Max arrived at the convenience store where Sandy’s trail had ended, looking for surveillance along the drive. Security cameras had become ubiquitous in the past couple decades, and hiding from them usually took effort. But on the short drive from the off-ramp, he passed no banks or ATMs. There were no stoplight cameras along the route, and with the exception of one bar, he saw no businesses that might have an exterior surveillance camera. There were other paths she could have taken, but this was the most direct one.

He filled up at the pump. If someone didn’t want to be seen or remembered, they need only pay with a credit card. Before going in to pay, he walked around the outside of the building just to make certain that it held no cameras. It did not.

Inside, a thin man with jaundiced skin manned the cash register behind a glass partition. Max walked the aisles in search of a camera and found none. He handed the guy behind the register cash for his gas along with a picture of Sandy and one of her 2002 Honda Passport.

“Have you ever seen this woman?”

“If I had, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell you.”

“She’s missing. I’m trying to find her.”

“I’m sure you are.” The man handed Max his change. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“She might be in trouble.”

“Listen, asshole, my sister was stalked by a nut job like you. If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the cops.”

Max looked at his reflection in the partition, his beard and hair grown wild. When he didn’t move right away, the man repeated his demand. “I said git!”

Max walked out of the store and to his car, looking around a little more carefully at the nearby buildings. Not a camera to be seen.

He drove back in the direction of the highway, pulling over every third block to get out and look around. This had to be the one street in the entire city with no cameras anywhere. His last stop was outside of a bar he’d passed on the way in. Bars were a special case. They often had cameras, but didn’t want that fact advertised. While camera footage might capture a vandal or someone trying to break in after hours, it might just as easily show someone getting served underage or a bouncer crossing a line.

Max parked beside the bar—the Rook—and was about to go in when he saw it. The building had red awnings that loomed over the sidewalk, and in one corner, a galvanized pipe arched out with a flood light on the end. Attached to the pipe, tucked inside the awning, was a small camera aimed at the front door. If it was set to capture a wide-angle view, it would pick up the intersection, too.

Max walked in and asked for the manager. The bartender yelled, “Janelle, someone to see you!”

A minute later a woman came out, forty-something, with the voice and skin of a lifelong smoker.