“Is the postcard in your room?” Charlotte asked as they slipped out the front door.
“My desk.”
In the elevator, Charlotte nodded and took a deep breath, trying to sort through her feelings about Mick. As the elevator bounced to a halt, she decided now wasn’t the time to process. Too many distractions. She tucked away her feelings for later.
She realized Angelina hadn’t said a word the entire way down, which was strange for her chatty new friend. Maybe Angelina had some feelings she needed to tuck away as well. She’d tried to play tough girl up in the room, but Charlotte could tell she had feelings for Mick. More than likely they’d been seeing each other when he had his accident.
What happened to him?
“Hey, you never said what happened—”
The doors opened and Angelina strode to her desk, leaving Charlotte and her question behind.
Charlotte shut her mouth and followed.
Okay. I’ll ask that one later.
Angelina pulled open the single center drawer of her desk and retrieved a postcard with a maple syrup harvest scene on the front.
Charlotte took it, studied the image and then flipped it over. The Concord, New Hampshire postmark covered the stamp in the upper right corner.
“I thought Vermont was the maple syrup place,” she said, as much to herself as Angelina.
Angelina sat in her chair. “Maybe that’s a hint. Maybe Vermont is where she’s going next.”
Charlotte found only what she expected—the address of the Loggerhead Inn written in neat print in black ink, a stamp, a postmark, and nothing else. Most of the letters were capitals, except the g’s in Loggerhead, whose tails hung down.
“I need to look up what happened in Concord recently.”
Angelina swept a voila! motion in the direction of her opened laptop and stood.
“Search away.”
With a quick glance at Croix, who, as usual, watched from her post at the front desk, Charlotte sat down and typed ‘Concord, New Hampshire news crime’ into the search engine.
Nothing popped up so she tried ‘Concord, New Hampshire kidnapping.’
Nothing again.
She tried. ‘Concord, New Hampshire newspaper’ to find The Monitor. On the Monitor’s website she found it difficult to find things from a previous date, but lucked out and spotted a follow-up story about a recently solved murder in the current day’s copy.
“Here it is. This has to be it,” she said, reading through the article.
“How can you tell?”
“It’s about a woman and her dog who went missing. They found them both alive.”
“Siofra had a thing for animals,” said Angelina.
“That might have had something to do with it, but it was an unsolved case. The dog returned home with the missing woman’s wedding ring tied to her collar, two years after they both went missing.”
Angelina’s eyes widened. “Ooh, that is interesting.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. I could see how that might have captured Siofra’s attention.”
“Tell me more. They found her? Siofra found the woman?”
“It doesn’t say anything about Siofra, specifically, but it never does. Everything I found always credited an anonymous tip or someone else. This time it sounds like a local cop found her.”
“Where?” asked Croix from across the room. Apparently, in addition to seeing all, she had the ears of an owl.
“In the neighbor’s basement. He’d kidnapped her and the dog and she finally found a way to get the dog out of the house.”
“Yikes,” said Croix.
“Why kidnap the dog?” asked Angelina.
Charlotte looked at her. It was a fair question but an odd detail to focus on first. “Maybe to use against the woman and keep her quiet?”
Angelina tucked Harley a little closer to her chest and kissed her on the top of her head. “Monster. I’d never let anyone kidnap you.”
Harley remained nonplussed. No doubt she took for granted nothing would ever happen to her.
“Does it say anything about any other woman?” asked Angelina.
“Like who?”
“Siofra could be using another name. She used to do that a lot working with her father.”
Charlotte twisted in her chair to look at Angelina. “When were you going to tell me that?”
She shrugged. “I figured you knew.”
“How would I know?”
“Because if she were using her real name we would have found her ourselves a long time ago.”
Charlotte sighed. She opened a new tab, closed her eyes and let her fingers hover over the keys.
Angelina poked her in the back. “I’m pretty sure you actually have to type something for a search engine to work.”
Charlotte scowled. “I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
“I’m trying to think like Siofra.”
Angelina snorted a laugh. “Oh, okay.”
Charlotte turned. “There are a million crimes out there. I want to try and narrow the field a little.”
Angelina flashed both palms, Harley tucked in the crook of her armpit. “I stand corrected, by all means, please don’t let me break your concentration.”
Charlotte faced the laptop and closed her eyes again.
Think. Think. What are you looking for? Where do you want to go?
Behind her, Angelina made a ghostly noise. “Chaaaarlotte…this is Siofra… why are you caaaaalling meeee...”
Charlotte swiveled in her chair again. “I’m not trying to summon her from the dead.”
“I would hope not,” muttered Croix from her lookout.
Angelina took Harley in both hands and bobbed her up and down in front of Charlotte’s face as if she were a ghost, tiny legs dangling. She booped the dog’s wet nose against hers until Charlotte had to wipe the moisture from her face. She tucked back her chin, trying not to laugh.
“You’re making this a lot harder than it has to be,” she said.
Angelina pulled Harley back against her arm, laughing. “I’m sorry. Go ahead. What are you doing now?”
Charlotte huffed. Angelina hadn’t taken a breath between giving her a moment and asking a new question. “I’m trying to find a pattern. For instance, those postcards
