My father has good sense. He also has a heart that’s healing from major surgery. The two don’t mix well. “Maybe she’ll call him soon,” I said.

“We have every kind of resource to help her. Whatever is going on. Please be sure to remind her.”

Wendy had been missing in action for almost two weeks, but it probably seemed longer to my parents. There wasn’t a darned thing I could do about that except continue trying to find her.

On the way back to the town house, I thought about the other parties who should be crumbling under the weight of Wendy’s disappearance. But while Noelle often asked about her mother, Holly never did. And when I explained that Wendy would be home as soon as possible, Holly’s expression seesawed between skeptical and furious.

Holly did ask about her father, though, so when I got home and checked voice mail, I was sorry the girls had missed a call from their dad. I wasn’t sorry when I listened to it.

Bryce’s message hadn’t been meant for them. His voice was scratchy and distorted, and while I knew he wasn’t calling from under the water, he might as well have been. I had to listen twice. But I finally pieced words together. First he complained that my sister wasn’t answering her cell phone. Then he continued.

“Wendy, why haven’t you signed the papers the way we agreed? This has to be settled.”

After that there was so much distortion that I wasn’t positive, but I thought he said that she wouldn’t be able to reach him. In the meantime she was to move forward and soon.

I was sorry I hadn’t been here. Except what would I have said? Sorry, Bryce, but Wendy’s off God knows where, and I’m taking care of your daughters, who I hardly know. In the meantime I’m lying to everybody to cover your wife’s you-know-what?

Had Bryce been purposely obscure because he didn’t want the girls to know what he was talking about, in case they heard? Were he and Wendy selling their house in Connecticut? Were they drawing up a will, and afraid that talk of death might frighten their children?

Like any journalist I’m the queen of possibilities. So the worst one popped right up. Did Bryce want a divorce? Was it possible that Wendy had moved herself and the girls to Florida to make the legalities more difficult?

One thing was clear. Bryce didn’t know his wife was hiding from the law. For the first time I wondered if Wendy was arrested for murder, what might happen to Bryce’s security clearance and job? Was that part of her decision to hide out until the coast was clear? Was Wendy trying to protect her husband? If so, her disappearance might be admirable, but I’d heard Bryce’s voice. Bubbling through the long-distance distortion, I’d heard anger. If Bryce was already upset with Wendy, what, if anything, had she done? If he was divorcing her, why? Was everything that had happened in New Mexico just part of a longer chain of events?