Chapter 10
Ten
MADDEN
Maria Blackwell’s house sat back from the road, a two-story salt-washed colonial with peeling shutters and a wide oak shading the drive.
Priya’s apartment was a small efficiency unit above the detached garage that loomed at the end of a worn concrete path.
Mid-July humidity draped over everything like a wet blanket, making my clothes stick to my back.
I hadn’t missed this part of summer on the Outer Banks during my years in California.
When we stepped onto the small stoop beside the garage, Maria answered almost at once, dishtowel still in hand, as if we’d interrupted her mid-chore.
“Can I help you?” Her eyes flicked between us, lingering on Rios with a faint crease of recognition before landing on me.
I summoned a polite smile. “Hi. I’m Madden Reilly, and I believe you met Rios yesterday.”
Maria’s expression tightened. “You’re here about Priya?”
I let my smile warm. “We are. We’re here on behalf of Dr. Astrid Thompson, Priya’s boss. We were hoping you could help us clarify a couple of things.”
“The police were already here this morning.” She said it like a question.
“Right, and your cooperation has been so helpful.”
The woman stood a little straighter. “Did they find something? Is Priya okay?”
“We haven’t made contact with her yet,” Rios explained. “We’re… trying to make sense of some conflicting information.”
Maria’s brows knit. “Conflicting how?”
“You told him yesterday that when you checked the apartment, Priya’s things were still here. Messy bed, clothes in closet, and the like.”
“That’s right,” she said.
I exchanged a quick glance with Rios. His jaw tightened a fraction.
“The police are saying most of her belongings were gone when they looked,” I said. “Neatly packed. Closets empty.”
Maria stared. “Gone? No. No, that’s not what I saw.”
“I believe you,” I said. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Did you go up with the police earlier this morning?” Rios asked.
“No. They asked me to wait outside, so I let them in and waited at the bottom of the stairs.” She exhaled long and uneasy. “Look—this whole situation is making me nervous. I’ve never had trouble with tenants before.”
“I understand,” I said gently. “I know we’re asking a lot. But would you consider letting us inside to see it? You can stay right with us. We won’t disturb anything. We just want to see what it looks like now compared to what you saw yesterday.”
Maria didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers tightened around the dish towel she’d been holding. Something flickered across her face—not quite fear, but the uncertainty of a person who realized her memory could become evidence, and she was terrified of being wrong.
Finally, she nodded. “All right. Give me a second.”
She stepped back inside, retrieved a key from the small tray by the door, locked up behind her, and led us toward the apartment.
The climb up the narrow wooden stairs made the boards creak in the quiet. A few spiderwebs fluttered under the eaves. The door at the top looked freshly repainted compared to the sun-bleached siding around it.
Maria unlocked it and pushed it open, gesturing us inside.
The place looked like the model unit of an apartment complex, not somewhere an actual person had lived for a month.
The futon-style bed had been made with clinical neatness, navy comforter pulled tight enough to bounce a quarter.
The kitchenette countertops gleamed under the overhead light, every surface wiped down to an antiseptic shine.
Empty sink, bone dry. Empty drying rack positioned at a perfect right angle to the window.
Empty trash can except for a single scrunched paper towel, sitting too centered, as if it had been placed, not tossed.
The whole space felt sterile, devoid of the casual messiness that comes with actually living somewhere. No coffee ring stains on the counter. No water spots on the faucet. No dust gathered in the corners where someone might have missed during their regular cleaning routine.
Maria stepped just inside the door and stopped, her shoulders going rigid.
“This isn’t it. This… someone cleaned.” Her hand drifted to the back of the dining chair as if she needed something solid to anchor herself to reality.
The uncertainty in her voice was palpable—the tone of someone whose memory had just been called into question, even though she knew what she’d seen.
Rios stayed a few feet back from her, maintaining careful distance while his eyes swept the room in a slow, methodical pattern.
I could see him cataloging details with that sharp, analytical gaze that missed nothing.
Because I found myself wanting to watch him, I moved toward the closet to conduct my own examination, leaving him space to work.
The bifold doors stood ajar, revealing a sliver of empty space within. I nudged them wider with one knuckle, careful not to disturb potential evidence.
Nothing but a dozen mismatched plastic hangers on the rod, the kind of cheap hangers you’d find at any discount store. They hung at different angles, as if someone had removed clothing in a hurry without bothering to straighten what remained.
Behind me, Maria’s voice carried a note of frustrated certainty. “Yesterday, there were shirts hanging here. Shorts folded on that shelf. A gray sweatshirt draped over the top of the rod. I remember it because I thought it was too warm for someone to need a sweatshirt, even with the AC running.”
Rios didn’t look up from where he’d crouched beside the small three-drawer dresser, his movements deliberate and respectful of the space. “What about her shoes?”
“Right there.” Maria pointed to the small woven mat positioned beside the door. “Blue sneakers. A pair of brown leather sandals. And some beat-up flip-flops that looked like she’d had them forever.”
“All gone now,” I murmured.
Rios pulled the top drawer open just an inch, peering inside before opening it wider.
Empty. The second drawer was just as empty, not even lint in the corners.
The third drawer contained only one rolled pair of white socks shoved in the back corner, and a single bobby pin lying near the front like an afterthought.
Maria frowned at the sight, her confusion giving way to something closer to alarm. “There was definitely more before. I didn’t go digging through her things—that wouldn’t have been appropriate—but when I glanced in to check for any obvious problems, the drawers weren’t empty like this.”
I left them to continue their examination and moved toward the compact bathroom, noting how my footsteps echoed in the hollow emptiness of the space.
The shower rod still had a clear plastic curtain clipped in place, swaying gently in the breath of air I’d carried with me.
The small vanity mirror above the sink was spotless except for a single faint streak in the top right corner, like someone had wiped away fingerprints in a hurry but hadn’t been thorough enough to catch everything.
No toothbrush in the ceramic holder beside the sink.
No toiletries cluttering the narrow shelf above the toilet.
No hair elastic wrapped around the faucet base where someone might have kept it while washing their face.
No evidence that anyone had ever performed the daily rituals of getting ready in this space.
The medicine cabinet wasn’t quite closed. I nudged it open with my elbow—completely empty, not even an over-the-counter pain reliever or travel-sized shampoo bottle.
It was the kind of obsessive tidiness that wasn’t natural, the result of someone systematically removing every trace of human habitation.
Not that graduate students couldn’t be neat—some of the most organized people I’d known had been academics—but this wasn’t consistent with the impression Rios had gathered from his conversations yesterday.
When I stepped back into the main room, he had moved to the kitchenette area. He wasn’t touching anything—didn’t need to. The emptiness of the space spoke volumes on its own.
Maria ran her hand along the edge of the counter, her fingers trailing over the spotless laminate surface. “This doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.”
“It’s significantly different from what you observed yesterday.” I chose my words with the careful precision of someone who might need to testify about this conversation later.
“Yes. Completely different.”
“That’s all we needed you to confirm.”
She looked both relieved and guilty, the expression of someone who’d been second-guessing her own memory. “I don’t know if I was imagining things. If maybe I was mistaken about what I saw.”
“You weren’t mistaken,” Rios said with quiet conviction.
He wasn’t looking at Maria when he spoke; his attention was fixed on the refrigerator door, where a faint smudged outline showed where a magnet had once held something in place.
Probably a schedule, or a shopping list, or one of those casual notes people leave for themselves.
Whatever it had been, it was gone now, leaving only the ghost of its presence.
“We appreciate your help with this,” I said, meaning it. “You’ve been incredibly helpful.”
Maria nodded, still visibly unsettled by the transformation of the space, and stepped out onto the stairs to wait while Rios and I took one final look around.
As soon as she was out of earshot, I let out a slow, controlled breath. “So. What’s your read?”
Rios straightened from his casual lean against the counter, his expression grim. “Carson reported most of her belongings were already gone when they arrived to check the place out.”
“And they are gone.”
“Which means that part of his story checks out.”
“But not the timing,” I finished, the pieces clicking into place.
His eyes met mine—sharp and filled with the same growing disquiet I felt. “No. Definitely not the timing.”
“Someone cleared this place out after Maria saw it yesterday.”
“Or someone cleared it out before yesterday, but Maria didn’t see the full extent of what was missing during her quick check.”
I shook my head. “You heard the level of detail she provided. Specific clothing items, the type and condition of shoes, the contents of drawers she’d only glanced into. That kind of specificity isn’t something you misremember overnight, especially when you’re already concerned about a tenant.”
He agreed with a slight, almost imperceptible tilt of his chin.
“This doesn’t read like someone packing for an emergency departure,” I continued, gesturing around the sterile space.
“If Priya had needed to leave Sutter’s Ferry in a genuine hurry—family emergency, sudden opportunity, whatever—she would have grabbed the essentials: toiletries, a couple of changes of clothes, her laptop, phone charger.
Maybe a book gets left behind. Maybe one shoe.
But she wouldn’t have stripped her drawers down to a single pair of socks and a bobby pin. ”
“And she wouldn’t have taken the time to wipe down surfaces,” he added.
That observation caught my attention. “You noticed that too?”
He gestured toward the kitchenette area with one big, broad hand.
“There’s a streak on the laminate countertop—perfectly straight line, like someone wiped it down, paused to check their work, then wiped it again.
People who are rushing to catch the ferry aren’t worried about leaving behind crumbs or water spots. ”
Those hands looked so damned capable.
I gave myself a mental shake. “Same thing in the bathroom. The mirror has one streak in the top corner. Quick, efficient pass with a cloth or paper towel, but not thorough enough to get everything. And there are no signs of the cleaning materials here.”
He folded his arms across his chest, settling back against the counter with the weight of someone processing unwelcome information. “This isn’t her packing her own belongings.”
“No,” I agreed grimly. “So either she had one of her friends or colleagues come back here later yesterday to pack up the rest of her belongings to ship to wherever she’s relocated—which we should verify—or someone else is trying to make it appear that she packed everything herself, and they had no idea that you’d already asked Maria to check the scene yesterday morning. ”
The air in the small apartment seemed to thicken with dread as the full implications settled over both of us.
From outside on the landing, Maria’s footsteps shifted slightly—a subtle signal that she was growing tired of waiting for us to finish our examination.
“This isn’t enough evidence to get Carson to officially reopen the investigation,” I murmured.
“No, definitely not enough. We need to check the ferry security footage next.”
“Agreed. If she did board yesterday’s ferry as reported, we should be able to see her on the cameras.”
“I’ve got someone who can give us access to those recordings.”
I raised an eyebrow, not entirely surprised. “Of course you do.” He was friends with Sawyer Malone, who was married to Willa Hollingsworth now. Her family owned the ferry company.
“Small island.” He gave me a faint, humorless smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. I found myself wondering what a real smile would look like from him. Had I ever even seen one?
I couldn’t remember.
Uncomfortable with the thought, I stepped back toward the door. “Let’s not keep Maria standing out there.”
As we joined her on the landing, she locked the apartment again, worry etched across her features.
“You’ll keep me updated?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “We’ll let you know if we learn anything.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was small. “I just… I hope she’s all right.”
“So do we,” Rios said.
We started down the stairs, and I felt it settle between us—our first true shared certainty in this mess.
Nothing about that apartment matched Carson’s story.
And both of us knew it.