“He wants me to track her down.”
“Wait, you?” Cassidy rubbed her forehead. “Martin, this is a job for the police, not a graduate student. Plus, aren’t you’re leaving for the Yukon in, like a few days?”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” Martin replied with a sigh. “Apparently, Izzy has done this kind of thing before. Preston Ford thinks we can find her and get her home before the media finds out.”
“But what if she’s hurt? Or in trouble?” Cassidy asked.
“Believe me, I’ve thought about it.”
Cassidy sat back, tried to take this in. “Tell me again what happened when you arrived at the geology building.”
“I pulled up to the loading dock in the back. Students started unloading their stuff. I didn’t realize Izzy wasn’t there until half the students had already left,” Martin said, sounding drained. “Izzy’s pack was sitting there on the curb and Alice came up to me, asking where Izzy was.”
“Maybe Izzy just took off and forgot her pack.”
“I wondered that too, but I asked the remaining students if they had seen her go. Nobody remembered seeing her get out of the van. And she’s not at home, I already checked her place. And why would she leave her pack?”
“If her father’s that rich, maybe she didn’t want to go through the hassle of dealing with her dirty laundry,” Cassidy said, discarding this idea the moment it left her mouth. “Maybe she was just in a hurry.”
Martin didn’t reply.
“I’m sure that’s it,” Cassidy said. “She snuck off and no one saw her. She’s probably at a spa somewhere right now, having her toenails buffed.”
“But her notes, her maps . . . why would she just leave those behind?”
Cassidy sighed as her fantasy of locating Izzy so easily vanished. Izzy, though wild and unpredictable, cared about her work. The students’ final report was due in a week—Izzy wouldn’t have left her material behind so easily. Without her maps, field notes, and measurements, completing the assignment would be impossible. Flunking field camp would be a disgrace for any geology major and would prevent her from graduating. Izzy cared too much about her work to let that happen. Or at least Cassidy believed she did.
“So, at the gas station,” Cassidy said. “Nobody saw Izzy take off?”
“It was mayhem—everyone got out. They all wanted junk food and energy drinks. We basically mobbed the place. Alice says she remembers Izzy being asleep.”
“So Izzy didn’t leave the van with the others at the convenience store,” Cassidy confirmed, trying to picture the scene: Everyone leaves the van to buy the junk food they’ve been without for weeks, then returns, obsessed with consuming it, some students probably switching seats, too. Meanwhile, while Martin is focused on keeping a lid on the students, or takes two minutes to use the restroom, Izzy slips away.
“Could something have happened to her?” Cassidy asked as the sinking feeling from earlier returned. “Like, could someone have . . . taken her?”
“I know I fucked up, not watching her when we were at the gas station,” Martin said, his voice tight. “But give me some credit, Dr. Kincaid. I wouldn’t have let some madman kidnap her.”
“Of course not,” Cassidy said, though she secretly let this idea play out in her head. Izzy’s asleep in the van, a creepy kidnapper sneaks in on her. No. Izzy would have screamed bloody murder and fought with everything she had. Someone would have heard. Someone would have tried to stop them.
And yet. Cassidy hugged her middle with her free arm. Izzy was an attractive young woman: long blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, and when she used it, a nice smile. But she was also confident, opinionated—traits that often got her in trouble. She remembered her comment in the bar: so did you bond with your captor? Even if Cassidy tried, she couldn’t imagine Izzy falling prey to some creep—though Cassidy had learned firsthand how easily it was to be fooled.
“What am I going to do?” Martin pleaded. “Preston Ford could literally ruin me, Dr. Kincaid.”
“I better call Dr. Gorman,” Cassidy said as a veil of unease closed around her.
The head of University of Oregon Geology answered sounding distraught. “I need you here now,” he instructed her.
So, Cassidy rose and prepared for a journey with no clear end point. She dressed, popped her contact lenses back into her tired eyes, and grabbed her sleeping bag and pillow, stuffed a change of clothes, her laptop, and a few snacks into a faded backpack and at 12: 43 a.m., jumped into her car.
Cassidy felt wide awake for several hours until the adrenaline faded, and her eyelids began to droop. She realized the very real danger of falling asleep at the wheel. Plus, her engine temperature had risen steadily, so she pulled into a rest area. After reclining her seat, she tugged the sleeping bag from its stuff sack and pulled it over her, locked the doors, and feel asleep instantly. She woke from her catnap at 4:30, and once she was back on the road, reflected on the rest of her conversation with Dr. Richard Gorman. He had informed her that after Martin and Bridget failed to locate Izzy in Eugene using the network of students from field camp, he had called Preston Ford.
“He’s giving us twenty-four hours,” Richard said in a voice that made it sound like this was some kind of gift.
“You know that Martin is going to the Yukon this afternoon, right? And I’m headed to Hawaii in two days?”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“I still don’t understand why we can’t call the police,” Cassidy said.
“With the case regarding Dominique still unsolved, I can’t risk that
