The entrance to the Nesbitt unit was in the back of the house. I hadn’t slept all night. The first thing I did when I saw the shoes was call Sergeant DelGrande back. He’d managed to wake up Judge Horrace and get a warrant issued based on what I found in the truck.
“What if he’d been out there, Ellie? What if he’d attacked you?” Sergeant DelGrande had boomed when I told him about what I had found.
“But he didn’t, sir.”
“But if he had…”
“Then I guess I would have used my service revolver on him.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I cringed.
I flinched again, recalling the painful silence that followed on the other end of the line…
Roland and Mike came trudging up the sidewalk. I watched a cab pull away from the curb. I could have gone back to the hotel to pick them up, but I hadn’t wanted to leave the scene, just in case Martin was inside and tried to run. If he’d noticed my police car out here, or me looking up at the house, he hadn’t let on. I hadn’t even seen a curtain rustle in there.
The sun was barely up, but Roland looked like death. I wondered how much drinking he’d done last night. I hadn’t slept a wink. My head and jaw were throbbing, but at least I was sober.
“You were supposed to wait for us,” Roland grumbled, adjusting the belt around his waist. His uniform was wrinkled and a little smelly. I wondered if he was married. I’d never asked him, but I didn’t think he was. Mike, on the other hand, had recently gone through a divorce. He was dressed in a button-down shirt and carefully creased slacks. It didn’t look like he’d been up all night, drinking like Roland. Well, at least one of them is sensible, I thought.
“Did ya bring the warrant?” I asked Mike. I’d asked Sergeant DelGrande to have it faxed to the hotel.
Roland unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket and shook it at me. “I got it. Chill.”
“We should have waited for SWAT,” Mike said as we made our way up to the door.
“Yeah, well, who knows how long that would have taken, or if they’d have come at all.” I raised my hand, took a deep breath, then knocked on the Nesbitt residence. I noticed a weathered wicker chair on the front porch. No kid toys or bikes, I noted.
Roland leaned over my shoulder and laid his finger down on the bell. “That’s enough,” I snapped.
The door swung open quickly and I stepped back in surprise. A nicely dressed man with wavy brown hair and bold blue eyes stared out at us with a look of surprise.
“I’m heading out to work. What can I do for you, officers?”
“Martin Nesbitt?” I asked.
“In the flesh,” he said, giving me a smile that showed all his teeth. He was younger than I’d imagined, and handsome too. He was wearing a polo and expensive-looking jeans.
“We’re here to talk about your wife. She’s missing. We also have a warrant to search your truck and home,” Roland announced. He held up the warrant from Judge Horrace and the local judge in Granton, Judge Percy.
“O-kaaay. But Nova isn’t here. Whatever trouble she’s into, whatever she did, I’m not responsible. If she ran somewhere, it wasn’t back here to me. Trust me.”
“When did you see her last?” I asked.
Martin scrunched up his nose, thinking slowly. “It’s been almost a week since she left, and to be honest, I’m not upset she’s gone.”
“Why didn’t you respond to my messages I left you? I called a dozen times,” I said, confused.
Martin shrugged. “I thought she was probably in the drunk tank or something. I wasn’t about to come bail her out, not after I told her to leave.”
“Wait. You told her to leave?” This story wasn’t jiving with the one Nova told me. Either Martin was a liar, or she was. But which one?
“Okay, we get it. You don’t give a fuck about your wife. But aren’t you just a little worried about your daughter’s safety?” Mike asked.
Martin’s eyes grew so wide, I thought they might pop from his head. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Sir, we’re very serious. Nova reported your daughter missing on Friday, then she went missing herself. We have reason to believe one or both have come to harm,” Mike said.
I was growing impatient. Standing on my tiptoes, I tried to look past him into the unit.
Martin took a big step back, nearly stumbling. At first, I thought he was in shock. But then his next words shook me to the core:
“Nova and I don’t have a kid together.”