“I read your book.”
“Then you know I can’t help you. In order to identify someone, I need a skull. All you have is a missing person.” She nodded toward the table where his letter lay with Elizabeth’s picture.
It gave him a jolt of pain to see it nestled there with such grim artifacts. “I’m sure she’s been murdered. I want the truth.”
“You want revenge.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’re a man.” She folded her arms with satisfaction.
“Okay, I want to get the guy.”
She turned, a speculative look on her face. “How do you know it’s a man?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“Objectivity.”
He started to sweat as she continued to stare at him, and he felt as though he was being vivisected.
“Something you seem to be lacking. When they find a body and I reconstruct her face, then you can start building a case. I’m sorry. She was quite beautiful.”
The look she sent toward the photo was regretful, tender almost. There was that compassion again.
“If you’re so objective, why don’t you give me the same runaround as the police? No body. No murder. As far as they’re concerned, she’s still alive.”
“Really?”
“Except for one detective who suspects I killed her myself.”
She blinked. “You seem so positive. You said she had no reason to disappear.”
“We were to be married and she just vanished.”
“What did she take with her?” Faith asked.
“Her clothes are gone.”
She tilted her head. “Women who pack all their clothes usually are not being dragged away by a murderer. What else?”
“Her wallet and credit cards are gone but they haven’t been used. I’ve been opening her mail.” His mouth felt dry, as though he was talking to the police again.
“She wasn’t ill or having any qualms about the wedding? Sometimes women panic and back out.”
“I’m not a brute. She would have told me. I want to know where she is and then I want to know who killed her.”
“You don’t ask much, do you?” She came to the table and reached for the picture but stopped her hand as though she was afraid to touch it.
When she went to her filing cabinet in the corner, Vince gave the room a thorough once over. There was a rifle propped in the corner, not on its rack over the mantel. The only other item that seemed out of place was the corner of a piece of art paper protruding from the bookcase. He whisked it out and stifled a gasp. It was a line drawing of Elizabeth and it was not done from the photo he’d sent. It was Elizabeth on her sailboat. He returned it to its hiding place. He’d been right about Faith. She was a fake. If she wasn’t psychic, how did she know Elizabeth liked to sail?
Faith hunted through her letters, then copied a phone number. “Call this woman. She’s been known to find people. But you have to give her something of Elizabeth’s, something she touched just before she disappeared. Maybe that picture…if she touched it.”
He took the slip of paper. “Why are you referring me to another psychic?”
Faith stopped breathing as she met his eyes. Her heart thudded merrily on, whether she meant to feed it any oxygen or not. She took one stifled breath and looked down. Wait, maybe he hadn’t guessed about her after all. Keep your cool, girl.
“Another? So you’ve already gone this route.”
“Not exactly. But I can afford the best and that’s you.”
“I’m a forensic pathologist.”
He smiled. “That too.”
Faith refused to ask what he meant by that, but she was having a bad feeling about this man. Then he pulled out the drawing that had come to her when she’d first picked up the photo of Elizabeth. Damn. “Are you hungry?”
He shrugged. “I could eat.”