Lena — Tuesday, November 17, 2026, early morning
Nadia went through the service-station door with her head turned toward the man behind her. He held it, waited, then followed. Lena watched them do it again.
“Stop it there,” she said.
Owen paused the image. On the screen Nadia's face was flattened by the light through the glass, one eye almost gone. In motion it was plainly a woman arriving with somebody; stopped, it could have become whatever they needed it to be.
“Alma's sure about the clothes,” he said. “And we have the other view.”
He showed it again, though she'd seen it. A different angle, the same two people. The woman moved out of frame. The man remained at the counter. Lena had an impression of patience in his posture, his weight settled on both feet. He was buying something, or waiting to buy it. No visible hurry.
“Mercer?” she asked.
“The manager knows him as Ray. Comes in when he's driving through. A regular enough to talk to, not somebody he has an address for.”
The township officer beside them put a note in front of her. The identification had been followed, checked against the vehicle information they could establish and the work connection the manager knew. Ray Mercer, a driver. They had avenues to contact him. They did not have Nadia's car or a place where the two had parted.
Lena looked at the image of him again. The fact of a name changed the face.
“Did the manager hear any of it?”
“Not much. He remembers somebody having car trouble. Doesn't want to swear he heard the woman say it.”
“You've got what he can give us?”
“What he'll stand behind. Yes.”
They were in a room at the township station with a space heater under a table and a high window full of the gray morning. Lena had brought coffee. Owen had brought coffee too, and neither wanted the other's spare. Four paper cups stood among the notes. She could already feel the first one sitting badly in her stomach.
The uniformed officer took a call about another address check. Someone had let them in to look, had not seen Nadia, had several ideas about whom they ought to ask instead. He wrote them down. Lena could hear the voice running on through the phone, somebody with the luxury of wanting this to be an interesting conversation.
Owen laid out the current work. Alma's account and the employer's established where Nadia should have been. Her car had not appeared where it belonged. They were pursuing the service-station arrival and departure and people who might have seen her along that part of the morning. Somebody needed to speak to Mercer promptly. Lena took that part. Owen took further work around the station and the possible transport connections, with local officers continuing their checks.
“She could have gone with somebody after him,” the officer said, after he ended his call.
“She could,” Lena said. “Let's ask him.”
“I'll stay on the address checks,” the officer said.
“Thanks.”
He took the unclaimed coffee. Owen was already gathering his papers. She put the loose notes in her bag before anybody could think of a reason for them all to sit down again.
Her father called as she was putting the last note in her bag. She almost let it go, then answered because he'd call again if she didn't.
“Are you at work?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I thought so. I just want to talk about this afternoon.”
“Can I call you later?”
“That's what you said last night.”
She had. She'd seen the missed call in Alma's kitchen. After ten she'd opened his number, imagined the little silence while he woke enough to answer, and put the phone down. This morning she had thought she might get to it on the drive.
“I'm on a missing person, Dad.”
“I know you work. I work around you working.”
She closed her eyes. She could hear his kitchen radio in the background. He would be dressed, with a whole day arranged, and she hadn't the slightest idea what was in it. He might have waited until now to catch her, knowing she'd be up. She wanted him to hurry and didn't want to say it again.
“I'm trying to tell you about moving some things,” he said.
“What things?”
“Can we have dinner?”
“Where are they going?”
“Lena. Dinner.”
Owen was waiting at the door with the patient look he wore when he could hear only half a conversation. She disliked having an audience and took it out on the voice in her ear.
“You can't just ask somebody to drop everything in the middle of—”
Her father went quiet.
She pressed her thumb against the edge of her bag. “What time?”
“Whenever you finish dropping everything.”
“Could we eat early? Four fifteen?”
“I can do that.”
“I might have to leave again.”
“I heard you the first time.”
She let him go before they could quarrel about whether she'd stay. Owen had diplomatically gone to put something in the car. She picked up the cups, shook the nearly empty ones and threw them out. It gave her a minute without having to talk.
Before she left she called Alma. The service-station image was stronger than the possibility they'd had last night; they were working on who the man was and what he knew. She didn't give Alma a man to call or confront. Alma asked whether she should stay home from work. Lena said they would need to reach her.
“I'm meant to leave in fifteen minutes,” Alma said. “If you need me here, tell me now.”
“You can go. Keep the phone with you. If something changes, we'll call.”
“I can keep my phone on,” Alma said. “I always do.”
“Tell us if anything changes. Anything she says, even if she asks you not to.”
“If she calls, I'm keeping her on it.”
“Good.”
Lena was in the car now, with one hand holding a cup she hadn't meant to keep. The coffee was cold. Alma wanted to know what the appeal would say. Lena went through the essentials, the image and contact number, the request for anybody who knew the morning's movements. They needed people who might actually have seen her, not a public theory about whom she was with.
“Tessa's gone to school,” Alma said unexpectedly.
“Okay.”
“She wanted to. I don't want somebody saying I should have kept her here.”
“Does the school know to call you?”
“They've got my number. It's on everything.”
The call ended. Lena set the cup in its holder and looked up the work contact they'd been given for Mercer. The appeal was already beginning to travel through ordinary local channels, people forwarding a picture to someone who might know a driver, a car, a face. Before long there would be more calls than useful information. She wanted the actual conversation with him before everybody else told him what he should remember.
Her pen had leaked on the side of her finger. She rubbed at the mark with a tissue and only spread it. Then she called the next number.