was that it stung.
“Your home is lovely,” Sasha said.
“Thank you,” Joan Barton said.
Ryan watched his mother bustle around, fussing over the plate of cookies she’d put out with the fresh coffee she’d served. He knew it was just her way—when she was worried, she fussed—but Sasha didn’t. He should have warned her.
Then again, maybe not; she seemed unflustered by it. Indeed, she’d been effusive in her thanks, and her compliments about the house, especially the colorful garden out front, his mother’s ongoing pet project, the cookies, the coffee, everything.
Ryan thought she was going a bit over the top. It was just a house, after all, and the cookies were good, but his mom made them all the time, it wasn’t anything unusual. But Sasha was chatting away, as if she were worried about making a favorable impression.
As if he’d brought a date home to meet the parents, he thought suddenly, tensely. The idea put a whole new light on her easy chatter.
“Your home is also very comfortable,” Sasha was saying. “In my parents’ place, you’re almost afraid to move. My mother, she collects. Mostly small, breakable things.”
“Dustcatchers,” Joan said with a laugh. “That’s what Patrick calls them.”
Sasha looked at his father and smiled. “And right you are.”
“Hate all that clutter,” he muttered, but he smiled back at her.
Ryan realized abruptly that this was the first time in a week he’d seen a real smile out of either of his parents. And certainly the first time he’d heard his mother laugh, even though it had been a bit faint.
He looked at Sasha with a new admiration. He’d never seen her work before, but if this was how she did it, he was impressed. In a matter of minutes, she’d not only charmed them, but relieved at least some of their tension.
He felt a little silly. He should have known there was good reason that she’d become so quickly indispensable at the foundation.
“I remember you,” Patrick Barton said suddenly. Then, with a sideways glance at his son, he added, “Always thought Ryan should never have let you get away.”
“Dad!”
It burst from him before he could stop it. And he wished he had stopped it; he would have liked to hear what Sasha’s answer to that would have been. But after his yelp, she merely smiled.
“I thank you for the compliment,” Sasha said. “Now shall we get to why I’m here?”
“I thought your foundation only worked with children? The police keep telling us Trish isn’t one anymore,” Joan said, sounding aggrieved.
Sasha hesitated for a moment, and Ryan wondered if she’d guessed that his mother had asked not only out of curiosity, but to delay the inevitable. He also wondered how she’d answer.
“I’m not here officially, but as a friend,” she finally said. “I work missing children cases mostly, but I thought perhaps I could help. The fact that there’s no sign Trish is in danger doesn’t mean you’re not still worried.”
Ryan could almost feel his mother relax slightly, and his admiration grew into awe at how easily and quickly Sasha accomplished what he’d been trying to do for a week.
“And,” Sasha added, “I know it’s hard to talk about it like this, because it’s admitting she’s gone and facing how frightening it is.”
And just like that she put her finger on the reason his mother had been acting like this was merely a social occasion. Or trying to.
“It’s horrible,” his mother whispered.
Hearing the pure pain in her voice, Ryan ached to ease it, to do something, but he didn’t know what. His mother was generally a cheerful, easygoing woman, always looking on the bright side. He supposed that was where he got his own usually sunny outlook.
And then his father moved, sitting next to her on the sofa, putting his arm around her. His mother leaned into him, taking a deep, shuddering breath. Then, as if she’d drawn strength from the gesture, she seemed to pull herself together, even sitting up straighter. That was all it took, a simple move by his father?
He realized then that, even had he tried, he couldn’t have comforted his mother so well. In an odd, abrupt shift of perspective, Ryan suddenly saw them as if they weren’t his parents. He saw them as a couple, a unit, still in love after thirty-two years. The size of that suddenly struck him, and it was a jolt. What must it feel like, that kind of permanence? He’d always thought of it as being tied to one person, limiting, confining.
But now he sat here in shock, thinking there were aspects he’d never considered before. Having one person who knew you, knew what you needed before you asked, who would go to any lengths to provide it, one person you could trust implicitly, who would ever and always have your back, one person who would always be there for you…
He snapped out of his reverie as Sasha switched into high gear. She asked for a copy of Trish’s senior photo, which his mother quickly got. Then the note Trish had left, and permission to take it with her; one of the experts at the foundation, an ex-cop named Bedford, had a knack for reading between the lines, she said.
“I’m sure you’ve been wracking your brains,” she said then, “trying to figure out if she said anything, mentioned anything you’ve forgotten.”
Patrick nodded. “I can’t believe she just did this, and we had no idea. I always thought we were a close family, but obviously we weren’t paying enough attention,” he ended bitterly.
Ryan didn’t think anybody paid more attention—often too much for his own comfort—than his parents, but that didn’t seem the right thing to say just now. He left it to Sasha to answer.
“That’s not necessarily true. From what Ryan’s told me, you had no reason to think she wouldn’t want a typical, fun-filled summer here before she headed off to college.”
“No,” Joan said, a tremor creeping into her voice. “No reason.”
“So let’s deal with other things. What did she take with her, and what did she put it in?”
“Her big suitcase is gone. She must have planned to be gone for some time.” The tremor strengthened. “What if she never comes back, what if we never know?”
“It’s way, way too early to even think about that,” Sasha said, then went on briskly. “This boy she dated for a while, have you spoken to him?”
“Troy? Yes. But they broke up when he transferred schools when his folks moved to San Diego. He hasn’t heard from her.”
“Have you looked through her closet? What clothes did she take?”
“Now that was odd,” Joan said, taking her cue from Sasha’s businesslike tone. “She left most of her summery things.”
“So she took fall clothes? Or winter?”
Ryan had no idea what that meant;
