“That note they found. Calling himself names. Emasculated, infantile, unappreciative, erratic.”

Sometimes Izzy thought she and Cyrus not only had the same legs and hands but the same mind. “Death,” she said. “He called himself a death rocker. Didn’t want his daughter to become that.”

“Yes.”

“And he loved them,” Cyrus said. “His wife and kid. He loved them. He called his wife a goddess.” He ran a finger over her eyebrow, down the side of her face, across her lips. Tingling, Izzy thought of smears of red lipsticks, the tear of white satin, bleach, tiaras, cigarette smoke. “He used the word altar.”

“I’ll worship at your altar,” they said together. The singer had misspelled the word, Izzy remembered. Maybe he’d done it on purpose. I’ll worship at your alter-ego? He’d also called himself “Jesus Man.”

“Opiates in his blood stream,” Cyrus said. “He did it himself.”

That shiny boy full of songs, stomach burning and roiling with pain. In one picture, his wife balanced their baby on her white satin hip while she held his right hand. In his left, he dandled a baby bottle as if it were his. Then, just a short time later, gun to the head. Killing the music.

But Cyrus was happy. He was happy with her.

Now, Ted came around from the back of the bar to greet her. “You okay? I wanted to come see you, but it’s been busy.”

I am lost, I am lost, Izzy thought.

“Have you been eating?” Ted asked her.

In answer, she only held up the flyers. “Can I leave some?”

“Of course.” He went back around the bar, washed his hands, took two slices of whole wheat bread and laid them on a plate on the counter. “I’ve been asking around, too. Still no word?”

“Nothing.”

Ted spread the homemade prickly pear jam on one slice of bread. “Did anything happen that night? On Halloween? With the two of you?” When she didn’t answer, he looked up and saw her expression. “Sorry,” he said, opening a jar of almond butter.

“It’s okay, thank you.” She sat, almost catatonic, watching Ted make her an ice coffee, black.

“What else? What are you going to do?” He slid the cup and plate with the sandwich toward her, but she still couldn’t eat, just drank the coffee down. “Izzy?”

“I’m going to keep looking for him,” she said. “I’m waiting to get in to see his brother Joe at CAL.”

“You’re going to CAL. By yourself?”

“Yes.”

Rubbing vigorously at an invisible stain on the curved wood bar, Ted said, “I don’t want to overstep, but is it possible he just took off—”

Why did everyone seem to think this?

“He wouldn’t—” fall out of love with me just like that. “He wouldn’t just leave me without saying anything. He wouldn’t leave his truck.”

Izzy’s boss nodded. Humoring me? Was he?

She realized how odd she sounded, as if the truck was more important to Cyrus than she was. What if he’d left the truck to make it look like something other than the truth—that he was done with her? None of it made any sense.