Nausea roiled in me at the thought of it.
“I know this is hard.” Michael rested his hand on my knee.
As soon as I felt his touch, my muscles turned to gelatin. He had that effect on me, and our relationship was still new enough that I reveled in the flutters in my stomach. I reached down and laced my fingers through his.
The action was still novel and didn’t quite feel normal. Yet, on the other hand, it seemed so natural.
I’d thought of Michael as a great friend for so long. I hadn’t realized that, beneath the surface, there might have been something more.
He was the one bright spot in what otherwise felt like a tumultuous time of change in my life.
Had it only been a few hours ago that I’d thought this day would be promising?
Who would have guessed I’d be so, so wrong?
“I just can’t stop thinking about Velma . . .” I murmured.
“I know. Me too.”
“I feel like there’s this ticking time bomb in my lap, like I need to find her or it’s going to be horrible.”
“We have to stay positive.”
“But it’s like you said earlier,” I continued, still not done sorting out my thoughts. “If the police haven’t been able to track down this guy, what makes us think that we can?”
As we pulled to a stop, Michael brushed a hair out of my eyes, looping it behind my ear. “You’ve got great intuition, Elliot. Use it on this case. Use those powers of observation that you have. Maybe you’ll see something the police didn’t see. That’s what makes me think we can. We’re a good team.”
“I hope so.”
But that thought also made an unseen pressure push on me. I’d just begun to experience the feeling, and I already felt like it might break me.
But I wasn’t going to let it do that.
I was stronger than that feeling. I was going to push through this.
And one way or another, I was going to find Velma.
Chapter Five
Trisha Thomas’s mother and brother lived in an older apartment complex about fifteen minutes from downtown DC, in the Georgetown area. The place was well-kept, and the cheerful wreath on the door with the sprigs of honeysuckle around it seemed to indicate hope had begun to grow again in their lives, even after this tragedy.
Trisha’s mom, Regina, met us at the door with a dull look in her gaze. The woman was probably in her fifties. Her salt-and-pepper-colored hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and her thin features looked drawn.
She led us inside, seated us on a navy blue couch, and brought us iced tea. Her son, Peter, emerged from a back bedroom a few minutes later, an equally grim expression on his equally thin face.
After a few minutes of chitchat, it was time to talk about the real reason Michael and I had come.
“I know this is a difficult conversation, but would you mind telling us about your daughter?” Michael started.
“No, not at all,” Regina said. “We want to keep her memory alive and so many people want to skirt around any conversations about her. I’d rather cry than forget.”
“Makes perfect sense,” I murmured.
“Peter and I moved here when Trisha disappeared.” Regina ran a tissue beneath her eyes as she began. “We wanted to do whatever we could to find her. We just never thought that it would turn out like this.”
My heart pounded with compassion. I could only begin to imagine what this family had been through. Their ordeal was the stuff of nightmares. Unfortunately, I understood parts of their grief a little too well.
“What was Trisha doing here?” I asked before taking a sip of my drink. As I did, the flavor of peaches swirled over my taste buds, reminding me of summer and carefree days and . . . home.
I immediately liked Regina.
“Trisha had just graduated from college with a degree in French,” Regina continued. “I always asked her what she planned on doing with that degree, and she had no idea. But I couldn’t change her mind, and I wasn’t paying for college so she could do what she wanted.”
“Was she working?” Michael’s voice sounded low and soft as he asked the question.
For a tough guy, his compassion always amazed me.
“It wasn’t a surprise to anyone when she wasn’t able to find a job in her field. She took a position as a receptionist at an auto dealership until she could find something else. But she really liked this area. That’s why she decided to stay after graduation from Howard University.”
“Did she have a lot of friends here?” I tried to put together a mental picture of what Trisha was like.
“She wasn’t the type to hang out with just anybody. But she probably had three or four friends that she considered close. When she wasn’t working, they were like family to her.” Peter paused and shifted. “At least, they had been up until a few weeks before she passed.”
That was an interesting comment. “What do you mean?”
“I guess Trisha and one of her friends had some type of falling out over a guy,” her brother said. “You know how it is when you’re friends with someone of the opposite sex. One person wants it to be platonic and the other doesn’t, and then things get all messed up.”
Hearing him say the words caused a rush of heat across my skin. I didn’t want whatever was happening between Michael and I now to mess up our friendship. I prayed that wouldn’t be the case.
“One of the guys—his name was John—liked Trisha, but Trisha’s friend Natalie liked John. I really think that their friendships would have returned to normal eventually.” Peter’s voice cracked. “They just never had a chance to fix things.”
“Did anything strange happen to Trisha in the days leading up to her death?” Michael asked. “I know you’ve been over all these things with the police, and I also know that you weren’t living here at the time. But did you hear anything that might give us a clearer picture?”
“I wish I could give you something.” Regina frowned and played with a crocheted pillow she held in her lap. “We did talk every day. But she never mentioned being afraid or that she’d met anybody new or anything that raised any suspicions. It was like she was living her normal life, and one day she just disappeared.”
She pressed the tissue into her eyes again as more moisture streamed there.
Her words reminded me an awful lot of Velma, though.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.” I knew my words were inadequate. There was nothing I could say in a situation like this that would make her feel better. But I could try to catch the person responsible for her daughter’s death.
“If you think of anything else,” Michael said, “please give us a call.”
Regina’s eyes drew up to meet ours. “Someone else is missing, isn’t she?”
Michael and I exchanged glances. I wasn’t sure how much we could say, how much the police wanted us to say. I didn’t want to put the investigation in jeopardy.
“I do believe there’s been another development in the case,” Michael finally admitted.
Regina stood, a fire igniting in her gaze. “Tell me. Was someone else taken?”
As tension built in me, I waited for Michael to take the lead. I wasn’t sure what the correct protocol was in this situation.