Page 83 of Nash Falls

“My God, Judith, she could have been sick or…” He eyed the phone and then glanced around the space. “Is it my imagination, or is her room messier than usual?”

Judith suddenly rushed to the closet and flung the door open. “Her luggage is still in there. I thought… I thought she might have…”

“Might have what?” asked a confused Nash.

“She, she just seemed upset last night.”

“But you said you talked and it was nothing important.”

“Maybe the influencer thing? The way you ticked her off?”

“Things were good between me and her with that. Judith, youknowthat.”

“Right, yes, that’s right. I… I don’t know, Walter, okay? She’s a nineteen-year-old woman. Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes.”

“She hasn’t been seeing anyone, has she?”

“Not that she mentioned, but again, who knows?”

Nash noted that his wife would not look him in the eye when she said this.

“Well, there’s no way to contact her if she left her phone here,” said Judith.

“What about her laptop?” said Nash. He hurried over to his daughter’s messy desk set against one corner and said, “No, it’s here.” He turned it on but, like the phone, couldn’t access it. “I’m going down to the security gate to see if they saw her leaving last night or any time today.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing. She probably just went for a walk.”

“Without her phone?” said Nash. “It’s usually glued to her hand.”

He hurried down the stairs and into the garage.

CHAPTER

41

NOTHING IN THE ROOM HASbeen touched?” said the policeman as he looked around Maggie’s room. His tone was firm but also contained an element of delicate understanding in a situation where a family member might be missing.

Nash said, “I picked up her purse and phone and checked her laptop. Other than that, no, nothing has been touched.”

The security guard at the gate had seen nothing of Maggie since he’d come on duty. He had checked with his colleague from the previous shift, who said the same thing. That was when Nash had called the police. Judith had retreated to her bedroom to lie down because of a sudden migraine.

The officer opened up his notebook. “Okay, the last time anyone saw her was around midnight last night?”

“Yes,” said Nash. “My wife talked to her. I was traveling, in New York. I got back this morning and went straight to the office.”

“Technically, since she’s of age, we really can’t take a missing person report until the person’s been gone twenty-four hours.”

“She didn’t take her phone or her laptop. You look like you might have older children. Would they leave their electronics behind?”

“I don’t know. Was she into all that?”

“If the ship was sinking she’d leave everything else behind except her phone.”

“Do you have a picture of her?”

Nash took one from his wallet and passed it to him.

The cop looked at it and said, “Any boyfriends?”