“Come with me.” The officer pulled Ben through the crowd, close to the spot where Halli last stood. A head taller than most, the officer lifted his chin and nodded to someone across the chaos.
Ben yanked his arm free as he looked around. “Do you know where my sister is?”
“What is her name?” the man asked as another officer escorted Rachel to Ben’s side.
Rachel moved close and clung to his arm. “Where is she? Did you find her?”
“Not yet.” Ben turned back to the two men watching them. “My sister is about five-foot-three. She’s got brown hair—”
“It’s more auburn, with red highlights,” Rachel interjected. “And blue eyes. Please, you have to help us find her.” Tears began to stream down her face. A breeze from the lake stuck strands of her blonde hair to her wet cheeks. “We stopped to look at the lake, and she was filming some stupid swans, but we wanted to find our hotel. She might have been getting into the car when we left. We thought the ambulance was—” Another sob drowned out her words as Rachel buried her face against Ben’s shoulder.
“Where is the camera?” asked the light-haired officer who’d come over with Rachel.
Ben frowned at the strange question. “Probably still with her.”
“At what hotel are you staying?” the first officer demanded.
“The Grand Hotel in Menaggio,” Rachel answered. “But we haven’t checked in yet.”
“Maybe she will go to the hotel,” the blond said, but more to the other officer than to them.
“I don’t think so,” Ben interjected. Two pairs of eyes pinned him in place and he shifted restlessly. “We weren’t gone that long. It seems strange that she didn’t wait for us here.”
“We have taxi cabs here in Italia, eh?” The dark haired officer’s tone indicated a less than favorable opinion of tourists.
“You don’t know my sister. She’s not very confident by herself,” Ben explained. “I can’t imagine her trying to find her way around all alone.”
“Do you know somebody here in Italia? You meet friends maybe? Maybe she call someone?”
Rachel and Ben both shook their heads as Rachel said, “She doesn’t have a cell phone with her. We’re here on vacation. We just flew in this morning.”
“This is the first time any of us have ever been here,” Ben added.
The officers exchanged a look and then the dark one took out a small pad of paper and a pen from his pocket and said to Ben, “What is the name of your sister.”
“Halli. Well, Halliwell is on her passport. Halliwell Sanders.”
The man made a few notes, exchanged another glance with the blond officer, then said, “You will come with us.”
Rachel nodded, but a twinge of unease settled in Ben’s gut. The dark man’s demanding tone rubbed him the wrong way. “I think it’s better if we wait for her here. Wherever she may have gone, she’ll be back—”
“No,” the dark haired officer cut in. “Agente Mariucci will escort you to your hotel and we will be in contact.”
“That car there, it is yours?” The one named Mariucci pointed to the blue car Ben had parked haphazardly on the walkway beside the lake.
“Yes, but—”
“Give Agente Casale your keys. We will make sure the vehicle is brought to you.”
“I’d rather wait here,” Ben repeated.
“We will find her,” Casale said. “You will go with Agente Mariucci to the hotel.”
Ben’s frown deepened. His fingers tightened on the keys in his fist. “Why can’t you just follow us there?”
“Procedure,” Casale stated.
“Don’t we need to file a report at the police station or something? In America—”