Page 22 of Just Another Missing Person

“Yeah.”

Bill held her gaze.

“What would I get?”

“Life. Maybe ten years if mitigated.”

She’d already known it. She’d been spot-on. But it was somehow both helpful and hurtful to hear it.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Any time,” he said, but he looked at her a little longer than usual, as they parted. A second or two later, he tapped her on the shoulder. She’d already started her journey back to the station. “Juls,” he said. “I don’t know any of this—okay? My job, you know...”

“I know,” she said.

He met her eyes. “Take care of yourself, yeah?”

***

Julia is supposed to be prepping to speak to Olivia’s father, but really she is heading into the back, behind the offices, to the evidence room. Her favorite place. She has been following the evidence for twenty years and doesn’t intend to stopnow. Finding Olivia is the only thing that will truly help. She pushes open the heavy fire door, shoes off, and heads into the dim and the dust.

It’s a large, warm room, and every single time Julia comes in here she remembers the one single time Art came over when she was working on the Sadie case, ostensibly to spend time with her during a long-hours stint, but in reality he ended up re-alphabetizing the shelves.

O. Johnson 1–10. She finds them quickly. Boxes one and two contain Olivia’s clothes. The first thing Julia thinks is that this isn’t many. Maybe the rest are in storage somewhere for the house move. Genevieve has ten times this amount of clothes. But then... maybe that’s just Genevieve.

Julia fingers a dusty-pink blouse, old-fashioned, square cut, then pulls an Aran-knit jumper out of a clear plastic forensic bag. Sage green, huge. She spreads the clothes out on an empty metal shelf deeper into the room, where there is less daylight and the smell of old evidence boxes is even more delicious. A pink blouse, a green jumper. Two pairs of jeans, two black T-shirts, a slogan tee. Maybe shewasrunning away, Julia thinks, frowning as she looks at them. That is hardly any clothes at all. She must ask the dad if Olivia had storage anywhere else.

She checks the labels. Huh. Some designer, some high street, but what really stands out is they’re different sizes. Eights, tens, twelves, fourteens. One XL.

She was fashionable, according to her Instagram. Maybe wore things big. The forgiving figures of the young. She gets her phone out and calls Genevieve. She knows she shouldn’t.

She answers on the third ring. Lunchtime. A buzz around her, clear air whipping through the microphone.

“Do you buy clothes in lots of different sizes?” Julia asks.

“Er, hi to you, too,” Genevieve says. She steps away, somewhere quieter, perhaps inside; the wind dies down. “No,” she says, truly the daughter of a cop, good at answering questions without explanation.

“Not even, like, an oversized jumper?”

“No—usually you buy it in your size but the cut itself is oversized? Like a boyfriend cut?”

“Oh, okay. Boyfriend cut. Got it,” Julia says.

“That all, Detective?”

“That’s all,” she says with a smile. “Olivia has a range of sizes.”

“What range?”

“Eight to fourteen to XL.”

“That’s so weird,” Genevieve says thoughtfully. “Are any of them on her Insta?”

“No. Not really. She took photos of things, mostly.”

“What size do you think she was?”

“She’s thin, surely an eight or ten.”

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