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To his credit, Tage Strickland didn’t try to shake her hand. He just tipped his head and touched his forehead in greeting like he was wearing a cowboy hat. “Ms. Ives, are you willing to answer a few questions for us?”
The urge to run tap-danced down her spine. She squashed it and took two deliberate steps forward, pulling out the chair opposite them. “That’s why I’m here.”
As she sat, she noticed Strickland studying her face. Her first instinct was to pull her hair forward to hide her scars, but she squashed that too. She was done hiding. She folded her hands on the table and met each of their gazes directly. “What do you need to know to find Dr. Will?”
Freya returned to her seat and consulted the laptop, but before she could speak, the door opened. Without looking, Bree knew instantly it was Ellis. She felt him like an electric current snapping through the air, lifting the hair on her arms. She refused to look at him and kept her gaze on the cops. Didn’t trust herself to look at him and not melt into an incoherent puddle of lust. Or embarrassment. Probably a mixture of both.
He hesitated in the doorway. “Uh, sorry. Do you want us to wait outside?”
“No, no,” Freya said. “Come in. We’ll talk to you all at once and—” She broke off abruptly and her eyes widened a fraction. Nobody else probably noticed it, but since Bree was staring right at the woman, she saw it plain as day. She finally turned around to see what had startled Freya. It was only Ellis and Nate.
Though Nate was suddenly very interested in the ceiling.
Ellis grinned at his brother’s reaction. He punched Nate’s shoulder in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge kind of way. Bree watched the entire interaction play out with curiosity. She couldn’t read people as easily as she did her dogs and didn’t quite understand what was going on. Strickland was stone-faced. Freya looked like someone had unexpectedly smacked her. Nate was an uncomfortable combination of embarrassment and nervousness while Ellis merely smirked at his brother.
Why was everyone…?
Oh.
Oh.
Nate and Freya knew each other. Intimately. And neither one of them had expected to see the other again. A one-night stand?
Was she supposed to react? Smile like Ellis? Pretend she didn’t know what was going on like Strickland? She felt kind of bad for Nate and Freya. They both looked like they’d rather be anywhere else but here, facing each other, right now. She knew that feeling.
Ugh. Dogs were so much easier than people.
Freya shook her head slightly and returned her attention to her laptop. “So, Bree,” she said, all business again. “You were the last one to speak to William Hunter?”
Yes, this was better. This, she knew how to handle. “I was.”
“You spoke often?”
“Almost daily. He’s—” She broke off, glanced at Ellis and Nate. She didn’t want to hurt them, but she also didn’t want to keep anything back that might help in the search. She returned her attention to Freya. “He’s like a dad to me.”
“Okay.” She tapped in a note on the laptop. “What did you talk about that last time?”
Bree took them through her last call with Dr. Will. She had a good memory and was fairly certain she’d recounted it word-for-word. Then she added, “He was scared, so when he didn’t show up in Anchorage, I checked the satellite tracking system on his plane and there was… nothing. Like his plane just vanished. I was afraid he’d crashed.”
“We’ll need that tracking information,” Strickland said. “What did you do after you realized he was missing?”
“I contacted the police. The person I spoke to basically said I didn’t have enough cause to file a report. I’m not family and Dr. Will is an adult, free to disappear if he so chooses.”
Someone scoffed. She again glanced over at the Hunter brothers, surprised to see Damian had joined the group. Judging by his scowl, he was the one to make the noise and she wasn’t surprised. He’d probably heard similar excuses from the police in the past.
“They never listen to family either,” Damian muttered. “He disappeared for a year when I was a senior in high school. I was eighteen when I tried to report him missing— not a minor— so nobody gave a damn he’d left me.”
Nate stared down at his boots. Ellis crossed his arms over his chest and wouldn’t meet her gaze. That barb was aimed at them as much as the troopers and they both knew it.
Bree ached for the three of them. As much as she loved Dr. Will, she couldn’t help but lower her opinion of him after seeing firsthand the damage he’d inflicted on his sons.
Strickland also looked at the brothers and winced slightly. “I apologize for that, but we’re very familiar with William Hunter and his history of disappearing. Our manpower is extremely limited, so we have to prioritize cases.” He held up a hand before anyone could protest. “I’m not saying we weren’t in the wrong for not taking the report and investigating sooner.”
“This case is a priority now,” Freya added. “I have search teams gearing up to scour the area where Will’s plane disappeared.”
“I’ve already looked,” Bree said.
“I know, and I’d appreciate any insights you have, but you’re only one person. It’s easy to miss things out there if you don’t know what to look for.”
