Page 23 of The Wolves Come at Night

“Maybe I will.”

Her call waiting beeped, and a quick glance at her watch showed it was Huston. “Crap. Speak of the devil. Call you later?”

“You better. Love you.”

“You too,” but she was already flipping over to her boss. Just knowing she had to talk to Huston, the tension was back in her shoulders in a heartbeat. And at her boss’s frantic tone, it stayed there.

“Where are you?” Huston demanded.

“On my way there from Forensic Medical. I—”

“Turn around and get yourself to Vanderbilt. Carson Conway has gone missing.”

Twelve

New Haven

Avery paced while Santiago lifted the phone to his ear, waited a moment, then spoke such rapid-fire Spanish that her generic emergency room doctor’s version of ¿Donde duelo? couldn’t begin to follow. He spoke, then listened, then spoke again, nodding and gesturing as if the person on the other end could see him. Finally, he hung up and gave her a reassuring smile.

“This is both good news and bad news. The Nashville police are already involved. Carson’s roommate called them this morning. She worried when Carson didn’t come home last night.”

“Why in the world didn’t she call me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she tried and you didn’t see the call?”

She grabbed her phone and sure enough, damn it, there was a call from an unknown number that had gone directly to voicemail and wasn’t showing on her main screen. A wonderful way to combat telemarketers, but she cursed the software trick now. She pressed the speaker button and played the voicemail.

The voice was watery, apologetic. “Um, Dr. Conway? This is Izz, Carson’s roommate. Any chance you’ve heard from her? Give me a call if you have.”

Not frantic or scared, just concerned, and it allowed Avery a moment to take a deep breath, gathering herself. She dialed the number back and waited for a heartbeat before the same voice answered.

“Um, hello?”

“This is Avery Conway. Have you found her?”

“Oh hi, Dr. Conway. Um, no, she didn’t come home last night, and with all the weirdness going on, I kind of reached out to the police, since I had the card—”

“Whose card? What weirdness?”

“Oh, Carson didn’t tell you?”

Avery’s last nerve was shredding. “Tell me what?”

“We, well, we kind of witnessed a murder? On Tuesday? Of this real pretty singer? And we called the police and they took her and Simeon up to the spot and told us it was a murder-suicide and not to be worried, and then Carson didn’t come home last night and I sort of freaked out this morning and called them. I think they are going to look for her, too.”

Santi was running his finger in the air, telling her to wrap it up or keep her talking, she didn’t know which. Her heart, God, her heart was pounding so hard she thought she might faint.

“When did you see her last, Izz?”

“Yesterday evening. We had a hot yoga class, then she booked it to the library while I went to dinner. She wasn’t here when I got back, and she didn’t come back all night. So I called the detective.”

“Good. That’s very good. You did the right thing.” Even as her brain was screaming Why didn’t you track me down? I am her mother. But she could hardly blame the girl, it sounded like they’d been in enough trouble this week. But Carson hadn’t told her a thing.

“Can I have the name of the detective?”

“Um. Marcus Wade. Here’s his number.” She rattled it off and Avery wrote it down.

“What did he say? Exactly?”