“She went missing while out for a run.” Will’s temper had never been a hot thing of rage and -fury… not until the night of the fire. It had cooled again in the aftermath, and he could handle Daniel’s smug sense of superiority without losing control. “I came to ask if you’d help with an aerial search.”

“I’ve got meetings out of town today. What about the police helicopters?”

“There’s another ongoing case involving children.” He’d checked in with his commander, been told the choppers would be going up again at first light, along with a massive army of search volunteers. Will could be frustrated with the allocation of resources while agreeing with -them—-the children had to be a priority.

“If you won’t help, just say so. I’ll have to call in private aerial teams from outside and they’ll take time getting here.”

He thought it was the word “outside” that did -it—-Daniel might turn up his nose at the town, snubbing all the social events to which he was invited and making it clear he didn’t think most of the residents were fit to lick his boots, but he also considered himself the most important man in Golden Cove. It was his town; he couldn’t stomach the idea of outsiders coming in and taking over.

That, of course, was part of his problem with Will. Daniel had expected Will to fall in line. His first month here, Will had accepted a dinner invitation from Daniel and his -sulky--faced wife. In a place this small and remote, the local cop had to make an effort to build bonds no matter his own desire to keep a distance.

It had been toward the end of the night, as Daniel walked him to his vehicle, that the other man had made it clear he expected Will to keep him informed of everything that went on in Golden Cove. “You understand?” he’d said in that supercilious master--to--servant tone. “This is my town and I like to keep my finger on the pulse. You’ll find I’m a generous man to those who please me.”

Will had simply said, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” and left.

Two days later, he’d received a call from a friendly senior officer who’d told him to watch his back. Daniel, it turned out, had tried to get Will fired. “Just be careful,” the older man had said. “May might live in Golden Cove, but he has connections everywhere.”

Now the -self--professed Lord of Golden Cove grimaced. “I’ll take up the chopper.” A pause before he added, “I’ll need a spotter. Might as well be you if you’re ready to go up.”

Will looked at the horizon through the breaks in the trees, saw the first blazing edge of daybreak. “I’ll call, inform the rest of the search party.” While he did that, Daniel went back inside the house to tell his wife his plans and to inform his secretary that he’d be late.

“Nik,” Will said when the call was answered, “I need you to run the entire ground operation for the time being. Go back over all the areas we did last night, search deeper where you can, and don’t forget the dump and other outlying areas.”

“No problem.”

Will stared out at the trees backlit in orange flame by the rising sun. “And spread the word that I want to know if people saw anything even vaguely related yesterday afternoon.” Will needed a starting point to begin the -investigation—-a piece of Miriama’s clothing, a description of a stranger in town, a report of a local seen with Miriama, something.

“Where are you?”

“I’m going up with Daniel.”

A taut silence, followed by, “I’ll make sure the others know, so they can signal if they spot something on the ground that could do with a bird’s--eye view.”

“I’m not sure what the cellular reception will be like in the chopper,” Will said, “but if you have a major discovery, get the people on the beach to all wave. It’ll be easy to spot that with how low we’ll be flying.”

“You’ll have a signal.”

It was only after the other man hung up that Will wondered why Nikau was so certain about the cell signal. He knew damn well that Nik wouldn’t have gone up with Daniel, and since Daniel was the only one who flew the sleek black -machine…

Right.

It had to be Keira who’d contacted her ex--husband from the chopper. Either she’d done it at Daniel’s behest, or she’d sneakily messaged Nikau while her husband was busy at the controls. Neither sounded particularly good for Nikau’s already screwed--up head.

Daniel reappeared, having changed into jeans and a -long--sleeved white shirt that was probably worth five times the monthly salary of most of the people in town. Neither one of them said a word as they headed to the chopper. Will had already grabbed the binoculars he kept in the -SUV—-in a place with terrain this rugged, it paid to have them handy.

Once inside the helicopter, he pulled on the headset that would allow him to talk to Daniel, then asked the other man to skim along the coastline first, before going inland and over the areas where Miriama was most likely to have run.

The sun’s rays broke completely through the last of the mist as they rose into the air. Will glimpsed a small and curvy woman with -blonde--streaked brown hair on the verandah of the estate house, her elegantly boned face lifted to watch the chopper and her hands gripping the railing. She was wearing a red negligee and, despite their distance from the house, the wind from the chopper blades pasted the silk and lace of it against her body, outlining a shape that had driven many a man to his knees.