“I have a whole lot of ideas,” I said. “None of them reassuring.”

“Such as?”

“Maybe she only planned to leave Timmy here a little while but hasn’t come back or called because she was physically unable. She could be dead, seriously ill, kidnapped, in jail, in a looney bin, or traveling on a spaceship to the third moon of Jupiter with a malfunctioning deep space radio.”

“Plausible,” he said. “Well, except for the spaceship theory. No one goes to the moons of Jupiter anymore. So twentieth century! Alpha Centauri, maybe.”

I smiled to show that I appreciated his attempt to lighten my mood, not because anything was going to strike me as funny under the circumstances. Michael shoved his hand into a sock, waggled two fingers at me through a hole in the toe, and then pulled it off and tossed it into the rag bin. Okay, I chuckled slightly at that.

“Second possibility.” I went on. “She is physically able to come back or communicate with us if she wanted to, but has some reason not to. Which would pretty much boil down to bad guys after her, and she’s afraid to lead them here, or even to communicate with us. Afraid of involving us—and Timmy—in whatever danger she thinks is after her.”

Michael paused with a half-folded towel in his hands to ponder that.

“Problem with that theory is that Timmy’s whereabouts aren’t exactly secret,” he said. “Anyone who really wanted to find him could, anytime.”

“So maybe she’s only afraid that something will happen to her and doesn’t want it to happen with Timmy nearby,” I said.

“Or maybe she was—and is—too stressed out to think it through and realize that someone trying to find her could use Timmy as leverage. As a hostage.”

“Which would mean Timmy’s in danger.”

We both involuntarily glanced up at the ceiling. We could hear Timmy squealing with delight at something.

“I’ll kill anyone who tries it,” I said. “Maybe I should take him away someplace. Hide him until this blows over.”

“I’d feel better if you were both here, with lots of friends and family around,” Michael said. “I think that’s safer in the long run than trying to go it alone. And frankly, Karen on the run from bad guys doesn’t seem to me the most likely option. I can think of at least one you haven’t mentioned yet.”

“Such as?”

“She’s dodging the police. Not necessarily because she’s done anything wrong,” he added, seeing my face. “But what if she’s afraid they’ll arrest her—for Jasper’s murder, or for the embezzlement—and thinks she needs to be free to clear herself?”

“Seems unlikely,” I said, shaking my head.

“Are you the only person who thinks maybe she could do a better job of finding the bad guys than the police?”

“I don’t think I can do a better job,” I protested. “Chief Burke has the skills and the resources. But he’s got other things on his plate, and you can’t expect him to drop them all to focus on looking for Karen and—”