If one, for whatever reason, disappears one's live-in significant other, when do you raise the alarm/contact the police?
Would you wait overnight, and then call the police in the morning?
If you've just done something horrendous, could you wait overnight to set in motion whatever wheels are going to be turning?
I'd guess that more people would raise the alarm before going to sleep that night. Because:
1. that's more consistent with the expected behavior of a spouse in that situation (attempting to fit the profile of an innocent person).
2. sleep would already be cumbersome and difficult. raising the alarm and bringing on one's fate might feel like you are in control
of the situation. if there's a car and possibly a body that could be found at any moment....how well could you sleep before reporting the situation.
This is so up to the personality of the person and to the dynamics of the couple.
For example:
In my case if my hubby doesn't come home way past (like 2-3 hours) when I expected him to be here:
First I would call him. If I can't reach him, I would see it a possibility that his phone battery died and he met someone he knew somewhere and is enjoying a coffee and chat with that person. (None of us has a car charger and I know for a fact he doesn't have my phone number memorized to call me from another phone. The only number he knows is his mother's, because that number he knew way before mobile phone with memory existed.) I would feel uncomfortable but would still wait. An hour past my first worry time I would begin to call around to see if someone saw him today and knew of where exactly was he headed. Maybe he mentioned something to someone else which he didn't mention to me. I would try to call those places. I personally could not go to sleep without knowing he is safe. Later that evening I would call the police, because in our many years together he has never slept anywhere else without announcing it to me in advance. That would occur approximately 4-5 hours after I was expecting him home, I think. I would also drive around places he supposedly went to see if I can find at list his car somewhere.
I do have a friend who's boyfriend regularly "forgets" to go home without announcing it in advance and sometimes he doesn't go home for 2-3 days. That's normal in their relationship and she never called the police, not even the first time because she suspected what was going on. Boy, if God forbids he ends up somewhere in a ditch hurt where no one can see him, nobody will be looking for him for 3 days.
In my hubby's case:
If I didn't come home the time I told I would, he would not panic. I'm sure after awhile he would even proceed to make his own dinner of some kind. He would try to call me, but if I'm not available he would think my battery is dead. We do not have car chargers, because this only happens a 1 or 2 times a year, not more. I have a friend who lives a half an hour away from us by car and if I go visit her I sometimes come home late at night, because we can really talk deep into the night. He knows this, and although I never went and stayed at her's without letting my hubby know this, he would still think that's what is going on. He is just a very relaxed type of guy. He would go to sleep and he would realize I'm missing at 6 o'clock in the morning. I'm not sure he would be worried by then, either. He would figure my battery is still dead and when I get home and charged my phone I would call him immediately. I think he would begin to feel uncomfortable that day around noon.
Now I have to stress I never stayed anywhere overnight without telling him in advance, but sometimes if I had a drink with/at that girl friend of my and felt intoxicated, then I called, or -if I realized that very late and he could possibly in bed that time- I did send a message for him that I was staying there. This didn't happened very often (around four times in approximately 10 years) but still it would be on his mind.
Now if Erin happened to stay at the ranch overnight before and hubby knows that, I see it possible that he wasn't worried. I would have called the ranch to check it to be on the safe side, but I can see him not doing it to don't look like a controlling partner. My hubby would not call there either, he would not want to be seen as a jealous husband. Some people wouldn't call because would be afraid to find out he/she is cheated on.
It would be important to know what was normal to them/between them. Without that is difficult to tell if his reaction was strange or not.