And then Clare must create space on the timeline for the missing women. Stacey Norton was last seen two years ago. Kendall Bentley, another woman who was last seen in Lune Bay only three months before Stacey disappeared. Austin’s article contains an interview with Douglas Bentley, Kendall’s father. Clare studies the photograph provided of Kendall. She is young, tall and slim, beautiful. A premed student living at home. The police theory is that Kendall left town with her convict boyfriend when a warrant was issued for his arrest, her father painted as a man unhinged by far-fetched theories. And Stacey was an opioid addict. The police, Austin writes, have no other theory or leads but that. His article mentions that the two women may have crossed paths working summer jobs at a local seafood restaurant: Roland’s.
Clare snatches her phone from the bedside table and texts Austin.
Can you send me Douglas Bentley’s contact info?
A quick response comes.
What do I get in exchange?
How about I don’t spoil your exposé?
He sends a side-eye emoji before sharing the contact information. Clare lies back on the bed and scrolls through the photographs on her phone until she arrives at the one taken yesterday at Malcolm and Zoe’s glass house. The family portrait of the Westmans on the beach. The togetherness, the smiles on all but Zoe and Malcolm. But on second glance what strikes Clare the most in this picture is Charlotte, the way her head is angled towards her brother-in-law, the proximity at which they stand.
They seemed tight, Roland had said about Charlotte and Malcolm.
“Where are you?” Clare asks the Malcolm in the photograph.
Driving back to the hotel from The Cabin Bar, Clare had been met with an urge to turn the car around, to point it inland, to disappear herself. She felt rage at Somers, at herself for agreeing to come here. As she stares at the photograph, at this young and brooding depiction of Malcolm, she feels it again, the compulsion. This is about Malcolm. Whatever he became to Clare in those months she worked with him, Clare wants to know his story. She wants to know what happened here. She will work this case until she does. She collects her phone again and presses in Somers’s number.
“You hung up on me,” Somers says as a greeting.
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t. Honestly. You were planning to work this case anyway. Your case is about Malcolm. Yes, I was assigned a case of a woman who went missing from Lune Bay. It landed on my desk because she was last spotted around here. I got it because no one else wanted it. Missing women aren’t always a huge priority.” Somers clears her throat. “You of all people know that. Anyway, she had some ties to the Westman family. But Lune Bay is a small place from what I could tell. Most people there have some ties to the Westmans.”
“Have you ever come to Lune Bay?”
“No. I worked the case from here. I had a detective there as a liaison. A useless one, at that.”
“It feels too convenient. It feels like you lied to me.”
“Listen,” Somers says. “I work hundreds of cases a year. I never got anywhere with this one. I fucking hate the way cops toss out missing women cases. It grinds at me. Eats away at me. I hate that I couldn’t figure out what happened to her.”
Somers pauses, but Clare says nothing.
“Then you show up with this Malcolm guy, and hey, he was married to a Westman. And you tell me that you need to find him. That’s exactly what you said to me, Clare. So I throw some resources behind you, figuring if we’re lucky, if I’m lucky, you might dig something up that’s relevant to the Stacey Norton case. I know how good you are at this work. I don’t have a lot of resources, let me tell you—”
“You put me at risk,” Clare says. “When you withhold. When you don’t tell me what I need to know, you put me at risk.”
“I get why you feel that way,” Somers says. “But the Norton case is peripheral. I wasn’t withholding. And I couldn’t be sure how objective you were.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Somers sighs in the receiver, choosing her words. “My instinct is that you had feelings for Malcolm. That’s why you wanted to find him. Feelings mess with our objectivity, Clare. I wanted to give you a shot, but I wasn’t willing to risk the integrity of the Norton case. I didn’t want you asking questions on my behalf—”
“Fuck you,” Clare says. “Do you really think so little of me?”
“Listen to me, Clare.” Somers’s voice is a low, angry rumble. “This is not about what I think of you. This is about police work, about your work as an investigator. Do you know how many times I’ve watched cops soil cases because of their own bias? Like I said, my hunch is that things between you and Malcolm are murky. And that solving this case isn’t just about testing your mettle. You want him off the hook. So yes, I protected myself from that bias.”
Clare can feel the well rise from her chest. Anger, frustration. She cannot bring herself to admit that Somers may be right. She knows she arrived here hoping she might find
