Page 26

Dinah

I told Freddie there are four hundred missing women in Los Angeles, but the exact number fluctuates at any given moment between three hundred and five hundred.

Unfortunately, most are never found. I know the stats better than anyone; missing persons was my world for three years before I moved into homicide, and it almost killed me.

If it hadn’t been for Joe, I wouldn’t have made it through.

He taught me how to disassociate; how to compartmentalize my emotions and leave my work in the station, in the squad car, in the crime scene.

Now when I step out of the station or into our home, I don’t think about dead bodies or tearful parents.

I enter our cocoon and his arms, and a switch flips in my mind and I become Dinah: loving wife.

Dinah, who spends four hours on her homemade cinnamon rolls.

Dinah, who irons Joe’s shirts with extra starch and puts peppermints in his pockets.

Dinah, who helps him at the clinic and scrubs urine off walls and makes care packages for patients at Christmas and who gets screamed at and spat at but never once thanked.

That Dinah can’t coexist with Detective Marino, who’s investigating the father who handcuffed his son to a bed and lit him on fire.

Detective Marino, who promised a grieving mother four years ago that she’d find her daughter’s killer and didn’t.

Detective Marino, who wakes up in the middle of the night with nightmares of gruesome crime scenes.

Joe didn’t marry a detective. My mother didn’t birth a detective.

My nieces and nephews don’t run into the arms of a detective.

Compartmentalization is the key to mental survival—but I’m not here to teach Freddie that.

I’m here to show him this board and all the missing women with their own stories and validations and reasons why they desire our time and attention.

I walk down the length of the board, and my gaze instinctively finds the names and faces etched in my mind.

Gabriella Montleigh. An ex-cheerleader who liked reggae music, her pet pug, and a little cocaine on the weekends. Never found.

Tricia Higgins. Mother of two with crippling PTSD from two tours in Iraq. Never found.

Riley Biff. Diner waitress who liked older men, preferably married. Never found.

Lacey Deltour.

Melonie Piat.

Blythe Howard.

My gaze finds and sticks on the image of Blythe, her photo high up on the wall. In the photo, her face is full, her expression somber. It’s a candid shot, taken when she was pregnant.

Looking at this wall is like walking through a graveyard of all the cases I’ve worked. All still missing.

“This one says Beverly Hills,” Freddie says, looking at a blonde in the upper corner, and I know without stepping closer that he’s looking at Riley Biff.

A collage of images shutters through in my mind—the blond track star, her mom tearfully begging for leads, the hundreds of high school students holding candles at her memorial.

Unlike some of the others, Riley wasn’t a troubled teen who had run away or an abused wife looking for a clean start. Her absence was a highly publicized event, one I learned a lot from.

He reads out her name, then glances at me. “I think I remember this one.”

“It was everywhere.” I join him and stare at the flyer, forcing my features to remain calm and fixed. No emotion. No sign of how the girl’s photo affects me. “But you would have been young ... I’m surprised you remember it.”

He laughs. “Not that young. I was ...” He leans forward and reads the date on the flyer. “Twenty-two. Only six years ago.”

Six years ago. It feels like twenty. I watch as he rests his forearm against the wall, his face two feet from the flyer, reading every detail, and wonder why he picked this flyer out of all of them.

Am I just that unlucky? Or is this something else?

A dig? Did Thompson tell him about my history, of the different girls I never found?

“Disappeared right before prom,” he reads off the page. “What high school did she go to?”

“Good Shepherd.”

He looks up, thinking. “I don’t know that one.”

“It’s Catholic.” I cross my arms over my chest. “My niece went there. She’s a year younger than Riley.”

“Oh, that’s interesting.” It feels like an accusation, and I get the sense that he already knew about my connection to Riley and the case. Sophie didn’t even know Riley—not in any way other than how a victim knows her bullies and an unpopular girl knows the queens.

Then again, maybe I’m being paranoid. I always am, in this building. I’ve worked too hard to earn this shield, my office, my caseload, and reputation.

“You know, this board doesn’t help me care any less about Jessica,” Freddie says flatly, stepping back and looking over the wall, which stretches from the data bullpen all the way down to the restrooms. “We need to get better. Dig deeper. You think you’re discouraging me, but you aren’t.

You’re just making me want to work harder. ”

“Good.” I pat his arm, then squeeze it. “I’m glad you got fire, Freddie. I just don’t want you to waste it on a case that won’t go anywhere. If you’re itching to work on something, find some of these. Read these summaries. Find the low-hanging fruit. Bring them home to their families.”

He nods somberly, like my advice is hitting home, but I know the look in his eyes. I recognize it.

He’s a tick and he’s stuck to this case. Stuck to Jessica. Stuck to Reese. Stuck to me.

I drop my hand from his arm, breaking the connection.