It had become part of their vocabulary the first time Scott stayed at her apartment while Hope was visiting for the weekend. An hour after he’d turned in for bed, he reemerged in the living room saying he had FOMO. They assured him he need not fear. He was only missing out on SNL and gummy bears. “But what about SP?” he said, looking at the bag from Dylan’s Candy Bar. It was the kind of thing that would be dorky if someone else said it, but Scott Parker had a way of making goofy seem pretty damned attractive. It helped that he was six foot three, had played college rugby, and was, let’s face it, objectively good-looking.

She started to pour more wine into Scott’s glass too, causing a nearby waiter to scurry to their table to take over the job.

“I’m surprised you’re not exhausted,” he said once they were alone again. “It was still dark out when you left this morning.”

“I think the food’s actually giving me a second wind.” Scott had finally persuaded her to leave the apartment for dinner. She thought it would mean a quick stop for a burger or something, but now they were at this fancy place where she couldn’t pour her own wine.

She had spent six hours in her car that day, driving round trip to East Hampton and back, just to have Carter Decker blow her off, claiming that the blood from the Stansfield house was a “dead end.” Maybe some people would be willing to accept the officer’s decision, but Lindsay wasn’t in the business of allowing other people to draw conclusions for her.

Accordingly, she had sent a list of questions to Detective Decker, by voice mail and email: (1) Which databases or other resources had they relied upon to compare the genetic material? (2) What, if any, results had come from such comparisons? (3) What resources, other than DNA databases, were they utilizing to determine the source of the genetic material?

She checked her cell phone once again for email updates. Nothing.

Next to her, Scott was dragging a piece of bread through the olive oil/balsamic/basil mix at the bottom of his salad plate. “Earth to Lindsay. The whole point of going out was so you’d stop staring at your phone all night.”

She set her phone next to her wineglass. “I just feel so helpless.”

“You’ve been pulling out all the stops.” He placed a hand on her knee. “I’m sorry that it’s not getting the attention you want.”