Page 4 of Little Buried Secrets

“Have you called the hospital?”

“Of course. Margot’s not there.”

“Does Rae know you found Margot’s bike?” I asked.

“No, and I don’t want you speaking to her about it.”

He couldn’t stop me from talking to Rae, a woman I considered a good friend. But for now, it was Foley’s investigation, not mine, and I respected that.

There were far more questions than answers right now, and I couldn’t help but wonder if something nefarious had happened to Margot. I wanted to believe there was a reasonable explanation for why she hadn’t returned home. Still … Rae said her daughter never missed curfew. I assumed she’d have called if she were running late.

The mangled bike, the cell phone Margot had left behind, the stains on the pavement that looked a lot like blood … it all left me with an uneasy feeling.

A feeling I couldn’t seem to shake.

CHAPTER 3

“Well, well, it’s about time,” Simone said when Luka and I entered the office.

She had a teasing tone to her voice.

Simone was wearing an Alice in Chains T-shirt beneath a black blazer and jeans. Our other partner, Hunter, was in a pair of overalls, but given it was December, she’d ditched her Birkenstocks for a pair of UGG boots.

“I got a little sidetracked,” I said. “On my way to work this morning, I saw Foley and Whitlock standing on the side of the road, looking at a damaged Beach Cruiser. They believe the bike belongs to Dr. Rae Remington’s daughter, Margot. She didn’t come home last night.”

“That’s not good,” Simone said. “Do you have any other details?”

“Foley said Margot had an argument with her sister yesterday afternoon. He doesn’t know much more beyond that.”

“Is there anything you’d like us to do?” Hunter asked.

“Not until we have more details. For now, she’s a missing person.”

“It seems odd that her bike was damaged and abandoned on the side of the road,” Hunter said. “What about the hospital? Has anyone tried there?”

“Foley gave them a call. They haven’t seen her. I noticed a couple of other things too—what appeared to be white paint flecks and dried blood around the area the bike was found.”

“Maybe she accidentally ran into something,” Simone said.

“There wasn’t anything in close proximity to the bike that could have caused the kind of damage it sustained,” I said.

“Hit-and-run, maybe?” Hunter asked.

“If it was a hit and run, you’d think the person who hit her would have left her there, but she was nowhere to be found,” I said.

“I don’t like it,” Hunter said. “I don’t like it at all.”

Hunter’s breathing had changed, a behavior I always tried to be aware of given she had panic attacks in times of high stress. She loved being a detective. She just preferred being behind the scenes, in the sanctuary of our office.

“Hunter, you okay?” I asked.

She stretched out an arm, which was covered in goosebumps. “I just … I don’t have a good feeling.”

“I know,” I said. “I feel the same way. Until we know more, I say we lie low and allow Foley the time he needs to look into it. Let’s keep an ear to the ground while he does. If anything even the slightest bit suspicious comes up about Margot, I want to know about it.”

CHAPTER 4

Margot had been missing for three days, which meant the odds of finding her alive were slim. Search parties had been formed, but so far, there was no sign of her. As the days folded into each other, there was an underlying sense of foreboding. Whispering around town occurred just about everywhere I went, with many residents speculating about what they thought had happened to Margot and why.

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