cast involuntary looks toward the choppy blue water of the Sound. Until now he’d been too preoccupied to notice the salty sea air and the faint scent of rot that was usual during a low tide.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Nobody swims here anyway, so the subject didn’t come up. She didn’t wear a bathing suit.”
“Ms. Greenway—” civility was becoming harder to maintain “—perhaps we should call Sicily’s parents.”
Those beautiful eyes met his. “She doesn’t have any. I have custody.”
Every instinct he had went on red alert. Did this kid even exist? This whole thing could be a hoax, an attention-grabber. Worse possibilities jumped to mind and if Sicily Marks didn’t materialize pretty damn quickly, he was going to have to take those possibilities seriously.
“Her mother died a month ago.” Ms. Greenway sounded stiff. “Sicily came to live with me then. We’re still feeling our way.”
He shoved his fingers through his hair and resisted the urge to give it a yank. Could this whole situation get any more unsettling?
“I take it you hadn’t spent much time with your niece.”
Was it possible the arms wrapping her had tightened? “My sister and I were estranged. I sent Sicily birthday cards and the like, but she tells me that Rachel—her mother—never gave them to her.”
Mike digested the fact that this family was—or at least had been—majorly screwed up. Which meant the kid likely was, too. “Her father?” he asked.
“Hasn’t been in the picture since Sicily was a toddler. She doesn’t remember him.”
Good. Great.
“Grandparents?”
“She has them,” Ms. Greenway said tersely.
“Do they know her any better than you do?”
“I…don’t think so.”
She didn’t think so. If she didn’t know what kind of relationship her own parents had with her sister and niece, that meant she had no relationship to speak of with them, either. That poor kid’s family was a mess.
He kept asking questions. Had she and Sicily quarreled today? No. Yesterday? No. Recently? No. In the month since her mother died, had the girl tried to run away or otherwise alarmed Ms. Greenway? No, nothing like that. Does she carry a cell phone?
She gave him a startled look. “She’s ten years old! Of course not.”
He’d have pursued the subject, except that even kids who did have a phone might not carry it to the beach.
Had Ms. Greenway noticed anyone else close by today? Seeming to pay attention to them? Maybe watching Sicily or pausing to talk to her?
No. Ms. Greenway was reading and only glancing up occasionally before she nodded off.
She was one hundred percent no help. The whole time he questioned her, she held on to that astonishing poise. Literally, since she never once uncrossed her arms. He kind of wished she would, since the tightness of her grip pushed her breasts up and created a distractingly deep cleavage above the white tank top that also revealed a fragile collarbone and long, slim arms. At least her legs weren’t equally bared; she wore khaki pants that ended midcalf and the kind of sandals sturdy enough to be running shoes except somebody had decided to add cutouts for extra ventilation.
He let the silence spin out, thinking maybe that would shake her. As if to punctuate it, a seagull swooped low overhead and let out a strident cry. She jumped and gave a wild look around. Mike waited, but that was it.
Finally, he conceded defeat. “Ms. Greenway, is there anyone at all Sicily might go to or call if she got scared or separated from you?”
For the first time, he saw despair in her eyes. “I don’t know,” she whispered, and he knew she was ashamed to have to admit it.
Or, like that landscaper John Sullivan, she was playing him.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said abruptly. “I need to speak to some other people.”
By this time, nearly two dozen members of the search-and-rescue organization had arrived and were spread out, combing the park for one little girl in red shorts. He spoke to a couple of the people in charge, then phoned another detective with whom he often worked. Eddie Ruliczkowski answered on the third ring and listened in silence to Mike’s request.
“Yeah, hold on and I’ll do a quick internet search.” With his big, beefy fingers, Eddie had a heavy hand on a keyboard. The keys clattered and he grunted a couple of times before finally saying, “I’m finding an Elizabeth Greenway who owns some kind of event planning company.”
“Event planning? You mean, like weddings?”
“No. Uh, looks like mostly auctions, big corporate shindigs, product launches, sports tournaments.” He was clearly reading off a list. “Team building,” he said with a snort. “Holiday parties.”
“Huh. Anything personal about her?”
“Nothing. All I’m seeing are mentions of her in her professional capacity. She’s a member of Rotary, some women-in-business group… Give me a minute.”
Mike did. Aside from the basic stat that Ms. Greenway was thirty-two years old—only two years younger than Mike—Eddie came up with zip. Elizabeth Greenway had no record of trouble with the law, not so much as a parking ticket.
“Okay,” Mike finally said. “If you have time, keep digging. This whole thing stinks.”
Under any other circumstance, Eddie would have grumbled about having plenty of his own stuff to do. But he’d been around when Nate died. He knew what Mike had gone through and how sensitive he’d be to any case with a child in peril.
Mike looked at his watch—he’d been at the park for an hour. Sicily Marks had now been missing for two hours. The odds that she’d been abducted were increasing by the minute, unless something else odd was going on.
Back to talk to Ms. Greenway, he decided grimly. It might not have been the father’s decision not to be involved in his daughter’s life. It was interesting, if true, that Ms. Greenway had acquired custody only a month ago. Somebody might not have been pleased, whether it was the child’s father or the grandparents. Or were there other family members? He cursed himself for not asking and retraced his steps to the beach.
She stood exactly where he’d left her. He felt a pang of something strange when he saw her planted there, stiffer and less graceful than any of the madrona trees on the bluff above her. He wondered if she’d moved a muscle beyond those required to breathe.
When he reached her, he saw something else. There were goose bumps on her arms and she was quivering. No, shivering. In alarm, he laid one of his hands over hers, clasped the other on her upper arm, and found it icy. She jumped and swung to face him. “What…?”
“You’re freezing,” he said brusquely. This time he wrapped his hands around both her upper arms and began rubbing. “Why didn’t you say something?”
She looked at him with unshaken poise and said, “I’m perfectly…” Fine. That’s what she meant to say, but it didn’t come out because her teeth chattered.
“You’re not.” She was in shock and either hadn’t recognized it or refused to acknowledge her own vulnerability. He urged her backward and said, “Sit.”
“No! I…”
He all but picked her up and sat her butt down on the blanket, which he then gathered up and wrapped around her. Her teeth chattered again and she seemed to shrink. After a moment, she clutched the edges of the blanket and tucked in her chin, turtlelike. Squatting on his haunches next to her, all he could see was her hair, which had swung forward to veil her face.
“Better?” He was trying