They'd had no choice but to obey.
"Lyons?" Ken's voice pulled Nicky from her reverie.
Her eyes snapped to him. He was across the table from her in the motel, frowning, his loose-fitting shirt partially unbuttoned. His eyes were intense and bore into her.
"You good?" he asked.
Nicky shifted away. It was uncomfortable to know that Ken was starting to know her enough to recognize when she was in another world.
"Yeah, I'm fine,” she lied.
"What were you thinking about?" he asked.
"Nothing," she answered quickly. But then she sighed, reminding herself of her whole “honesty” policy as a leader. "Just... my sister again. I’d really rather not talk about it." She shook her head. "I’d rather focus on our current case. We're gonna go over everything again, okay?"
Ken nodded. "We'll find her."
Nicky tried to smile. "Yeah, we will. You see anything relevant?"
Ken let out a sigh as he flipped through a file. "Not really. I don't see how these cases could be connected."
"No, me neither," Nicky said. "But we have to cover all our bases. Let me go through these again. Maybe I'll find something we missed."
Refocusing on the file, Nicky took aim at the missing persons cases. All girls like Rosie, all gone without a trace.
The first was a girl who'd been abducted by her mother's drug dealer. They hadn't had contact with each other since the girl was young, and the mother didn't even know if her daughter was still alive.
The second girl went missing after a car crash. Her parents thought she was dead.
The third was a woman who was in a coma after surgery. A mix-up happened, and she was given somebody else's medication. Chances were that these cases were as unrelated to Meghan Salinger as Sarah Mills's case.
She flipped through the file, studying each photo closely. In each one, the missing girl looked happy and carefree.
It was such a contrast to Rosie's face as she was taken away.
Something nagged at Nicky. She flipped back to the first page of the file and skimmed it quickly.
It was strange--the more she read, the further away she got from Rosie. She tried to force herself to come back and study Rosie's photo again, to think about what might have happened to her.
But there was something about the case--something familiar...
A name jumped out at her.
Ella White.
And right next to the name on the file was the word SOLVED.
"What the hell?" Nicky said. "This one actually was solved."
"Really?" Ken asked."Actuallysolved? Or 'solved' by the Frankstown police's standards?"
Nicky flipped Ella's file open. She was another redhead, like Meghan and Sarah. Nicky eagerly read through the words on the file until she reached the conclusion.
Her heart fell to the floor.
"She was found dead," Nicky whispered.
"What? Where?"