The traffic leaving the beach had thickened as people headed home for dinner. Oz fought his impatience with the slow-moving vehicles.
The two-lane road to the end of the island was crowded as well, but with no lights to impede the pace, it was a straight shot. He still had to watch for cops, pedestrians, and bicyclists, but they finally made it.
“There! That’s the rental,” Devon said, pointing toward the left as they slowly drove through the parking area.
Oz stopped behind the vehicle and they both hurried out.
“Mama?” Devon called.
Oz rushed to the driver’s side while Devon went to the passenger door. The driver’s door opened, and he pressed the button to unlock the rest. “Let’s look around,” he said to Devon after a glance into the backseat.
Devon grabbed the papers and envelope left on the passenger seat and turned to survey their surroundings. “Ma—uh, Rayna Jo!”
He pulled out his phone and texted the group to let them know they’d found the rental and where. The police were next, and by then, he and Devon had walked the area from end to end, looking for any sign of her and asking the people they found if they’d seen a woman matching the picture of Rayna Jo Devon had on her phone.
The police arrived and Oz waited impatiently while they checked out the vehicle and the same paths Oz and Devon had already searched.
The area was crowded with people. Tourists cruising through, fishermen, boaters coming back after a day on the water. Surely someone had seen something?
Devon paced the asphalt, a phone to her ear and undoubtedly Dara on the other end of the call.
One of the policemen approached Oz.
“No sign of her. We’ve issued an alert, and the Coast Guard is asking boaters to keep an eye out.”
“You think she’s on the water?” Devon asked in obvious surprise.
Oz noted the man looked extremely uncomfortable with the question, and Oz had a good idea of why.
Given Rayna Jo’s mental state and the news she’d received, she wouldn’t be the first person to commit suicide due to emotional and financial ruin.
“We’re just trying to get as many eyes searching for her as possible, ma’am,” the policeman said. “We’ll be in touch if we hear anything.”
Oz thanked the man and his partner for their help and then closed the distance between him and Devon, tugging her into his arms and holding her close, his chin atop her head. “We’re going to find her.”
“Alive?” Devon asked, the word muffled against his dress shirt.
He kissed her hair and squeezed her a bit tighter. “We’ll find her.”
Several seconds passed, but Devon slowly wrapped her arms around his waist, hands at the base of his back.
“Thank you.”
“No thanks needed.”
“No, there is. Thank you for being here, for being my friend.”
Friend? He supposed he was that, even though he’d never stopped wanting to be more.
“What else is going to go wrong?”
His thriller writer’s mind could think of all too many possibilities, few of them with a happy ending. So he kissed her head and remained silent, hoping the question was rhetorical.
“Where is she, Oz? Where did she go?”