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bathroom doorway. “You should be more careful.”
    Elise jumped at the sound of his voice, but couldn’t find the strength or the will to get up. She sat with her forehead propped on her arms, which muffled her voice. “You should have knocked.”
    “I did. Guess you were too busy puking to hear me.” He stepped into the bathroom, wet a washcloth, and filled a paper cup with water. He handed her the cup, and Elise was grateful to wash the taste of bile from her mouth.
    She flushed the toilet, but her arm felt too weak and heavy for even that small task. Getting up wasn’t going to be fun, but sitting here with an audience was too much for her pride to bear.
    Elise moved to get up, but Trent pressed his hand to her shoulder. “Stay put, just in case you’re not done yet. Neither one of us want to clean that up.” He lifted her hair off the back of her neck and draped the cool, wet cloth at her nape. “This will help.”
    Miraculously, it did. The cloth sucked away some of the nauseating heat coursing through her body and eased her stomach.
    He sat down on the edge of the tub, making himself at home. The room was small, and the hair on his legs brushed her bare arm. “Any better?”
    “Yeah. Thanks.”
    He nodded. “Do you have some sort of Asian stomach flu, or was it a case of nerves?”
    “Definitely nerves.”
    “Want to talk about it?”
    Elise shook her head. “Not really, but I guess I have to.”
    He waited in silence, his elbows propped on his knees, his hands dangling down between his shins. A fine layer of dirt clung to his shoes, socks, and shins. The scent of the sunshine and hot male skin swirled in the air around him, somehow calming her nerves.
    Pride or not, she was glad she was no longer alone in Ashley’s house. Sure, she didn’t really know this man, but he was real and solid—something to grasp onto when the rest of the world seemed to be spinning out of control.
    Trent sat there, watching her, casual and patient as if he had all the time in the world. It was probably some sort of interrogation skill he’d learned as a cop.
    Elise pulled in a deep, steadying breath. “You said to look for changes in her spending habits. Ashley hasn’t used her credit or debit cards since Friday night. Before that, she used them every day.”
    His mouth flattened and she thought she saw his shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. “What about her phone?”
    “The phone company wouldn’t tell me anything, but Officer Tindle said he’d call and see about getting them to release the information.”
    “That’s good.”
    “No, it’s not. It’s not enough.”
    “Let me call Bob and talk to him for you. Once he finds out that her spending habits changed, it will light a fire under him. It’s proof that something has happened and it will get the police to work harder to find her.”
    “He told me he’s already doing everything he can, but he was evasive on the phone, like he didn’t want me to know what he was going to do.”
    “He doesn’t want to worry you.”
    She let out a scathing laugh. “Like I could be any more worried. I’d feel better if I knew what he was doing.”
    “Would you really?” asked Trent. “Or are you just saying that?”
    “I’d rather know than not. I’m tough, but I need some kind of hope to grab onto—something to focus on so my mind will stop eating away at itself with worry.”
    Trent sat silent for a moment, studying her, like he was trying to decide if she was lying. Whatever he saw must have satisfied him, because he let out a resigned sigh and said, “Bob will contact area hospitals to see if anyone matching her description has come in for treatment. If she was in an accident, she could still be unconscious or unable to tell the doctors who she is.”
    That sounded smart. In fact, she should have thought about that herself. She was just so tired. She hadn’t had time to adjust to this time zone yet, and she’d worked all day during the hours she’d