I don’t think. I just close the distance between Maria and me and wrap my arms around her. Her arms are very still for a second, but then she hugs me back, and even though she says something, I can’t even make out her words. All I can hear is my own sobbing as I cry into her shirt.

“Mateo.” She sighs into my ear. From the way her chest is moving, I can tell she’s crying, too. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

“We’ll find her,” I say as I step away from her. “We have to.”

“How long has it been since you last saw her?” Darryl asks. Even though I assured him a million times that he didn’t have to, he insisted on coming along to help.

“I’m not sure,” Maria says, dabbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “We’ve spent at least forty-five minutes looking for her.”

“Leslie, did she say anything to you?” I ask.

She shakes her head, making her ponytail swing behind her head. “We were just playing.”

I grip my phone tightly in my hand. On our way here, I tried calling Sophie’s cell phone, but she’s not picking up. I don’t know if she was even carrying it. She could’ve left it back at Kimmie’s place, or the battery might’ve died.

Kimmie clears her throat beside me. “Could she have gotten lost in the park?”

“That’s what I thought at first,” Maria says. “But we’ve looked for her everywhere, and—”

“Maybe she went somewhere else,” I interrupt her, thinking quickly. “If she got lost and didn’t know how to get back to the playground, she could be out there, trying to find me.”

“Where could she be?” Kimmie says.

“I dunno… the bodega?” I say. “Maybe she thinks I’m there.”

Kimmie’s eyes move quickly. “Why don’t you head down there? We’ll stay here and look for Sophie.”

There isn’t much time to think. All I can do is nod.

“Call me if anything happens,” I say to Maria, Kimmie, and Darryl. After taking one last look at their frightened faces, I run toward the exit of the park.

As I look anxiously out the window of the cab, I hold my phone hard against my ear. I’ve been trying to call Jorge from the moment I left Central Park, but he’s not picking up.

“Hello?” he answers on the third try.

“Jorge, has Sophie come by your apartment?”

“Mateo? No, she hasn’t. Why? Is everything—”

“We can’t find her,” I say as the taxi comes to a stop at a red light. I try to explain what has happened as best as I can, even though I keep stumbling over my own words.