Ellie couldn’t let it go. She had begged and pleaded for details and asked questions—she got good and angry and walked away more than once—and her mother refused to share details, reciting the same lines over and over again, as if by rote. When her mother finally passed, Ellie remembered sitting next to her, loving and hating her equally.

Ellie wondered what her mother would say if she could see her daughter now, standing in this makeshift shrine/operations center devoted to finding J.C., wondered if her mother—

A car was approaching.

Ellie turned away from the photo, listened. The engine was loud, rumbling—the kind that belonged to a truck, not a car. The kind Cody’s Ford F-150 had.

She realized she was quite drunk. Not stumbling, fall-on-your-face drunk but riding that oh so wonderful warm wave that made her feel relaxed. In control.

The doorbell rang as Ellie plodded downstairs on her bare feet. She placed the empty glass next to the whiskey bottle sitting on the breakfast bar and caught her reflection in the glass cabinet door. A normal twenty-something woman would have taken the time to look more presentable for her boyfriend, worn something other than a pair of Under Armour track pants and a frayed T-shirt that should have been relegated to the rag pile or dumped in the trash. But a normal twenty-something woman wouldn’t have spent her afternoon dodging bullets and dealing with a crazy masturbating woman high on illegal blood, so screw it.

The doorbell rang again. She was glad Cody was here. She didn’t need him to be here, and she wanted him to understand that. She didn’t want him hovering, treating her like some bruised flower. Screw that, she thought, and opened the door.

Her little speech would have to wait. Police Commissioner James Kelly was standing on her doorstep.

“Evening,” Kelly said. “I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”

Ellie was too stunned to speak. Why in God’s name would the police commissioner be standing on her front doorstep at—she glanced at the wall clock over the fireplace—quarter past eleven?

And alone. Kelly had come here alone—at least it appeared that way, because there was no one else standing anywhere outside. And he must have driven himself, because she didn’t see a driver sitting behind the wheel of the vehicle parked in her carport, a two-door white Toyota Tacoma truck with a Santa Clara University sticker on the back window.

“My daughter’s truck,” Kelly said. “She’s home for the weekend.” He smiled. “Mom washes and folds the laundry and provides free meals while my daughter complains about how rough and demanding her schoolwork is.”

Ellie wanted to say something, or at least nod in acknowledgment, but her mind was overflowing with questions, and underneath them she felt a vague sense of panic. Having the commissioner dropping in at such a late hour didn’t exactly scream good news.

“This is usually the part where you invite me in,” Kelly said kindly.