I could picture trying to find ways to amuse myself while Jake and his cohort practiced ten hours a day.

“You realize, Victoria, that something serious has perhaps already happened to Emerald Ferring and August Veriden,” Max said quietly. “I won’t tell you your duty, because you are the most duty-driven person I have ever known, but it would be a mitzvah to go in person, not rely on an unknown outsider.”

When I got up to leave, he stood on tiptoe to kiss my forehead. “You know, you have quite a fine soul. I wouldn’t tamper with it.”

I suppose it was the kiss, the compliment, that pushed me the final wavering steps across the line. The next day I organized the Streeter brothers’ support, mapped my route to Fort Riley, and rechecked law-enforcement databases for any dead or injured John and Jane Does who might match August’s or Ferring’s description.

I was bringing Peppy with me. A dog might be a hindrance in a strange place, but I felt as though I were setting off on a voyage to Mars, untethered from every place and person I knew and loved: I needed the dog’s companionship. Mitch, her half-black-Lab son, I sent to Dr. Dan’s, a boarding farm in Wisconsin—one companion on the road was all I could comfortably handle.

I packed a bag with my main physical tools: picklocks, extra clips for my Smith & Wesson, night-vision binoculars, evidence bags. A fifth of Johnnie Walker Black. My laptop, iPad, charging cables. Peppy’s bed, a bag of dog food. For me, hiking boots, a suitcase with three pairs of jeans, T-shirts, sweaters, slickers for the rain in the forecast, underwear, dress boots, my red Bruno Magli pumps—after all, I was going to Kansas—and a good outfit, because you never know.

Midafternoon I drove Mr. Contreras to O’Hare to catch his flight to St. Croix. Home to Skype with Jake. It was 5:00 p.m. in Chicago, midnight in Basel; he had just returned from a post-concert dinner. In the past when he’s been on the road, he’s played for me across the ether. We’d been too unhappy with each other lately for either of us to get comfort from his music, but tonight I asked for “Non più andrai,” from The Marriage of Figaro—a martial air to send me to battle in good spirits.

Jake got out his early-music bass and played the melody, then improvised on it for some minutes, finishing in a minor key. When the music faded, we hung up without speaking and I drove the first leg of the trip, spending the night on the Iowa border near the Mississippi River.

7
A Happening Place

Chicago sits on flat land, but skyscrapers and Lake Michigan make us think we live near mountains and oceans. South and west of the city lie the prairies. A lot of them.