Page 5 of Faultline

Last contact was three weeks ago. She sounded tired but stable. She mentioned a job interview at a supply company outside of town.

The number is disconnected. Not ringing. Not going to voicemail. Disconnected.

I try her backup number. Same result. I pull up her file and check the emergency contact she listed, her sister in Juneau.

The sister picks up on the fourth ring and tells me Della called two weeks ago to say she was moving. New job. Better opportunity. Anchorage. She sounded excited, the sister says. Happy, even.

"Did she say which company?"

"Something corporate. She said they were helping with relocation. Housing, moving costs, everything. She said it was a fresh start."

The sister doesn't have a forwarding address. Della told her she would send one once she was settled. That was two weeks ago.

I thank the sister and end the call. I set the phone down on my desk and stare at Della's name on the screen until my jaw aches and I realize I've been clenching my teeth.

Della Pruitt didn't mention a relocation offer to me. I'm her case advocate. I'm the person she calls when her landlord raises the rent, when her youngest has a nightmare, when the anniversary of what happened to her hits and she can't get out of bed.

She didn't tell me she was leaving.

In years of crisis work before Aurora Covenant, I lost clients to relapse, to abusive partners who found them, to a car accident on the Glenn Highway. Every one of those losses left a signature I learned to read in my sleep.

The relapse clients go quiet gradually. The ones who get found go quiet all at once. Della did neither. She went from stable to gone in two weeks, and she went with a corporate relocation offer she never mentioned to me.

People leave without telling their advocates for two reasons. Either they're running from something and don't want to be found, or someone convinced them not to call.

I pull up the next name on my list. Nina Ballard. Late twenties. Domestic violence survivor, not trafficking. Relocated to a small community north of Whitewater Junction with Aurora Covenant assistance a few months back. The last time I spoke to her, she was waitressing at a lodge near the highway and saving for a used truck.

Grounded. Determined. The kind of woman who catalogues every exit in every room she enters and pretends she's just admiring the décor. I know because I do the same thing, and I recognized it in her voice the first time we spoke.

Nina's phone rings five times and goes to voicemail. I try again ten minutes later. Voicemail again.

I call the lodge where she worked. The manager tells me Nina quit at the end of last month. Gave notice, worked her last shift, and said she had accepted a position with a company that was offering relocation assistance to Anchorage.

"Which company?" I ask.

"Couldn't tell you. She had a business card. Nice-looking. Some kind of resource outfit."

I put the phone down and press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see white.

Two women. Both connected to Aurora Covenant. Both accepted relocation offers from companies offering corporate assistance within the same two-week window. Both are now unreachable.

One is a coincidence. Two is a pattern, and pattern recognition isn't a skill I learned in a classroom. I learned it sitting across tables from women who told me they fell down the stairs, tripped on the porch, walked into a door. You learn to see the shape of things that don't fit, and what I'm looking at right now doesn't fit.

Maybe Della and Nina are fine. Maybe a legitimate company offered them jobs and they jumped at the chance. The woman who relocated found her own position and gave me her address before I asked. Her voice carried the clarity of someone steering her own life. Della's voice three weeks ago carried nothing like that. Tired. Steady. Not a woman gearing up for a move she'd never mentioned.

And Nina Ballard keeps a go-bag in her closet. She told me that on our second call. A backpack with cash, a prepaid phone, copies of her documents, and a change of clothes. A woman who maintains a go-bag doesn't leave town without telling the one person who knows where to find her. Unless someone told her I didn't need to know.

I open a new file and type in the details. Dates. Names. The phrase "relocation assistance." The word "corporate." The lodge manager's description of a nice-looking business card from some kind of resource outfit.

Resource outfit. The ranchers at the Ridgeline this morning were talking about a mining company making offers. Twice appraised. That detail lodges itself next to everything else I've been collecting for the past hour.

I pick up the landline and call Rhys’s department. Marc Wells picks up. I don't report anything because I don't have anything to report. Two women relocated voluntarily. Their phones are disconnected or going to voicemail. Nobody's filed a missing persons report. Nobody's committed a crime.

Instead, I ask Marc whether the department has had any contact with corporate recruiters operating in the area. He tells me a mining company called Cascade Mineral Partners has been making offers on properties north of town. Land deals, not employment. He says Rhys is keeping an eye on it.

"Anybody file complaints?" I ask.

"Couple of folks aren't happy about the pressure. Nothing criminal." Marc pauses, and I hear a chair creak. "You chasing something, Tosh?"