“I’m certain of it. The police officer I talked to asked if I had any evidence that a crime had been committed, and I don’t.” He met River’s eyes. “But I’m telling you that I know April. She wouldn’t just disappear. She . . . we . . . we got engaged just a couple of weeks before she went missing. She was really happy, and so was I. And she left her cat behind. She loves that cat. She would never do that on purpose. I . . . I’m taking care of him now. I know she’d want me to.”

Tony cleared his throat. “Did you two have a fight before she left?”

Nathan’s face reddened. “No, not really, but . . . well, her father wasn’t thrilled about our engagement. He held some trust fund over her head, but she told him she didn’t want the money. I tried to talk to her about it, but she got upset. Told me not to worry about it. I just wanted her to think carefully about walking away from all that money.” His smile was sad. “She insisted that all she wanted was me. That the trust fund didn’t matter. Neither did her father’s opinion.”

“Has it occurred to you that maybe April left because she decided she wanted the money after all?” River said. “Maybe she wasn’t being honest with you.”

Nathan leaned forward in his chair and looked directly at her, his gaze unflinching. His actions meant that he was getting ready to tell the truth. “There’s no doubt in my mind that it had nothing to do with the money. We loved . . . I mean, we love each other. I make a decent salary, and she did okay too. It’s not like we’d be destitute. Besides, like I said, she wouldn’t leave Mr. Whiskers behind—or her purse and her clothes.”

“She left her purse behind?” Tony asked.

That was significant. Most women wouldn’t take off without their purse. “Did she have a cell phone?” River asked.

Nathan nodded. “I found it in her apartment, along with her laptop. She would never abandon that either. She used it for all of her cases.”

“Cases?” River asked. “What are you talking about?”

Nathan sighed deeply. “I’m sorry. I should have explained that. I’m so worried I’m not thinking straight. April has a podcast. Hot Coffee and Cold Cases. She investigates cases that the police have given up on.”

River looked at Tony, who was obviously surprised.

“That fact is rather important,” Tony said, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“I know. Again, I’m sorry,” Nathan said. “To be honest, I’d almost given up on ever seeing her again. But then the note came. The idea that she’s still alive . . .” His eyes filled with tears.

“It’s okay,” River said, attempting to comfort the distraught young man. She was trying to digest this new information. Was April missing because of one of her cold cases? Did she get too close to the truth? Had someone kidnapped her . . . or worse . . . decided to shut her up?

Suddenly, this missing-person case had turned interesting—and potentially very dangerous.

CHAPTER

THREE

“Where is April’s laptop now?” River asked, hoping Nathan still had access to it.

“I have it. I didn’t want her father to take it. April didn’t want him to know about her podcast. But he has her purse and her clothes. I went through her purse before he had time to take it, just in case there was something important in it.”

“And was there?” Tony asked.

“I don’t think so. It’s just a purse.”

Nathan took a deep breath. He was under a lot of stress. River felt badly for him.

“Besides the phone and her laptop, I also have her notebook. She had notes about her cases, along with phone numbers, contacts she’d made while investigating. I thought it might be important.”

“You realize that her parents could accuse you of theft for taking her personal property, right?” Tony asked.

Nathan shrugged. “I don’t care. April wouldn’t want her dad to have them. In fact, she told me once that if anything ever happened to her, she wanted me to take anything that had to do with her podcast.” He shook his head. “We were just . . . talking, you know? Neither one of us actually thought that day would come. So, once she disappeared, I did what she’d requested. But I left her regular phone behind, as well as a second laptop that she used for other things besides the podcast. And it’s just her father, by the way. Her mother died a long time ago.”

“Where are April’s things now?” Tony asked.

“In safekeeping at my place. I wanted to see if you’d take my case before giving them to you. As you can imagine, I don’t want anything to happen to them.”

“If you want us to proceed, we’ll need them. As well as your phone and laptop.”

Nathan’s eyebrows shot up. “Mine? Why would . . .” His eyes widened. “I didn’t hurt her.”

“Actually, we believe you,” Tony said. He brushed a lock of curly black hair from his forehead. “But we have to make certain there’s nothing to tie you to her disappearance. If you don’t have anything to hide . . .”

“But I need my phone and my laptop. I use them for work.”

“What do you do?” River asked.

“I’m a graphic designer for an advertising firm in California. I work out of my apartment.”

“Can we get them from you after work so we can go through them?” River asked. “We’ll get them back to you in the morning. We may have some questions concerning what we find, but we can make notes and talk to you when we’re done.”

They could actually clone the cell phone onto another device, but since it could be tricky with certain models, going through it manually would probably be easier. They would copy the files on the laptop to a USB drive.

“I . . . I guess that would be all right.”

“A warning though, Nathan,” Tony said solemnly, “if we find that you’ve deleted anything before you give them to us, we’re done. Do you understand?”

The young man nodded. “Look, I have no plans to hide anything from you. I just want to find April. I pray with every fiber of my being that she’s still alive. But even if she isn’t, I need to know the truth. So does her father. Even though he believes she’s alive, he’s really upset. I’ve tried to stay in touch with him for April’s sake, but he blames me for her disappearance.”

He sighed. “Sometimes I’ve wondered if I should just walk away from him, but I feel like April would want me to help her father if I can. Even though they argued before she disappeared, they love each other.” He hesitated a moment before saying, “There’s something else. I’m not sure if I should share this. At the time I believed it was April’s imagination, but I feel like I should tell you everything. April loved what she did, investigating cold cases. She thrived on interviewing family and friends of the victims and asking the public for help. She felt as if she was doing something good. Something noble.” For the first time since he’d walked through the door, his smile was genuine. “Believe it or not, she actually helped solve two different cases since she started the podcast a couple of years ago. An arson and a murder. I was so proud of her.” His smile slipped and his expression became serious again. “But sometimes she got spooked, you know, by the details of a crime, or by thinking the person behind the crime was after her. Thankfully, it was never real.”

“So, was she spooked about one of her cases in particular before she disappeared?” River asked.

“Yeah.”

“So, she believed she was in danger and then she went missing?” Tony said. “It didn’t occur to you that the two things might be related?”

Tony’s frustration was showing. River felt the same way, but alienating Nathan by making it seem they blamed him for April’s situation wouldn’t help anything.

“This wasn’t the first time she’d felt that way down through the years,” Nathan said, his tone somewhat defensive. “It never turned out to be real. I assumed this was the same thing.”

“Can you tell us about the case?” River asked calmly. “It’s possible her state of mind is important, even if there wasn’t any real threat. How she acted in the days up to her disappearance could reveal something that might help us.”

She frowned at Tony, who seemed to take the hint. He leaned back in his chair and nodded at her.

“I can’t be certain which case was bothering her,” Nathan said. “She wouldn’t tell me. I’m not sure why, but since she’d been wrong before, she might not have felt confident enough to share her concerns. In the months before she went missing, she was trying hard to focus only on the facts. She wouldn’t move on anything until she had solid leads. I think her mistakes in the beginning made her cautious. So, this is just a guess, but the case that was taking up most of her time was the Castlewood Casanova. Two teenagers—a guy and a girl—were reported missing. Their bodies were found in Castlewood Park in Ballwin, near the river. It was assumed that they went there to make out.”

Tony frowned. “Why use the word Casanova?”

Nathan shrugged. “April named most of her cases, but this one had already been given a title by a newspaper reporter. I think it was because the young man involved had a bit of a reputation. I have no idea if it was deserved or if the reporter just wanted something that started with a C. You know, because of Castlewood Park.”

“And they never found a suspect?”