“Ma’am!” He squished his eyes like he had a headache. “We’re taking this very seriously, Mrs. Janes. It’s not the news we wanted to bring, but we’re confident we’re on the right path here. Ansel’s Lake is a large body of water. We want you to know we won’t give up searching. Trying to recover your son.”

Then Telly’s truck growled and crunched down the driveway. Rocks popped out under his wheels. I could see the busted red light. He jumped out and ran up onto the porch. “What’s going on?” he said. He lifted his hat straight up and pulled it back on. It was the same one with the car on it.

“Oh, Telly. Where’ve you been?”

“Dealing with Dian,” he said. “She’s had— Well, she hasn’t had a good day.” He looked hard at Gloria.

“How unfortunate,” Gloria said. “But that, that, whatever you call that woman, and what type of day she had should be the last thing on your mind.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

The man stood up. “Do you want us to—to share things with your husband?”

“No, no. I should tell him. I’ll, I’ll try.”

“What’s happened? Glow?”

“They got this terrible idea. But trust me, you won’t believe a word of it.” Then everything fell out of Gloria’s mouth. A huge splat. All the same words that the man without the tie said.

“Jesus.” Telly’s mouth was wide open now. I could see his new white teeth. “For the love of Jesus.”

“It’s not true, Telly. We can’t stop waiting for him to come back. I promised Maisy. We’re going to be a family. Rowan’ll come home and we’ll be a family again.” She grabbed at his arm. “We can’t stop searching for our boy. Far and wide, Telly. The police looked at this Carl person, but they never looked nowhere else. We got to stay together on this!”

Telly didn’t seem to hear her at all. He rubbed at his face and paced around. Then he pulled his fist back and was going to punch the side of the house. He stopped a tiny bit from the wood. I jumped. He said swear words.

“Mr. Janes,” Susan said. “Sir. You need to keep a cool head. Please. I understand your shock and your rage, but your daughter is right here.”

She squatted down next to me and touched my shoulder. I twisted away.

“What’s going to happen to that bastard? Hey? What’s going to happen?” Telly bounced up and down.

“You’ve got my word. Howard Gill will remain in custody.”

“Jesus,” Telly said again. “None of this makes no sense to me. What was Row following him for? What put that in his head?”