“We had a big fight yesterday, and she left.” Mrs. Palmer’s voice cracked. “She said she was going to spend the night at her friend’s house, but I called Felicity’s mother. Tessa didn’t go to the Webers’ house.”

She’d lied.

“So you haven’t seen her since yesterday?” Morgan asked.

“Yes.” Over the connection, Mrs. Palmer sobbed. “Since Tessa has been babysitting for you every Friday night, I hoped you’d seen her. Then at least we’d know she was all right.”

“Tessa hasn’t babysat for me for weeks,” Morgan said.

“So she lied about that too.” Mrs. Palmer went quiet.

Morgan set her pillow aside and climbed off the bed. Tossing her robe on the bed, she rooted in her dresser drawer for a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. “Have you called the police?”

“We’d thought she’d cool off and come home tonight. But it’s almost midnight and she’s not here.” Mrs. Palmer sniffed. “I’ll call the police now, but I don’t know what they can do. She’s eighteen.”

“Have you tried to locate her cell phone?”

“I wouldn’t know how to do that,” Mrs. Palmer said.

“Do you need help looking for her?” As she offered, Morgan felt under her chair for her canvas sneakers.

“I don’t know. I keep thinking she’s going to pull into the driveway any second. My husband is driving around now. I’m not allowed to drive at night anymore.”

Mr. Palmer probably shouldn’t be driving at night either. Tessa’s parents had died in a car accident when she was twelve, and her grandparents had been raising her for the last six years. Unlike Morgan’s robust grandfather, the Palmers were plagued with medical problems.

“I’m getting dressed.” Morgan found the shoes. “I’ll be at your house in a few minutes.”

“Oh, thank you.” Relief softened Mrs. Palmer’s tone. “I’m calling the police and her friends.”

Morgan ended the call, set the phone back in its cradle, and pulled her T-shirt over her head. Picking up her shoes, she left her bedroom barefoot. The phone call had rattled her, and she took a minute to peek into her daughters’ room. In the slant of light from the hall, she could see three dark heads nestled on pillows. The tiny shiver of relief made her feel almost guilty.

Poor Mrs. Palmer.

Morgan couldn’t imagine anything more terrifying than having one of her girls missing.

She went into the kitchen. Footsteps scuffed in the hall.

Her grandfather came through the doorway, putting one hand on the frame for balance. He wore a navy-blue robe over tailored cotton pajamas. “What’s wrong?”

“That was Evelyn Palmer. Tessa didn’t come home tonight.” Morgan filled him in on the phone call as she sat down in a chair and slipped her bare feet into her shoes. Her grandfather walked forward, his leather slippers dragging on the tile, one steadying hand sliding along the wall.

“Where’s your cane?” she asked.

He scowled. “I don’t need a cane.”

“That’s not what the doctor says.”

“My slippers are older than that doctor.” He leaned a shoulder on the wall and crossed his arms, signaling an end to the topic.

Morgan gave up, for the moment. As much as she hated to admit her grandfather was aging, he absolutely refused to act his age. “Anyway. It doesn’t sound like something Tessa would do.”

Her grandfather shrugged. “No. It doesn’t. But the best teens can be a handful. You have to raise them with a healthy dose of suspicion.”

Morgan remembered coming home from parties to his scrutiny. She could still picture him sitting in his leather chair, a book in his lap, his sharp gaze sizing her up over his reading glasses. He had had no qualms about giving her breath a not so subtle sniff. The retired homicide detective had guided three of the four Dane siblings into adulthood after their father had been killed in the line of duty and their mother had moved them from the city to upstate New York when Morgan was in high school. Her mom had had a heart attack a few years later.

“Her car could have broken down somewhere out of cell range.” Standing, Morgan grabbed her denim jacket from the back of the kitchen chair. “She could have hit a tree or a deer.”

Her grandfather followed her down the short hall to the foyer. “Let me know what you’re doing, all right?”

He was living proof that parenting—and grandparenting—was a lifelong commitment.

“I will. I’m just going to drive over to the Palmers’ house and see if I can help.”

“You know that one night out isn’t unusual for a teenager,” Grandpa said. “Almost all of them show up within twenty-four hours. Plus, she’s legally an adult. She hasn’t committed a crime.”

“I know.” But Morgan’s concern wouldn’t ease. Then again, Morgan had lost both her parents and her husband. She often held her loved ones closer than was entirely healthy. But grief had wrapped barbed wire around her heart. The slightest touch made it bleed.

“Do you want me to call Stella?” Grandpa asked.

Morgan’s younger sister was a detective with the Scarlet Falls PD.

“Not yet. She works too much as it is. Let me see what’s going on. Tessa will probably turn up soon, and Mrs. Palmer already called the police. I’m sure the responding officer can handle the call. Like you said, Tessa hasn’t done anything illegal.”

Just completely out of character.

“All right. Be careful. I love you,” Grandpa called. “Do you have a flashlight?”

“I do.” Morgan patted her tote bag and left the house.

Outside, the darkness loomed. But as she walked down the driveway, motion sensing security lights lit up the front yard like a runway. She glanced up at the camera affixed under the eaves of the house.

Grandpa had installed it with the security system almost as a joke to catch a neighbor who didn’t clean up after her dog. But now Morgan was glad for the extra surveillance.

Years ago, none of them had ever dreamed they’d need a security system in Scarlet Falls, let alone in their rural development. But these days, there seemed to be no escaping crime.

Chapter Four

Lance Kruger hunkered down in the front seat of his Jeep and stared at the one-story motel across the street. In the center of the long building, the curtains of room twelve were drawn tight. The camera on his passenger seat, complete with telephoto lens, waited.

His phone vibrated, shimmying across his dashboard. The display read SHARP. His boss.

Lance answered the call, “Yeah.”

“Catch them yet?” Former Scarlet Falls detective Lincoln Sharp had retired after putting in his full twenty-five and had spent the last five years as a P.I.

“Got individual photos of each of them entering the motel room. They haven’t come out yet.” Photos of a lusty good-bye in the parking lot would solidify Mrs. Brown’s claim of adultery.

“They’re still in there?” Sharp whistled. “Impressive. I wouldn’t expect Brown to have that much stamina.”

“He probably fell asleep.”

Sharp snorted.

“If you can’t sleep, you can always take over tonight’s surveillance.” Lance shifted in the seat, trying to get comfortable.

“I’m too damned old and creaky to sit in a car all night long,” Sharp said. “Why do you think I hired you?”

“You’re fifty-three, not ninety-three, and since when do we take divorce cases?”

“Family favor.”

Mrs. Brown lived next door to Sharp’s cousin. Since Mr. Brown had already been reported for sexual harassment, Mrs. Brown was hoping he wouldn’t want the affair with his coworker made public. Full-color glossies would provide excellent leverage when it came time to divide marital assets and settle on alimony.

But the whole business left Lance with a foul taste in his mouth. “We’re bottom-feeding.”

“At times.” A teakettle whistled on Sharp’s end of the line. “Let me know if anything goes down. I’ll be up.”