Chapter 48

As Holly steps into her office after lunch, she’s surprised to see Detective Rivers, dressed in a sleek gray suit and royal-blue tie, standing at the desk and chatting with Tanya. She can tell by the flush in her assistant’s cheeks, which only deepens at the sight of Holly, that Tanya is likely crushing on the attractive detective.

He turns to face Holly. “Dr. Danvers, hello. Do you have a moment?”

“Absolutely. In fact, I was about to reach out to you.” She points down the hallway. “Why don’t we speak in my office?”

“Yes, please,” he says in a friendly tone, but his smile seems pinched.

After they’re seated across from each other in the interview chairs, Holly asks, “Have you found Liisa yet?”

“Not yet. No. But I did speak to her daughter.”

“Me, too. In fact, I encouraged Kimberly to get in touch with you.”

“Thank you for that.” His expression is unreadable.

“Kimberly told you about her mother and those texts? How she doesn’t believe her mom even wrote them.”

“She did.”

Holly is growing impatient with his poker face. “What do you make of it?”

He flattens a tiny crease in his pant leg. “It’s unusual. For sure. But it’s a stretch to jump to the conclusion that someone else wrote those texts.”

“How else do you explain it?”

“Maybe Dr. Koskinen meant it as a goodbye to her daughter?”

Holly shakes her head. “But Kimberly said it didn’t even sound like her. And everything I know about Liisa tells me she’s driven by a strong survival instinct.”

He only shrugs.

“But you’re not discounting the possibility someone else could be using her phone?” she asks.

“I’m not discounting anything.”

“Listen, Detective, if someone has her phone… they might also have Liisa.”

“Or maybe Dr. Koskinen doesn’t want to be found?”

Holly squeezes the armrest in frustration. “Even if she took off on her own, her behavior is worrisome, isn’t it?”

“Unusual, yes.”

“What then?” Holly snaps. “You’re just going to wait and see if she surfaces or not?”

Rivers pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket and consults the screen. “Dr. Koskinen is in Monterey,” he says. “At least that’s where she was when she sent her daughter those texts last night.”

“Monterey? That’s where Liisa grew up,” Holly says. “But she told me her family had all left.”

“Maybe she still has friends there from childhood? We tracked her phone there. But the signal has been intermittent.”

“How do you explain that?”

“She has kept it off most of the time. Or at least not connected to a WiFi or cell signal.”

Holly’s gut churns. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”

“Maybe, but not necessarily criminal.” He looks down at his phone. “I was also able to access her credit card records. She filled her car up yesterday outside Carmel. And then she paid for an Uber Eats delivery last night at a condo in Monterey.”

“Then you do know where she is!”

He shakes his head. “Where she was. I spoke to the owner of the condo. It was rented through Airbnb, but Dr. Koskinen had already checked out by the time I reached the landlord this morning.”

“Did he see her leave?” Holly demands.

“No. He never met her. It was all done online via a remote key code entry for the door.”

“And there’s been no trace of her since?”

“Not electronically, no.”

“This isn’t good, Detective. Either Liisa has been abducted, and someone is impersonating her, or she is on the run. Which makes her behavior look particularly suspect with respect to Elaine and JJ.”

He tilts his head side to side.

“Are you going to put out one of those BOLO alerts?” she demands.

“We don’t have enough for that,” he says. “But we have opened a missing person’s file.”

“And what good will that do?”

“For starters, it’s already allowed me to access her electronic trail. It will also feed her information out to other police departments across the state. And to the public, through our department’s social media channels.”

Holly scoffs. “You think she’ll be found via Facebook?”

Rivers stares at her for a few seconds. “If Dr. Koskinen did disappear after leaving your office… then you might have been the last known person to have seen her.” He pauses. “Weren’t you also the last person to have seen Ms. Golding?”

“Elaine had been dead for hours when I got there.” She narrows her gaze. “What are you suggesting?”

“Only that the timing is coincidental,” he says. “Two unusual deaths in your practice. And then the person you think might somehow be responsible vanishes almost as soon as you report her.”

She gapes at him. “You think I’m involved in this, Detective?”

“You are involved, Dr. Danvers. One way or another. This all started with Ms. Golding’s allegations against you.”

“I… I was the one who came to you,” she sputters. “Concerned something wasn’t right.”

“I know. And as I keep reminding you, it’s too early to conclude anything.” He shows her another tight smile and then raises his phone again. “I also got a copy of Dr. Koskinen’s cell phone records.”

“And?”

“She hasn’t made many calls in the last few weeks. And most of the ones she did place were to her daughter and unlisted numbers. But then, two days ago, she did make a call that might interest you.”

“Why’s that?”

He glances down at his phone and recites a phone number.

Holly’s veins turn to ice. The invisible grip around her neck feels like a chokehold.

The detective looks back up at her. “Do you have any idea why Dr. Koskinen would’ve been calling your husband’s office?”