Page 59 of Hard Evidence
“Iguess you can look through her room,” Sophy said when she answered the door.Her hair was mussed, and the dark smudges under her eyes spoke of a sleepless night.“But the police already did that.”
Ari followed her inside.“Does Amie have a computer?”
“They took it.They took a whole bag of stuff, and they left the place in a real mess.”
“Did they give you a receipt?”
“There are papers on the coffee table.I knocked on every door in the building, and nobody’s seen Amie.Some people didn’t answer, though.And I tried the buildings on both sides as well, and I saw all the posts on social media.Did you guys set up the ‘missing’ page?”
“The page and the phone number.The police don’t seem as worried as they should be.”
“I heard them talking after they found the pregnancy test.The officer in charge figured she went somewhere with Brett.”
“She didn’t.He ran home to Salt Lake City in order to shirk his responsibilities.”
“You found him?”
“Found him, spoke with him, eliminated him from our inquiries.He’s a deadbeat asshole, but he didn’t harm Amie.”
Sophy pressed both hands over her mouth.“Oh my… Then…then…”
“Then what?”
“The other officer… She didn’t use the word ‘suicide,’ but that’s what she was thinking.She kept asking about Amie’s state of mind, and her finances, and whether she wanted to be a mom.And…and I didn’t know the answers.I should have known the answers.”
I was all too familiar with that little sniffle.With the tickly feeling, with the tears that followed.
“Nobody knew Amie was going to disappear.For whatever reason, she preferred to keep those things to herself.”
Of course, I had tissues.These days, I never went anywhere without them, and I fished the package out of my purse and offered it to Sophy.She wiped her eyes as I took a look around the apartment.The place was small and untidier than it had been on my last visit.Part of the mess might have come from the police search, but the sink full of dishes and the overflowing laundry hamper I glimpsed through the bathroom door said Sophy had been focusing on Amie rather than herself.
Out of habit, I squirted dish soap onto the flatware and began running the water.Ridge hated a messy home.A small part of me wondered how he was coping when he didn’t know how to run the dishwasher or do laundry, but the bigger part of me didn’t care.I was making a new life for myself now.
“You want me to make coffee?”I asked Sophy.“Have you eaten breakfast?”
“How can I eat?I should have started looking for Amie sooner.I should have realised something was wrong.”
Ari slipped out of the room, and although we hadn’t discussed an exact plan, I’d watched enough cop shows to realise she wanted me to keep Sophy busy while she checked out Amie’s room alone.Which I felt a little guilty about, but if it got us closer to finding Amie, then I’d do it.
“You need to keep up your strength.You’re not working today?”
“Sundays are the worst.The after-church crowd leaves Bible quotes instead of tips, and who can pay the rent with those?I need to try calling Amie’s parents again, but even Amie could never get ahold of them, so…”
“Justin spoke with her sister in Colorado.”
Sophy groaned.“He didn’t think this whole situation was bad enough already?”
“She lives close to their parents, and she agreed to drive over there.”
“Amie will hate that he called her.They were yelling at each other through the phone last weekend.”
“They had a fight?”
“It started eight years ago, and they haven’t let up since.When I asked if she was okay, she just laughed and said she had bigger things to worry about at the moment.”
“She meant the baby?”
“I guess.Why didn’t she tell me about it?”
