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“I get it. But nothing specific that made you think he might be involved with the kidnappings?”

Abby shrugged. “I just feel like he watches all the girls at the mall, especially the pretty ones. He doesn’t actually say anything, but he leers. It’s gross.”

Haisley sent her a sympathetic smile. “Are you ever asked to take out the trash down that hall and through the door to the bins out back?”

“Not anymore. My manager makes the guys do that. Or it stacks up until she can do it. But all the girls around my age know better.”

“When you use that bathroom yourself, have you noticed anyone or anything else that made you anxious or uncomfortable?”

Abby shifted her gaze, then glanced toward the hallway in question. “When I work evening shifts, I try to hold it. It’s a long four hours, but I can usually make it. Weekends are a full shift, though. I wait to use my lunch hour to walk to another bathroom, but I can’t always make it, especially if it’s…you know, that time of the month.”

She whispered the words so softly, Nash barely heard. Poor thing seemed embarrassed about mentioning her period in front of a man. She had no way of knowing that, growing up, he had three sisters with whom he and his four other brothers shared a single bathroom. He lacked delicate sensibilities when it came to menstrual cycles. They were merely a fact of life.

“I know exactly what you mean,” Haisley assured. “Go on.”

“Well…”

Nash couldn’t tear his gaze away from Haisley’s profile as she listened to Abby. The determined set of her jaw and the keen intelligence sparking in her eyes as she absorbed every word mesmerized him.

God, she was incredible. A force of nature in her own right, with a knack for reading people and getting them to open up that left him in awe. He’d always known she was whip-smart and tenacious, but seeing her effortlessly accomplish what he hadn’t been able to made his heart swell with fierce pride and admiration.

And a bone-deep, unshakable love that felt like a battering ram to the chest.

“The night not too long ago, when one of the girls got away? I was going to run to my car because I’d left my phone in my glovebox. It wasn’t quite dark yet, so I thought it might be safe, and my mom was probably getting frantic that I hadn’t checked in. But when I opened the door to sneak out to the parking lot, I spotted a brown van and a guy in a dark skull cap hanging around. He bolted the second he saw me.”

Nash leaned in to bark out a follow-up. Haisley shot him an emphatic glare, so he bit his tongue. He wasn’t used to downshifting, much less taking a back seat, but she was making strides with Abby. He just had to let her do her thing.

With an almost imperceptible nod, he leaned back in his chair and ceded the interview to her.

She flashed him a grateful smile, then turned back to Abby. “Bolted? He got in the van and left?”

“Yeah. Tore away from the curb, burning rubber and everything. I ran back into the food court. I was so freaking scared, I trembled for the next hour.”

“I’m sure. I would have been afraid, too. Did you get a good look at the guy?”

“It was starting to get dark out there, but I saw enough.”

“Had you seen him before?”

Abby thought about it, then shook her head. “Not that I remember. I mean, I see a lot of faces here, so if he was milling around the mall, I didn’t notice him. He wasn’t super tall, like him.” She glanced Nash’s way. “Or even particularly memorable. He seemed…average. But, you know, on the disturbing side. Besides the dark skull cap, he had brown facial hair and brown eyes. Um…his complexion wasn’t dark or light. Maybe in the middle? That’s harder because it was shadowy out there.”

“Any identifying characteristics?”

“His nose was crooked, like it had been broken at some point. He had this blue teardrop tattoo under his eye.” She pointed. “It was attached to something…tribal looking, but most of it was covered by his skull cap. And more tattoos on his knuckles, but I couldn’t make them out.”

Nash jerked upright and exchanged a glance with Haisley. Sure, that teardrop might mean the guy had lost someone, but it was also a common tattoo for gang members or those who had served time. Then again, attached to something tribal, the ink could mean something else altogether. “Could you describe him if we brought in a sketch artist?”

“Yeah. I have a good memory. I suck at names, but I remember faces.”

Nash reached for his phone, happy to help and have some purpose in this conversation. “I’m on it.”

As he texted Hunter Edgington, he heard Haisley continue with questions. He was so damn proud of the progress she was making. This was their first possible break in the case.

“Fantastic. Did you get the make and model of the van? Did it say anything on the side, like the name of a business? Did you get a license plate?”

“It was a Chevy, but not like a minivan. It was more old school, like something out of the seventies.”

“A conversion van?”