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“Okay, but if the police are here...” He seemed to be waking up, finally. He rubbed his hand across his face. “What if something happened to her, Mom?”
I felt a small sliver of fear at the base of my stomach. Not for Nina, but for Simon. For my son. If something had happened to her, he would be devastated. He might blame himself for leaving her.
“I guess we can ask them what they know.” I hesitated in the doorway. “I wonder if I should call a lawyer?” I thought about calling Rory. He didn’t like to be disturbed in the office, but he’d want to know about this.
“Mom. Come on.” Simon looked at me like I’d just said something crazy. He left the room before I could say anything else, and I had to hurry after him to keep up. We found Matthew Wright and his sidekick in the living room, standing by the windows and taking in the view. They’d obviously taken advantage of my absence and snooped around. I wondered what conclusions they’d drawn. They wouldn’t have seen anything personal, not unless they’d gone so far as to open drawers and cupboards. We aren’t the kind of family that leaves clutter around.
Simon went straight to Matthew Wright and offered his hand. “I’m Simon Jordan,” he said. “My mother tells me you’re here about Nina?”
Wright took Simon’s outstretched hand and shook it briefly.
“Let’s sit,” he said, like we were in his home instead of ours. Simon sat on the sofa, and Wright took the armchair opposite him. The blond woman—Reid—stood for a moment, as if she was waiting for permission, then sat in the other armchair. Wright looked at me and waited, as if I were intruding. I should have brazened it out, but the awkwardness of the moment got to me.
“Can I get anyone coffee?” I asked, too brightly.
“Thank you,” said Wright. “Coffee would be good.”
“Not for me, Mom.”
“Thank you, no.”
I went back up the steps to the kitchen and turned on the coffee-pot. I was still able to see everyone across the open floor plan. I could hear their voices and every word they said, but from the kitchen I suddenly felt like I’d lost control.
“Simon, Mr. and Mrs. Fraser tell me that Nina was supposed to come home on Saturday morning from your trip, and she didn’t show. She also hasn’t called them, and her cell phone goes straight to voice mail. Do you know where Nina is right now?”
Simon shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry. No.” He was leaning forward in the seat, his forearms balanced on his thighs and his hands together. The expression on his face was serious and concerned.
“Can you tell me when you last saw her?”
“That would have been Friday night.”
“Okay. And where was this?”
“It was at our house—I mean my parents’ house—at Stowe.”
Wright nodded. “Who else was there?”
“No one. We went there alone, just the two of us, for all of last week. It was a vacation.”
“Stowe seems a little close to home for a getaway. It’s too early for skiing. You didn’t want to go somewhere else? Somewhere a bit farther afield?”
“Sure. I’d have loved to. But it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“Any particular reason why you hadn’t planned anything earlier?”
Simon was slow to answer. “Nina was planning to work over the break. She was going to help her mom out at the inn. But she’d had enough, and she decided she wanted to take some time off. It was too late to book anywhere, so we decided to go to my folks’ place. It didn’t really matter where we went. We just wanted to be together.”
“Nina’s parents were okay with her blowing off work?”
“Yeah, not really. At least, her dad didn’t mind, I don’t think. He doesn’t really get involved in that stuff.”
“Nina’s mom wasn’t happy?”
Simon’s brow creased. “I don’t want to say anything bad about anyone.”
“I promise I won’t judge,” Wright said. “But it’s better not to hold anything back right now.”
“Okay,” Simon said, nodding. “I get that. The truth is, Nina’s mom is pretty demanding. She expects Nina to work at the inn all the time, not just during vacations, but during school too and weekends. There’s not a lot of room left for Nina to have a life. So she finally decided she’d had enough and she told her mom she wasn’t going to work.”
