Free Strangers in the Night by Patricia H. Rushford

cash.”
    Jake whistled. “And Barbara was there?”
    â€œSaw the whole thing. The gunman disappeared with the money and a twenty-five-year-old woman who worked with Barbara at the bank. There’s been no trace of them since. The hostage was Barbara’s best friend, so it was doubly traumatic for her. Her mother said she changed after that. Wouldn’t go back to work and sort of shut down for a while. She lived at home and finally went back to school and decided to go into real estate.”
    â€œWhat brought her to Oceanside?” Jake asked as he processed this new information. Barbara’s past experiences shed a whole new light on her disappearance.
    Jeff shrugged. “No idea. Her parents said she thought it was time to move on and she had always liked this area. The robbery is why Meyers is chiming in on the case. He thinks she may have come here because of some tip they’d gotten about two years ago that the bank robber had been seen out here. About the same time a few bills from the robbery surfaced in Oceanside.”
    â€œI’m sorry, I’m not following you. You think Barbara came here to work so she could search for a bank robber? Isn’t that up to the police?”
    â€œYes, but Barbara was apparently obsessed with the case. For a while after it happened, she drove the police nuts calling in with sightings. After a while she stopped calling them.”
    â€œAnd now she’s missing.”
    Jake straightened when the waitress brought their orders. The breakfast special for Jeff and a BLT for him.
    Jeff and Jake talked while they ate, but not about Barbara. Jeff’s wife was pregnant and due in October. They were all friends—Jeff and his wife, Becky, Travis, Sandy, Jake’s sister Peggy, and her husband, Brent, Jake’s primary carpenter. Jake had known all of them for as long as he could remember.
    He had to smile at the weaving of people making up the town of Oceanside. It was like a lot of tourist towns along the Oregon and Washington beaches. There were the locals—people who lived there year-round—and the tourists. But there was also a division between the locals. There were the natives, those who were born and raised Oceansiders, and there were those who had moved in as adults.
    He and his friends were natives and tended to band together. Not that they excluded others, but they had an unspoken pact. He’d gone through grade school and high school with these people. In a way, their closeness was a good thing. In another, they were like a high-school clique that made outside friendships difficult.
    As an outsider, Barbara had never been part of the group, but not because they didn’t want her to be. He couldn’t ever remember her wanting to be with them. Early on, he’d invited her to a few of their get-togethers and she’d turned him down. Come to think of it, Travis had mentioned inviting her as well. Jake wondered if Barbara had made any close friends in Oceanside outside of Travis. If she had, he didn’t know about them.
    â€œDid you talk to any of Barbara’s neighbors?” Jake set his empty plate aside, thinking maybe someone at the apartment complex could tell them something about her or people who might have visited her.
    â€œI made a quick run-through. A couple of people know her by sight. None of them remembered seeing anyone come or go from the apartment but her.”
    â€œNot even Travis?”
    â€œApparently not. I showed them photos of both you and Travis, but no takers.”
    Jake frowned. “You showed them my picture?”
    â€œWell, you are her boss.”
    â€œAnd a suspect, I know.”
    â€œSorry about that.”
    â€œWhat about Travis? No one saw him at her place either?”
    Jeff shook his head. “Seemed strange to me, but Travis says he was never invited to her apartment. She always met him somewhere.”
    Jake frowned. It sounded as though Barbara was