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You told me I could stop by this morning.”
    Eric slapped a palm against his forehead, stunned he hadn’t realized it was Wednesday. The days tended to blur when you were trying to avoid writing.
    “I’m so sorry. It completely slipped my mind.”
    He moved out of the doorway and Nick Donnelly entered, taking another one of those sweeping gazes. Behind him, someone else crept tentatively up the porch steps. Her uniform indicated that she, too, was a cop. But Eric didn’t need to see a badge to confirm that. He already knew Kat Campbell had followed in her father’s footsteps.
    Twenty-five years had passed since Eric last saw her. Time had been generous. Although older, she still had that sharp chin that would lift when she was angry and lower when she was sad. Her eyes still sparkled with kindness, and the formation of her lips suggested everything from tension to boredom to the barest hint of a smile.
    “Please tell me we’re not so old that you’ve forgotten me.”
    “We’re older,” Eric said. “But I didn’t forget you, Kat.”
    The hint of a smile remained on her face as she leaned forward and gave him a brief, nervous hug. It was the reaction Eric had been hoping for but not entirely expecting. He had done nothing to deserve a hug, not now and certainly not then.
    “Let me get a good look at you,” Kat said.
    As she stepped backward to take him in, Eric foolishly wondered how he looked now compared with his eighteen-year-old self. He had changed a lot since those high school days. His contacts were new. So was his thatch of curly brown hair. His body, too, had undergone changes, getting leaner and more muscular as he got older. Each passing year made him hit the gym harder in an attempt to stave off old age.
    His face, however, had stayed the same. At forty-three, his skin remained free of wrinkles and age spots. He didn’t know how long it would last, but he thanked good genes for making it this far. Sometimes he’d look at photos of himself from high school and be amazed at how little his features had changed. Same jawline. Same strong nose. Same crooked smile.
    “You look great,” Kat said. “And I’m so happy for your success. Truly and deeply.”
    That last part had been added for a reason, Eric knew. It was her way of saying that, yes, she remembered everything but that she was prepared to let it go.
    “So you work for the Sarah Donnelly Foundation, too?” Eric asked.
    Kat looked at Nick Donnelly, who had been watching their reunion with an impatient lean on his cane. “No, although Nick would like that.”
    Eric glanced between the two of them. “Then why are you here?”
    “Just trying to be a good police chief,” Kat said, at last stepping inside. “And in that role, I’m curious about what you think happened to your brother.”
    “I don’t know what happened to him,” Eric replied. “But my mother had an idea.”
    “Which was?”
    “That Charlie was kidnapped.”
    They sat at the scuffed table in the shabby dining room, Eric on one side, Nick and Kat on the other. The arrangement forced him to focus on either the private investigator who might take his case or his old flame. Not knowing who to pick, Eric settled on the space between their shoulders, which offered a view of the faded wallpaper. There had been roses on it once. Tiny pink ones with thornless stems that twisted around each other. Now the roses were barely visible, their stems vague gnarls of color.
    “Before I take on a case,” Nick began, “I like to get a grasp on the situation to see—”
    Eric finished the sentence for him. “If it’s worth your time. I completely understand.”
    In his books, Mitch Gracey did the same thing. He didn’t waste energy on cases that couldn’t be solved. It made things easier. But Eric already knew that Gracey wouldn’t for a second take on Charlie’s disappearance. He hoped Nick Donnelly thought otherwise.
    “Good,” Nick said. “So let’s start by your telling me