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Josie said, “How did the apartment look? Did it appear as if anything had been disturbed?”
Margot shook her head, pulling her phone back to her chest and hugging it.
Beau stared at Josie with dawning horror. “What do you mean, ‘disturbed’?”
Josie ignored him.
“I went to the bagel place,” added Margot. “But they said they hadn’t seen her at all. Or at least no one remembered seeing her today.”
“When you were at her house,” Josie said, “did you look in the bathroom?”
Beau touched Margot’s shoulder, but she shrugged him off. Raffy watched warily. Margot said, “What?”
Josie said, “You said that Eve told you she was going home to get a shower. Did you look inside her bathroom? Was the inside of the shower wet?”
Margot’s lower lip trembled. “I don’t know.”
Beau clamped a hand over Margot’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Raffy’s eyes were locked on Beau’s hand. He took a step forward and reached out, as if he were going to intervene, but then Margot stepped out of Beau’s reach. Raffy quickly wrapped a protective arm across Margot’s shoulders.
Beau gave Raffy a puzzled look, as if he had only just registered his presence. It lasted a beat too long, stretching the moment into awkwardness. Had the two never met before? Or was Beau just so busy and self-absorbed he simply hadn’t noticed the obvious affection between Raffy and Margot? Finally, Beau blinked and turned his attention back to Margot. “Why? Why didn’t you say something about Eve?”
“Because I kept thinking she was just going to show up. Maybe she was having some kind of meltdown or personal crisis. Yesterday she was talking about quitting.”
Beau looked as if she had slapped him. “What?”
Margot ignored him, instead looking down at her phone. She punched something into it and then swiped a few times before turning it toward Josie and Noah. “But the reason I called you was this.”
Josie moved closer. Margot thrust the phone at her until Josie took it. The screen showed text messages between Eve Bowers and Margot.
Margot’s started at six that morning and continued on for an hour and a half.
Where are you?
Is everything okay?
Are you all right?
Are you coming in? If you don’t want to come, I understand. I’ll tell Beau.
No one will be mad. Just let me know you’re okay.
Eve, you’re starting to freak me out. Please answer.
Are you okay?
I’m coming over to your apartment.
There was a thirty-minute gap.
Eve, seriously. Please answer me.
Then, at seven forty-three there was a reply.Tell your boss he doesn’t get to dictate the rules. I do. THE GAME IS ON.
SIXTEEN
Josie used a gloved hand to pull back the shower curtain in Eve Bowers’s tiny bathroom. Inside, drops of water clung to the tile and the bottom of the tub. A laundry bin in the corner of the room was full to the brim with clothes. On top was the crumpled cream sweater dress Eve had been wearing the night before at the stationhouse. A quick pass through the clothes in the basket revealed that they were all the same size and similar in style—so likely all belonging to Eve. The head of her toothbrush was still damp. She had made it home from Margot Huff’s apartment. She’d had time to shower and change. Josie hadn’t found any evidence of another person in the apartment. No extra toothbrush. No photos other than Eve with two people Josie assumed were her parents, given their age and resemblance. If she was dating someone, it was not yet serious enough for the other person to leave evidence of themselves in her home.
