She's Not There by P. J. Parrish Page B

like this? Most rich women surrounded themselves with as much metal and airbags as bulky sedans or SUVs could provide. He made a mental note to find out if she had another car.
    Buchanan jumped off the Kia down to the mud. The rain had turned into a downpour, beating an ear-splitting tattoo on the hoods of the dead cars.
    Something was still bothering him, something about the car’s gullwing doors, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. And then there was the big question: Where the hell was Amelia Tobias going that night?
    His experience and his instincts were telling him she had been on her way to meet a lover. But who wore a Chanel cocktail dress to a tryst in the swamp?
    He clicked off the flashlight and trudged off through the rain.

    Amelia Tobias’s life was spread out before him on the bed.
    Buchanan’s eyes swept over the scattering of papers and photographs. For two hours now he had been working the phones, scouring the Internet, and printing out the results of his search, working to put together a clear picture of the woman. Normally, after even this limited amount of time and research, he had a good bead on what kind of runner he was chasing.
    All he had to do was sift through the mundane data of their daily lives—phone records, Facebook postings, credit card bills, what books they bought on Amazon, what movies they rented from Netflix—and the runners always revealed themselves.
    It was, he always thought, like watching one of those old Polaroid pictures come into focus. And once he got a clear picture of what the person had been, he could always figure out where they had gone.
    But this one . . .
    There was a strange lack of information on Amelia Tobias.
    There had been plenty of stuff on Alex Tobias: articles about his law firm’s cases, his successes, and his business holdings. Amelia—“the lovely Mrs. Tobias”—was mentioned in his big profile in Lawyer Monthly. But the only things Buchanan had found on Amelia herself came from the society pages.
    He sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up a printout.
    It was a home décor piece from Florida Design . It showed the Tobias home, a big pink Spanish-style place. To his eye, it looked like some place Zorro would live if he had no taste. But apparently, Amelia had rescued what was an important “Mizner-style manse” from the wrecking ball. There were quotes from her about how she had devoted three years to overseeing the renovation, accompanied by lots of pictures of the big white rooms. There was a photo of Amelia standing in front of the pool in a red dress.
    The only other pictures of her that he had found were in Gold Coast Magazine ’s “Scene and Heard” section and in City and Shore Magazine ’s“Out & About.” The names of the events changed—Diamond Ball for Cancer Research, Pawpurrazzi Party for the Humane Society, Opera Guild Disco Night—but the pictures were always the same. Alex Tobias in a tux, clutching a champagne glass and showing a lot of teeth. And there at his side was Amelia, beautiful for sure, but always with one of those smiles that said I’m here but I’m really not here.
    It was like she lived in a bubble. The woman didn’t even have her own Facebook page.
    The rich are different from you and me, Bucky, and it’s not just the money.
    He knew that. He had worked cases for a couple people who could buy Alex Tobias ten times over. But he had never gotten used to the world they lived in. He tossed the printout to the bed, and his eyes drifted around the hotel room. He had to admit, though, that when the case paid well enough, it was nice to hover around the gilded edges.
    After leaving the impound lot, he had retreated to a nearby bar and fired up the laptop to find a hotel on Expedia. He had chosen the W Hotel on the beach, deciding he deserved to stay in a place Condé Nast Traveler called “the perfect balance of style and soul.” Tobias was paying the freight—three ninety a night—for what was