“What are you trying to get at?”

“I don’t want you to betray confidences. But something went really wrong that day. No, not the obvious. We know that two boys went missing. But something else. Something big. Something that we need to know if we ever want to find the truth. So please, I’m asking you to trust me. Why was Francesca going through a rough patch?”

Rob Dixon took a few seconds to decide. “Her parents,” he said at last.

“What about them?”

“They were going through a rough patch.”

He stopped.

“Can you be more specific?”

Rob Dixon looked back out the window. “Her father found some texts on her mother’s phone.”

* * *

Myron was back in the car and flooring it to the campus of Columbia University. He had gotten Clark’s phone number when he’d last been there, and he dialed the number now. Clark answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Where’s Francesca?” Myron asked.

“We’re sitting out on the quad.”

“Don’t move. Don’t let her move.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“Just sit tight. Do not move.”

There was traffic at the George Washington Bridge. Myron tried the Jones Road shortcut. It saved him a little time. The Henry Hudson was backed up, so he took Riverside Drive down to 120th and parked close to a hydrant. He’d risk the tow. He sprinted up 120th and down Broadway and entered near Havemeyer Hall. Students stared at the seemingly old man running across campus. He didn’t care.

The campus was laid out before him as he passed the domed-and-Grecian-columned Low Library, the most prominent building on campus. He headed down the steps, doing a reverse Rocky, passing the sculpture of a seated Athena and down onto the grassy South Field East.

They were both there, Francesca and Clark, sitting outside on a green Ivy League campus quad. There were, Myron knew, few places like this, few moments in life quite as pure and rich and innocent and protected as being a college student sitting in a grassy quad. Was that real or illusory? Didn’t matter. Didn’t matter that he was about to shatter all of that for these two young people.

He was close to the truth now.

Francesca looked up as Myron decelerated to a stop. Clark rose and said, “What’s so important?”

Myron debated asking them to go inside, to move someplace with more privacy, but they were outside now, no one really within earshot, and there was no time to play around or stall or make it more comfortable for her.

He sat across from Francesca in what they used to call “Indian style,” but, remembering what Mickey had told him, maybe it was now “with legs crossed.” You didn’t have to be the Master of Deduction to see that Francesca was distraught. She was still crying. Her eyes were red and puffy.

“She won’t tell me what’s wrong,” Clark said.

Francesca squeezed her eyes shut. Myron looked back at Clark. “Could you give us a minute?”