I switched to the North American Missing Persons Network.

Nothing.

I was logging on to NamUs.gov when thunder cracked and lightning streaked big-time. A white blur shot from beneath the sideboard and disappeared through the dining room door.

The kitchen dimmed and rain came down hard. I got up to turn on lights and check windows.

Which didn’t take long.

I live on the grounds of a nineteenth-century manor-turned-condo-complex lying just off the queens University campus. Sharon Hall. A little slice of Dixie. Red brick, white pediment, shutters, and columns.

My little outbuilding is nestled among ancient magnolias. The Annex. Annex to what? No one knows. The two-story structure appears on none of the estate’s original plans. The hall is there. The coach house. The herb and formal gardens. No annex. Clearly an afterthought.

Guesses by family and friends have included smokehouse, hothouse, outhouse, and kiln. I’m not much concerned with the architect’s original purpose. Barely twelve hundred square feet, the Annex suits my needs. Bedroom and bath up. Kitchen, dining room, parlor, and study down.

Finding myself suddenly single over a decade ago, I’d rented the place as a stopgap measure. Contentedness? Laziness? Lack of motivation? All these years down the road, I still call it home.

Hatches battened, I returned to my laptop.

For naught. Like the other sites, NamUs had nothing on Gamble or Lovette.

Frustrated, I gave up and shifted to e-mail.

Forty-seven messages. My eyes went to number twenty-four.

Flashbulb image. Andrew Ryan, Lieutenant-détective, Section des crimes contre la personne, Sûreté du Québec. Tall, lanky, sandy hair, blue eyes.

I am forensic anthropologist for the Bureau du coroner in la Belle Province. Same deal as with the MCME. I go to the lab when an anthropology consult is requested. Ryan is a homicide detective with the Quebec provincial police. For years Ryan and I have worked together, with him detecting and me analyzing vics.

From time to time we have also played together. And Ryan plays very well with others. Many others, it turned out. Ryan and I hadn’t been an item for almost a year.

Currently, Ryan’s only child, Lily, was in Ontario, enrolled in yet another drug rehab program. Daddy had taken leave to be there with daughter.

I read Ryan’s e-mail.

Though witty and charming, when it comes to correspondence, Monsieur le Détective is not Victor Hugo. He wrote that he and Lily were well. That his short-term rental apartment had crappy pipes. That he would phone.

I responded in kind. No nostalgia, no sentimentality, no personal updates.

After hitting send, I sat a moment, a tiny knot tightening in my gut.

Screw prudence.

I dialed Ryan’s cell. He answered on the second ring.

“Call a plumber.”

“Merci, madame. I will give your suggestion serious consideration.”

“How’s Lily?”