Fourteen minutes later, I found Tabitha, wearing a snappy navy blue beret, in the parking lot outside of Chilson’s only bowling alley. While I wasn’t a bowler, I had been inside the echoing building, most recently last year when it had been the location of the world’s most amicable breakup. That Ash and I hadn’t clicked romantically still didn’t make much sense, but I’d stopped thinking about it ages ago. Rafe and I fit together like popcorn and butter, even if it had taken me years to acknowledge the truth of it.

The sun was down, darkness had fallen all around, and the parking lot’s single light seemed to be casting more shadow than anything else. A breeze gusted down my neck and I zipped my coat up to the collar, trying to put out of my mind what my weather app had predicted for a low temperature that night. And, anyway, forty-nine degrees was almost the same as fifty, and how could any native Michigander think fifty degrees was cold?

I pushed out of my mind the knowledge that fifty degrees outside was significantly different from fifty degrees inside, and waved at a waiting Tabitha. “How did you find him?”

“You young people never cease to amaze me.” She shook her head. “The information you put out there for all the world to see is astonishing. Don’t you have any interest in privacy?”

By this, I concluded that she’d determined Warren’s whereabouts via social media. My own personal tendency was to share very little publicly, and I didn’t think Rafe even had a Facebook account, but I had friends who felt differently. “Aren’t you glad?” I asked. “Makes this job a lot easier.”

“True enough.” Tabitha adjusted her beret to a rakish angle. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. By the way,” I said, holding the door open for her, “do we have a plan?”

“Plans are for sissies, remember?” She sailed up the concrete steps, opened the glass door, and went inside.

Shaking my head, I went after her. Inside, the noise was shattering. Pins clashing, balls rolling, people shouting . . . the din was a shock to my eardrums and I remembered once again how little bowling alleys and libraries had in common.

Tabitha elbowed me. “There he is. Wearing a black and royal blue shirt.”

Warren, along with his bowling teammates, was indeed wearing the colors that represented a local insurance agency. Three of them were cheering the fourth, who’d just flung his ball down the lane and toppled ten pins at once.

Hand slaps went all around, and, glancing up at the scores on the screen, I suddenly knew what to do.

“They just finished a game,” I said. “Someone will head to the bar. Come on.”

Sure enough, as soon as the cheering was done, Warren and one of his teammates approached the bar, where Tabitha and I were sitting on stools.