Then as if Enya can read my mind she picks up her knapsack, which is in the grass by her feet. It’s pink with small hearts, and her sister’s is just like it. Enya digs into a front pocket and slides out an iPhone in an ice-blue case—like the one I saw the cyclist clamp into the holder on her handlebars.

Marino doesn’t touch the phone. He doesn’t act surprised and certainly not suspicious or judgmental. He opens a brown paper evidence bag and holds it in front of Enya. He instructs her to drop the phone inside it.

“Well now that’s really helpful,” he says to both girls, and I can imagine Barclay’s smoldering resentment when he finds out what Marino’s just done. “You know what I can’t figure out?” He looks at both of them.

“What?”

“How you got hold of this. How did you manage that?”

Anya in pink admits with a hint of pride that she saw the phone “on the handlebars” and “borrowed” it.

“That was a pretty smart idea to borrow the phone to call for help,” Marino says, and they look pleased.

He wants to know if they’d mind him taking a peek at what’s inside their knapsacks. Maybe there’s something else they have that might be helpful.

“Okay,” Enya says, and she takes his hand.

She presses it to her face as if she might love him.

CHAPTER 20

TWICE NOW IN THE past forty minutes I’ve trekked alone through the clearing, following the path to the edge of the park where an auxiliary diesel generator hums in the dark.

I’m getting more frustrated with each minute that passes. I was hoping to be back at my headquarters before now, and yet I’ve scarcely started. The body should be in the CT scanner. I should be setting up my autopsy station.

Already I should have a good idea what happened to her, and I don’t. Not to mention hypervigilance is fatiguing. When you have to think about everything you do and say, and watch every place you touch or step, it wears you down. Especially in this weather.

It’s already 9:30 P.M. and the tent isn’t close to ready. I could put on the big show of hanging around outside instead of retreating to the quiet comfort of an air-conditioned monster truck. But there’s not much I can help with at the moment, and one thing I’ve learned over the years is to pace myself. If I don’t keep hydrated, if I’m not careful about overheating, if I don’t plan and strategize I won’t be much good to anyone.