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“We called them,” Leanne said. “No one’s heard from her. And she hasn’t posted to any of her social media since Thursday.”
Leanne took out her phone and showed Matthew Nina’s Instagram page. She showed him Nina’s last two posts, but she didn’t stop there. She scrolled through, lingering over photographs and short videos, explaining where and when they would have been taken. It went on too long, but Matthew didn’t stop her. He understood what she was doing. She wanted him to know her daughter, to see her as a human being and not just another case. Matthew studied the photos and videos. Nina was very pretty. She was small—in the photographs she barely came up to Simon’s shoulders. She had a light tan and brown eyes fringed with long, thick lashes. Her smile was quick, easy, and warm. In some of the photos she wore a tank top, and you could see how slight she was, but also that she had a climber’s strength. The muscles in her shoulders and arms were lean and toned. Leanne stopped at a short video that played on a loop. She pointed at the screen.
“That’s Simon,” she said.
“He’s a good kid,” Andy said, quickly.
In the video, Nina was standing poolside in a green bikini. There were other kids in the background, some in the pool, a couple sitting on the edge with their legs in the water. Nina looked at the camera with exaggerated innocence, before sidling up to Simon. He was wearing board shorts, aviators, and an expression of I’m-too-cool-for-school on his face. Nina pointed out the camera and they both slipped, as naturally as breathing, into perfect, side-by-side Instagram poses. Bodies stretched and tilted at just the right angles, easy smiles, goofy peace signs. Then Nina slid her arm around his waist and tipped them both into the pool. She came back up for air, laughing so hard it seemed like she couldn’t breathe, just as the camera zoomed in. Her hair was a mess, Instagram perfection nowhere to be seen. She looked very young, very pretty, and very alive. Leanne let the video play through three times, then a fourth. She couldn’t seem to look away. Andy reached out gently and took the phone away from his wife.
“Do you have any tracking software on her phone? Find My Friend, that kind of thing?”
“We don’t do that,” Leanne said. “Should we be doing that?”
Matthew shook his head. “I’ll need to take Simon’s full name, number, and address, please. Also the names and numbers of Nina’s friends.” They gave him the list.
“Where did Nina and Simon go on vacation?”
“Stowe,” Leanne said.
“I’m sorry?” Matthew said. He thought he must have misheard. Stowe was only forty minutes north of Waitsfield.
“Simon’s family bought a second property there recently,” Andy said evenly. “Big place. A house. Acres. Simon and Nina wanted to explore, maybe climb some, if they found good routes.”
“Okay.” Matthew stood up. “We’ll make some preliminary inquiries and get back to you. Please don’t worry. In cases like these, most of the time we find that the young person is with friends.”
Leanne and Andy both nodded, but only Andy did it with conviction. Leanne walked Matthew out.
He made a phone call as he drove north to his wife, Naomi, to tell her that he would be late. It took twenty minutes to reach Waterbury, where state police headquarters was located, in a modern, red-brick building in the state office complex. When he got to the squad room, it was quiet, which wasn’t unusual. Mostly because they’d been understaffed for years, and investigations took detectives all over the state. There were a couple of senior detectives in the room, Kim Allen and David Beecham, working on their own cases. Also a few keyboard warriors who were good with paperwork but not a whole lot else. Matthew had a full case load already. A new missing persons case always required a lot of work that he was not going to have time for. He needed help. He looked around the room for possible candidates.
Sarah Jane Reid was at her desk. Sarah Jane had joined Major Crimes a couple of months prior. She was staring intently at her screen, her fingers poised on her keyboard. She looked up when he came in and flushed a little. Matthew had noticed that he seemed to make her nervous. He made a mental note to observe her with other members of the squad, to see if it was just him or if she was jumpy around the others too. It was too soon for him to form a view about her competence or lack of it, but he knew that she came with complications. Her uncle, Major John Reid, oversaw the Major Crime Unit. John Reid would be Sarah Jane’s boss’s boss’s boss. She was working in her uncle’s direct line of supervision, and there’d been grumblings about nepotism. With that kind of baggage, Reid couldn’t afford to be a blushing, nervous rookie. She’d have to be tough to rise above the gossip and the takedowns.
“Morning,” Matthew said.
“Oh, hi,” Sarah Jane said.
“Early start?”
“Paperwork. I like to get it out of the way early.” She said it with a certain dryness, which made him wonder if she’d been getting more than her fair share of scut work. It might be happening. A kind of hazing, maybe. A test to see if she’d take it, to see if she’d play along or call her uncle for help.
“I’ve got a case,” Matthew said. “I’m at very early stages. It might not be anything. I’d like you to work it with me.” To Matthew’s way of thinking, sitting her at a desk all day was a waste of an officer. She was inexperienced, but the only way to address that was to get her out in the field, let her observe and do the work and learn on the job.
“Thank you,” Sarah Jane said. “That would be great.”
He gave her the background. “Call Nina Fraser’s phone company,” he said. “It will take time to get detailed messages and phone calls, but we should be able to get location and use data pretty quickly. Call her bank too. Find out when she last used her cards.”
Sarah Jane made the calls while he caught up on other work. Half an hour later, she came to his desk.
“Cell phone tower data puts Nina in Stowe on Friday night, but the last ping was just after midnight. No pings since. No activity on her credit card since Wednesday of last week, when she paid for... uh...” Sarah Jane checked her notes. “She spent thirty-two dollars in the Green Goddess café.”
Matthew grimaced. “That’s not what I was hoping to hear.”
Sarah Jane looked down at her notes. She didn’t ask him what he was thinking. She seemed to be figuring that out all by herself. Matthew stood up and picked up his jacket.
“I’m going to interview the boyfriend,” he said.
“Right.” She nodded and retreated.
“You too, Sarah Jane.”
