crossed her arms and sighed. “Okay, what do you want, Brett?” Despite her snarky attitude, her nerves hummed with apprehension. She had no idea why he was here—but she wasn’t about to show any weakness in front of an Eggert, a member of the family that had run her out of town eight years ago.
Brett seemed to do a mental shake and something flittered across his eyes. “Were you in an accident this evening?”
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t even have my...” She was about to say the word car, when it hit her. Cold icy fear pumped through her veins, matching the chill on her flesh. “My friend Missy Flowers borrowed my car.” Her eyes widened. “Has there been an accident? Is she okay?” Instinctively she sent up a quick prayer for her friend.
But why was he asking her if she had been in an accident? If Missy was okay, he would have known Nicole wasn’t driving her own car. Her stomach pitched and her mind scrambled with the possibilities. Nothing made sense.
Nicole stepped back and held out her arm, suddenly forgetting all the reasons she shouldn’t invite this man into her home. “Come in.” The words rasped in her dry throat.
“Is Missy okay?” she asked again, her impatience growing each time he didn’t answer her question.
Brett stepped into the foyer, his broad shoulders filling the narrow space. His silence ramped up her panic.
Dear Lord, let Missy be okay, she repeated in her head. Please, please, please.
“We pulled your vehicle out of the lake this evening.”
“And Missy...?” Blackness darkened the periphery of her vision. She flattened her palm against the flowered wallpaper. “Is Missy okay? I let her borrow my car.” A shrill tone laced the edges of her words. She fisted her hands at her side, resisting the urge to reach out and throttle him. Demand some reassurance.
His somber expression gave none.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said, his voice gruff. “No one was in the car.”
Nicole’s brow furrowed. “No one? How can that be? Where’s Missy?” The busy wallpaper swirled and the ground heaved underneath her.
This wasn’t the first time an officer had notified her of a traffic accident. The night the police officer came to her door to tell her Max had been killed in a wreck was imprinted on her brain. She’d never forget that night and the subsequent tailspin it had sent the rest of her life into.
Dragging her hand along the wall, she tottered to the kitchen. She found her purse hanging on the back of a chair. Her pulse roared through her ears competing with the Jeopardy! theme music in the next room. She clawed through her purse until she found her cell phone.
Brett was saying something—headlights, accident, gone—but his words sounded like they were being forced through a long tunnel like thick goop. The orange and brown hues of her grandmother’s dated kitchen sharpened into focus.
“I’ll call Missy. Maybe...somehow...” She swiped a finger across the smudged screen of her smartphone. Nicole frantically entered her passcode. She tried three times before she got it right. She dialed her friend’s number and lifted her eyes to meet Brett’s while the phone rang. Once...twice... His sympathetic expression made it difficult for her to breathe.
Nicole studied the floor and focused all her energy on the ringing phone.
Three...four...five...
She imagined Missy clawing through her oversize bag, muttering to herself, fumbling for her cell phone. In one second Missy would answer and someday they’d laugh and laugh about the time she borrowed Nicole’s car and drove it into the lake during a snowstorm. Yeah. Ha-ha.
Missy’s cheerful voice sounded on the line. “It’s me. You know what to do.” Voice mail.
The last shred of hope drained from Nicole’s numb limbs. “Missy, call me as soon as you get this. I’m worried about you. Really worried...” Her last word crumbled on a sob. She tossed the phone down on the table and dropped into a chair, its legs skidding on the worn linoleum floor. “She’s not going to call me, is she?”
“The circumstances seem dire.” Brett stood in the middle of her kitchen, as if frozen, unwilling to commit to an answer. He cleared his throat. “How do you know Missy?”
“We both work at the funeral home.” Nicole pressed her palms together and touched the tip of her nose with her fingers. “I told her not to go to Buffalo. That the weather was bad.” She bit her lower lip, fearing she’d lose it if she let herself cry. “I canceled an appointment I had in Buffalo tonight. We were supposed to go into Buffalo together. Me for my meeting. Missy to visit a boyfriend. But my grandmother wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t want to leave her alone with my son.” She winced, wondering if she had made a mistake by mentioning her son, but hiding Ethan’s paternity when her friend was missing didn’t exactly seem to be a top priority.
Nicole continued, “Missy was determined to see her boyfriend and she doesn’t have a car.” Her friend had an infectious smile and could talk anyone into anything, including talking Nicole into lending out her car on a snowy night, against her better judgment.
“Where was Missy headed?” Brett sat across from Nicole.
“Her boyfriend lives outside of Buffalo.” Nicole rested her elbows on the table and stared out the window, willing her car to appear in its usual spot in the driveway. “How could this be happening?”
“The lake is mostly frozen, but there are strong undercurrents. The dive team is still searching...I’m sorry.” Brett paused, the compassion in his voice both comforting and unnerving. She wanted someone to reassure her that Missy was fine, not apologize for the reasons she wasn’t. “What time did Missy leave Silver Lake?”
She glanced at the bird clock on the wall and saw it was about to chirp the eight o’clock hour. She sighed. “About two hours ago. I know because I was supposed to meet...” She hesitated, uncertain how much she wanted to say “...I had planned to meet with a client of the funeral home to straighten out some paperwork.”
She traced a scar on her grandmother’s oak kitchen table. “I had to cancel my plans because my grandmother wasn’t feeling well. The meeting could wait.” She hoped. A funeral home client had complained he hadn’t received the services his father had paid for prior to his burial. Isaac King had threatened to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, his lawyer and anyone who would listen if his complaint wasn’t resolved in a timely manner.
Nicole did some office work and cosmetology at the funeral home. When she answered Mr. King’s angry call, she promised to meet with him. Hopefully to clear things up. She didn’t want to bother Mr. Peters with this. He had enough on his plate caring for his ailing wife. Ultimately, it came down to two things: Peters Funeral Home couldn’t afford the bad publicity and Nicole couldn’t afford to lose her job.
“A storm was blowing in. Wasn’t Missy worried about driving in the snow?” Brett’s question snapped her back to the moment.
Nicole traced the scar on the table’s surface in the reverse direction. “Missy grew up in Buffalo. She was used to driving in the snow.” Nicole shrugged. “Maybe she was a little too confident.”
Nicole rested her chin on the palm
