Free Cry Mercy by Mariah Stewart

side to side. “Like I told them, I have no idea. I'm afraid I really don't know any of her friends, except for Deb.”
    “Maybe by now, she or one of the other girls in the sorority house has thought of someone.” Emme reached across the desk and dragged the sheet of paper back toward her with one finger. She slid it back into the folder.
    “I'm guessing you'll be contacting her?”
    “I'll be meeting with her this afternoon.”
    “You'll let me know if there's anything new?” he asked.
    “Of course. Is there anything you can add … maybe something that's occurred to you since you sent in the application?”
    “No. I wish there were, but no. There's nothing. She's just … gone.”
    “By the way, what happened to your niece's things from her room at school?”
    “The housemother boxed everything up and sent it to me. It didn't occur to me to clean out her roomwhen I was there, but when the semester ended and she wasn't there, they thought it was best to send it home.”
    “Have you gone through her things? Maybe there's something there—a note, a letter, something that the police might have missed.”
    “I didn't really go through the boxes. Like I said, I looked through her desk and all when I was there.” He paused. “Do you think there might be something there?”
    Emme shrugged. “It's possible. Maybe you could take a little time over the weekend to find out.”
    “I'll drive out to the house later and take a look. Would you want to come along?”
    “I really would, but tonight's out. I'm pretty much tied up until Monday.” She and Chloe had some house hunting to do tomorrow and she wanted to get an early start.
    Emme tucked the file back into her bag and stood. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”
    “You're kidding, right?” He stood as well. “This is my niece we're talking about here. I appreciate your organization taking on her case, more than I can say. I had hired a private investigation firm, but didn't feel overly confident in them. Plus, let's not talk about the expense. They told me up front it could take months. I'd have had to mortgage my business to have kept them on. After six weeks they had nothing for me except a whopping bill.”
    “Well, the foundation was set up to take on cases like this. Ones the police haven't been able to move off dead center. We'll give it our best, Mr. Perone.”
    “Nick,” he told her. “Call me Nick.”
    She removed a card from her bag. “I don't have any cards of my own yet, but this one has the numbers of the foundation on it, and I added my new cell number as well.” She glanced at the card as she passed it to him, then said, “Oh, give it back and I'll add my name to it.”
    “No need.” He tucked the card into his back pocket and smiled for the first time since she'd arrived. “I'll remember your name. Emme Caldwell, right?”
    “Right.” She nodded, wondering how long it would take for the name to stop sounding strange to her ear, how long before she'd stop feeling like a total fraud. “Emme Caldwell.”
    The drive from Khoury's Ford to Eastwind on the opposite side of the Chesapeake took just over an hour. Emme found the police station housed in the newly constructed municipal building right past a sign that read WELCOME TO EASTWIND, MARYLAND, HOME OF THE EASTWIND HURRICANES . Chief of Police Edward Dietrich was standing in the lobby talking to the receptionist when Emme entered through the automatic glass doors.
    “I just came out here to tell Kate I was expecting you,” he told Emme as he extended a beefy hand in her direction. “Come on back to my office.”
    He led the way to the first office off the hall.
    “Have a seat there next to the desk, Ms. Caldwell.” He sat on one end of his desk and stared down at her. “So you're here about the girl that went missing from the college back a few months.”
    “Yes. Belinda Hudson.”
    “You been on the job?” He narrowed his eyes to study her. “You have that look