Night Visions Read Online Free

restaurants and coffee shops. It should take time. It should take something more than words and a smile. Frank pays for the order, and the cashier giggles again.
    Samantha wonders how Frank and the other men in the room see her. A tired woman with baggy sweatpants and a frayed sweatshirt? Or is there something enticing about a body masked with shapeless clothes? As Frank walks back to the table, she suddenly feels self-conscious about her empty hands. She reaches up and touches her hair, still damp and sticky with sweat. I must look terrible, she thinks as he places the coffee in front of her.
    She doesn’t want to think about her body or his exchange with the cashier, so she quickly turns to the case.
    â€œWhat about this missing woman?”
    Her abruptness makes Frank noticeably uncomfortable, uncertain about seeing her after so much time. Pulling out a file, he hands her two pictures and begins talking about Catherine Anne Weber. His tone is serious, more professional now.
    â€œUntil a month ago, Catherine was a victim’s advocate for the Durham Police Department. She had that job for over two years, handling mostly domestic violence and child abuse cases. Apparently she was very good at it. She has lots of friends in the area, and her parents live in Raleigh.”
    Samantha looks at the first photograph while Frank talks. It was taken with a group of friends at an upscale bar. They are celebrating something—happy to be there, to be together. Catherine stands in the middle, smiling radiantly. Arms hidden, wrapped behind the girls beside her. She has a tall, slender body.
    â€œAs part of a short vacation, she went to visit a college girlfriend in Memphis, Tennessee, but she missed her return flight five days later. Her friend drove Catherine to the airport, even walked her to the security checkpoint. Ten minutes later, Catherine made two calls with a calling card—the first to her answering machine, the second to another friend in Boulder, Colorado. Then she rented a car and drove to Kansas City, where she stayed at a Lucky 8 motel. Late the following evening, she arrived in Boulder. According to this friend, Catherine only told her that she was coming the day before.”
    In the second photograph, Catherine sits by a lake, looking wistfully at the water. It’s a quiet, solitary moment, and she must have been unaware of the camera. She has a striking face with small, perfectly proportioned features. Her short black hair brings out the delicate quality of her white skin. Any man could fall in love with this face, Samantha thinks, and she wonders if Frank has.
    â€œShe left Boulder exactly three weeks ago, and a series of credit-card charges leads to California: a motel the following night in Salt Lake City, including several drinks and dinner for two at Lucci’s; then a motel in Reno; lunch in Davis, California; and dinner later that night at the Silver Dragon in San Francisco.”
    â€œShe certainly was in a hurry.” Samantha looks up. “Who’d she have dinner with in Salt Lake?”
    â€œI don’t know. Catherine never mentioned anyone from Salt Lake to her friends or family.” He takes a sip of his caffè mocha. “She may have been picked up or something.”
    â€œThen she wouldn’t have paid for dinner.”
    â€œDon’t be sexist.” He smiles at his own joke and continues. “In any case, the motel manager in Reno remembers her clearly because she complained about a leaky faucet in the bathroom. She demanded a room change at two in the morning, claiming that she couldn’t sleep with all the noise.”
    â€œWas she alone?”
    â€œShe rented a single. The manager didn’t mention anyone else. Why?”
    â€œI’m just wondering about the dinner. She could have met someone who traveled with her or followed her to Reno.”
    â€œPossible.” He pauses to consider this, looking away from her and the table for