Vanishing in Aruba by Sal Bianchi

Author:Sal Bianchi [Bianchi, Sal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

20

Come the morning, I was the first one up, and after I put on a pot of coffee to brew, I checked the news on my phone to see what the media had to say about last night. I was a little surprised to find that there was nothing there—maybe the police were keeping it under wraps so as not to alarm the island more than it was already alarmed—so I grabbed Fiona’s tablet where she’d left it on the coffee table so I could take a look at our clone of Giel’s phone.

My eyes widened when I saw the departmental communication that had been zipping back and forth all night. Most of it was about what had happened with Bella and the search for me across the island, but a report, nearly buried beneath the flood, caught my eye. A woman had called the station when her husband didn’t come home. An officer had gone and taken her statement. The missing man’s name was Charlie Reynolds. He was in his thirties, having been on the island for two days. It sounded like the police had talked to the wife, decided he’d gone out drinking and hadn’t made it home, and assured her he would show up soon. The report wasn’t flagged for anyone’s attention and was likely to be missed with everything else that had happened.

I stared at it with a frown on my face, though. The woman had called the station about two hours ago. Her husband had gone out around nine, about an hour before the attack on Bella had occurred. It seemed like too much of a coincidence not to be related, but Charlie certainly didn’t fit the profile of the rest of the girls who had been taken or attacked. It prickled at the back of my mind, wanting to know more, wondering if this was the break in the case we’d been looking for. And it seemed like, at least for now, the police were ignoring it, so we could hopefully go check it out without running into them.

I left the communique open as the coffee finished brewing, pouring myself a cup. The smell of the coffee seemed to rouse Fiona and Dylan because they came shuffling out into the living room and kitchenette at around the same time. I got two more mugs down and poured them some coffee as well, then picked up the tablet again.

“Check this out,” I said. “Someone did go missing last night.”

“Who? One of the other young women?” Dylan asked.

I shook my head. “A guy in his thirties. Charlie Reynolds. His wife says he went out last night and didn’t come home. A constable investigated but doesn’t seem to have flagged it as important.”

“And you think, what?” Dylan wondered.

“I think our suspect took him instead,” I said, feeling good about this theory even if I still needed the evidence to back it up.

Fiona frowned as she took the tablet from me and looked the information over. “He doesn’t fit the profile.

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