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“Where is Louise?” she demanded.
“I ... I ...” He used a hand to shield his eyes. “I have no idea. I thought you might know.”
“All I know is that she came to her office on the twenty-third, Thanksgiving—I suspect because she knew I wouldn’t be there. She took some of her things and left me a note. I haven’t heard from her since, and I’m really worried.”
She lowered the beam of light to the ground.
“What did the note say?”
Maureen looked away. “She said I shouldn’t look for her. She couldn’t be in this life anymore.”
“Oh my God.” Bart shook his head, felt sick. What had he done?
“I know what you did,” Maureen hissed. She flashed the light in his face again. “She told me you had been meeting with Lucy and that she was going to talk to you. What did you tell her? What did she say?” She shivered, hugged herself. Her thin coat wasn’t doing its job very well.
Bart took a breath. “Why don’t we go inside, and I’ll tell you all that I can?”
“All right.” She lowered the flashlight once more. “But just so you know, I am trained in self-defense, and I do not have a problem kicking your ass if you try anything.” She lifted her chin. “In fact, I’ll do worse. I’ll tell your wife.”
Dear God, would he ever survive this?
Maureen insisted he go first. Bart made his way around the corner of the house and through the front door. The warmth spread through him instantly. He’d been sitting in his car for hours with the engine turned off. He’d hoped to find Louise sneaking into her house for supplies or clothes. Something. He’d been watching her house every chance he got.
Maureen closed the door and leaned against it. “Tell me everything you told Louise. Start with how you were involved with Lucy.”
Bart sank onto the bench that sat against the wall. He was too tired to hide the truth. Too exhausted from worry to navigate the lies.
“First, we need to set some parameters.”
She raised her eyebrows at him.
“I will not put my family in danger just to satisfy your curiosity.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
“You can never tell anyone—no matter how badly you want to,” he began, “what I’m about to share with you.”
If Ray Johnson learned he had uttered a single word ... he banished the thought and focused on doing what he hoped was the right thing.
God knows he’d done everything wrong so far.
“Why would I do that?” she snapped. “My friend’s daughter was murdered. Now she’s missing. If you know what’s happened, we need to go to the police.”
“Because,” Bart snapped right back, “if you tell another living soul, my daughter will be murdered—my wife too. And, I suspect, then he would come after your family.”
Maureen drew back slightly, as if he’d slapped her. “Who the hell are you talking about?”
“Do I have your word or not?”
She exhaled noisily. “Fine. I give you my word.”
Bart desperately wished that he could tell her a story that would give her some sort of relief ... some sort of happy ending. But there was no happy ending in any of this. “I was helping Lucy with her senior thesis,” he said, so damned tired. So sick at what had happened to that poor girl. “I’m sure Louise told you this much.”
Maureen shrugged. She wasn’t going to make this easy.
“Lucy didn’t want to go to medical school. She wanted to be like her mother.” He smiled sadly. “She wanted to do the biggest story possible to impress her. She found her mother’s notes on her own secret project and decided to go at the subject from the perspective of those involved in doing the human trafficking.”
Maureen’s eyes narrowed. “How did Louise take all this?”
