassess. Until then, there’s nothing further for us to do.”
“For you to do,” I corrected under my breath.
Carson straightened, smoothing the front of his shirt with an economical swipe of his palm. “As far as this department is concerned, the matter is resolved. Miss Shah appears to have left voluntarily. The case”—he met my eyes again, making sure I heard every word—”is considered closed.”