“Sure,” Douglas says, awkward. “Makes sense.”
“And then I hadn’t even finished my first week on the job when Malcolm Boon showed up. Malcolm Hayes, as you know him. And I knew exactly why he was there the minute I laid eyes on him. So I ran, of course I did. I literally ran out the back door of the restaurant. I’d trained myself to run for many months, so it was a well-honed instinct. I drove half the night in zigzags before stopping at a motel. I was really scared. The thought of being caught terrified me. But honestly? When I look back on it, on waiting in that motel room with my gun to see if he’d followed me, I can admit that I wanted him to find me. I wanted some kind of reckoning. Because nothing is worse than being invisible.”
“Yes. That’s why I need to find out. I need to know what happened to her. To Kendall.”
“Even if she’s…”
“Especially if she’s dead,” he says, his voice steady. “I mean, look at you. You weren’t dead. This guy Malcolm found you. And he didn’t hurt you.”
“No,” Clare says. “He didn’t. He offered me this job. And it floors me that I took it. And I know that for the rest of my life I’ll never be able to truly explain why I did. It was just something in my gut. The relief at something tangible. At having something to do aside from run. Even at having someone in my life who knew my story. He was the first person in months who knew my real name. He was looking for missing women and he wanted a partner. Hey, it takes one to know one, right? Somewhere near the end of our first case it occurred to me that I was actually good at the job. Great, even. Because if you’ve spent years honing survival instincts, then you understand how other people do the same. And if you’ve disappeared, you understand how it happens. Why people run, how they might go missing. How easy it can be, really.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” Douglas asks.
“Because I have this question,” Clare says. “Malcolm took on this work of looking for missing women. For something to do, maybe. Because he was driven to find Zoe and needed an outlet for that? I don’t know. He never talked about it. Then I got hurt at the end of our first case. Shot in the shoulder.”
Clare pulls back the neck of her shirt to reveal the scar. Douglas leans in to examine it.
“Wow,” he says. “Five times overseas and I never took a bullet on the job.”
“Yeah. Beginner’s luck, I guess. Anyway, Malcolm and I spent a few weeks laying low as I recovered. To be honest, I was in a haze. Lots of painkillers. I don’t remember much about those weeks, but I learned more about him, some details seeped in. And I think about those details in a new light now. I have reason to question his motives. And last night, I was in a holding cell with these women after I was arrested. And I was thinking: What if my story started here? What if it’s all connected to Zoe? Stacey. Kendall, even? What if it’s all connected?”
“I’m not following,” Douglas says.
Clare points to the photo of Kendall, then to Stacey Norton. “What if he was looking for them the same way he was looking for me?”
“Come on,” Douglas says. “You think?”
“Maybe I’m a conspiracy theorist too.”
Upstairs Somers’s voice rises, clearer.
“I need this from you right away,” she says on the call. “As in, yesterday.”
Clare blinks, listening. She hates that she wants to cry.
“I need a gun,” she says to Douglas. “I can shoot. My dad taught me to shoot. I’d like a gun.”
“And?”
“You strike me as the kind of man who knows where to procure one.”
“Yeah. I know a place.”
“Can you take me?” Clare asks. She sees his hesitation. “Listen. I carry a gun for protection. Like I said, I know how to use one. And mine was taken from me last night when I was arrested.”
Douglas considers this, leaning a shoulder into the wall, rubbing at his beard.
“So will you help me?” Clare asks.
Before he can answer, Somers has descended the stairs. She pauses to absorb the air between Clare and Douglas, thicker now than when she’d left to take the call.
“I’m going to need an hour to address some things at home,” Somers says. “I may need to go back to the hotel.”
“Is everything okay?” Clare asks.
“It will be,” Somers says.
“Anything you need to tell me?” Clare asks.
“Nope,” Somers says. “Shall we get going?”
“Clare can stay,” Douglas says. “We can sift through some things here.”
Somers nods, shifting her gaze from Clare to Douglas. Clare plants herself at the desk. She will stay right here.
Though they are less than a mile above the ocean, the trees here are low and crooked, the air dry. The drive from Douglas’s house to the sporting goods store had taken only twenty minutes, but Clare was shocked by how quickly the backdrop shifted away from the quaint houses and manicured gardens to a grittier landscape. Lune Bay is its own little world, Clare thought as they pulled into the parking lot. MURPHY’S SPORTS AND HUNTING SUPPLIES, the sign reads. A bell jangles when Douglas tugs the door open.
“No gun stores right in Lune Bay?” Clare asks.
“Never,” Douglas says. “The Business Improvement Association would never go for
