“He’s been missing for more than two weeks.”
The woman pulled out a small pad of lined paper. She asked a series of questions and jotted down the information: his name, age, height, hair and eye color, where he lived, his occupation, the date he was last seen.
Cassidy wished Bruce had come. He was the last person to see Reeve before he disappeared.
“Any physical characteristics?”
Cassidy’s gut churned. So we can identify a body? she thought. “Not that I know of,” she said.
“Wait here,” the woman replied, and disappeared into the window. There were two rows of spindly chairs. She and Benita chose a pair against the wall and then sat.
“This feels like a waste of time,” Cassidy groaned.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Benita said with a shrug. Outside in the garden, an iguana stepped into the open and snatched a hibiscus flower from a low-hanging shrub. He devoured it in two flicks of his tongue and darted off.
Cassidy sat back and looked at the slow-turning ceiling fan and the layers of scrum visible on the mount. In the corner, a pair of geckos in the far corner rested, no doubt waiting for evening when they could crawl around feasting on bugs.
A man with graying hair and thick eyebrows stepped into the room, holding the pad of paper.
“Please,” he said, then frowned when Benita also rose. “Who is this?”
“I’m her lawyer,” Benita said, standing. The look she gave him blared, DO NOT FUCK WITH ME.
“I assure you there is no need for this,” the man said, his expression of kindness slipping a notch.
“Then you won’t mind if I tag along,” she said, her small body unmoving.
The man paused but only for a moment, then he extended his hand to the hallway he had come from. “Please,” he said again, and Cassidy and Benita walked a short distance to an open doorway. Inside, the officer’s desk and chair faced two visitors’ chairs. The officer indicated that they should sit and then seated himself.
“I’m sorry for your trouble,” the officer said.
“Do you have any information about Reeve?” Cassidy was unable to hide her impatience. “And what might have happened to him?”
The man adjusted his posture, leaning forward on his forearms. “We received a call from the embassy,” he said, his grandfatherly eyes connecting with Cassidy. “From your sister, yes?”
“Stepsister,” Cassidy corrected.
“And we have no trace.”
Cassidy grimaced. “I think something happened to him. Something unexpected.”
“Unexpected things are known to happen. You party, you meet a nice woman . . . ” he trailed off and shrugged, as if this was an enviable outcome. Maybe he had even dreamed of it himself. Fall in love and disappear in a haze of passionate lovemaking that lasts for weeks.
“He left something valuable on the boat. But his other possessions are gone.”
Bruce had ushered Benita’s group to their immigration check-in. Would he have done so for Reeve? Probably not. So that meant Reeve would have either handled it himself or skipped it altogether. She thought about asking, but it didn’t matter. They didn’t need immigration to confirm that Reeve was in San Juan.
The man was watching her as if able to read her mind.
“Reeve has a history of using drugs,” Cassidy said, knowing that it was important to say this, yet it made her feel she was betraying Reeve somehow. “And I hear that there’s a turf war going on,” she added, picturing the narc boat.
The man’s eyes flashed. “We do not allow the gangs in our town. They are off in the jungle, killing each other.”
“Okay,” Cassidy said. “But this is a resort town. Surely there are drugs, and dealers, and . . . ”
“San Juan is like many resort towns in Nicaragua,” he said.
“So have you looked into this possibility? That he got into trouble with drugs?”
The man opened his hands. “We have looked into every possibility.”
The woman from the front window stepped into the doorway. She asked him something in rapid Spanish. Cassidy didn’t quite catch it, but there was an urgency to her request. The man frowned and turned back to Cassidy and Benita.
“We have used all available channels to find your brother.” He gave them both a soft smile. “I’m sorry.” He showed them to the entryway, nodded a cordial goodbye, and left. A moment later, they heard a motorcycle engine rev up and then fade away as the man drove off.
Cassidy continued walking, ready to leave the building but stopped when the receptionist called out from behind the window. She looked both ways, her made-up eyes trying to tell her something. Cassidy realized that both of her hands were hidden from view.
“My son, he is good with electronics,” she began. “When no one comes to claim these things, sometimes I can give to him. To sell.” Her chin lifted with pride, or maybe it was defiance.
Cassidy was confused. “Does she want a donation, or something?” she said to Benita under her breath.
The woman placed a box on the window ledge and opened the lid.
Cassidy stepped closer to peer inside, her heart doing a pitter-patter-whump into her ears. Inside the box was a collection of phones, a few wallets, keys. She looked at the woman, but she evaded Cassidy’s eyes. Cassidy looked into the box again.
“Does anything look like his?” Benita asked.
Cassidy picked up a worn leather wallet and opened it. The slots for credit cards were all empty. She pulled out a worn card inside advertising plumbing services in Palm Beach, Florida and a rewards card for Sam’s Club. She had no idea if Reeve carried a wallet. There was another wallet, a faux leather one in the shape of a rectangle. She ignored the keys because they didn’t have any way to verify if they were Reeve’s, so the keys wouldn’t help find him. Cassidy’s attention turned to the phones. There were three: an old-fashioned Motorola and two smartphones: an iOS and an Android. She tried the home button on both, but, of course, they were dead.
Cassidy wondered if Rebecca would know anything about Reeve’s phone. The
