“Who was it?” Steed asks.
“Will. I’d better call him back.”
Steed lightly grasps her arm. “Wait, before you do, I was thinking of heading down to the old shack on the beach, if you’re okay here . . .”
Elin frowns. “The shack? We agreed no one would leave the lodge and Seth . . .”
He nods, his expression serious. “I’ll put on my gear, be as quick as I can. Something’s bothering me about what we saw in there. When Delaney mentioned football then, it came to me. The mug I spotted, on that shelf, it was celebrating a tournament that was only last year.”
Elin’s pulse picks up. “Someone’s been in there using it recently.”
Steed meets her gaze. “Yes, after the retreat was built.”
81
No greeting from Will, just: “Any news?”
Elin swallows hard, reluctant to quash the hope in his voice. “No sign, I’m sorry. The only thing we’ve found is her bag on the beach.”
“That means she was there, right?” he says quickly. “You need to search the area.”
“We have, but it’s not safe to send anyone out again, not without backup.”
A pause. “What about the threats, there’s got to be some clue there, surely?”
“Yes, but she didn’t give specifics.” Elin feels the telltale prickle of heat on her neck. As soon as the words are out, she realizes her mistake, not only in what she’s let slip—that Farrah confided in her about the earlier threats—but in what she’d done. The reason Farrah didn’t give specifics is because Elin put her off, hadn’t connected it to what was happening. Farrah had tried to confide and Elin batted her away.
“She didn’t give specifics.” Will’s voice is ominously calm. “What you said then, it sounds like Farrah had already told you about the threats. I don’t see how that’s possible, she was missing when you found them on her computer.”
The burning heat is now creeping up her neck. “I didn’t know, Will—still don’t—if what she told me before is related. She told me it was her ex. Trying to scare her.”
A heavy silence. “Let me get this straight,” Will says finally. “Farrah told you before she went missing that she was being threatened. Did you take the time to check it out?”
“No, but—” Elin’s talking on autopilot because the enormity of what she’s done is only just hitting home. She’d failed Farrah—hadn’t taken seriously what she said.
“You were too busy playing the hero, weren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” she says, taken aback by the aggression in his tone.
“What you’re saying is that you didn’t have time for her, but this . . . this situation, you’re all over it, and you shouldn’t have been. You said it yourself, you weren’t ready for this kind of case, but you did it anyway. You had doubts—doubts that were justified, because you’ve missed vital stuff—and now Farrah’s missing. If you’d looked into Farrah’s concerns properly, we could have protected her . . . but no.”
“Look, we don’t even know if Farrah is missing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was thinking that there’s a possibility she might have run, or—”
“Or what,” he says flatly.
“Well, I was wondering”—she’s blundering now, in the dark. Why had she brought it up? Wrong time. Wrong tone. “If you did know everything about what happened on the island that night, if Farrah was entirely honest with you. Maybe something else happened.”
He cuts across her. “Despite what I told you about why Farrah lied, to protect me, you’re still doubting her? What do you think really happened, Elin? That she lied to protect herself? And now, what? She’s involved in this somehow? Hasn’t gone missing at all?”
Elin knows she should come back right away with a denial, because she doesn’t think that, not really, she just said it because it was there, in her head, and she wanted to stop him talking, saying all those words about her.
“No, that’s not what I think,” she says quickly, but even to her own ears, her reply sounds insubstantial. “I have to look into everything, you know that.”
There’s a long silence. “I get that, Elin,” he says finally. “That you have to explore it, but you don’t have to believe it too.”
“I don’t.”