That’s better.

Here’s the deal. Brass tacks. If you give a society enough information, lay down enough threads, someone will have to follow the right one. It’s human nature. It’s the way our minds work. In a linear fashion, point A to point B to point C. So few of us have the capability to go from A to Q to H. It takes a special person to think that way.

I’m that special person.

But you already know that.

Let's Go For a Drive

LET’S GO FOR A DRIVE

In the garage, the perfectly straight, organized, nary a spider or speck of dust in sight garage that attached to the back of their house through a covered walkway, Ethan stopped cold.

Her car. He’d forgotten to check her car. She’d left her keys...

A brief flash, an image formed, sending his heart to his throat, choking him with its intensity: Sutton, slumped in the front seat, engine running, a tube from the exhaust pipe into the front window. But when he got up the courage to look in her front seat, there was nothing. No one. The cupboard was bare.

Ethan drove a BMW 335i convertible, black with gray interior, latest model. He traded in his cars dutifully every two years. Sutton had a more practical forest green X5, or as she called it, the Official Williamson County Soccer Mom car. Not that they were keeping up with the Joneses. Not really. Ellen Jones drove an I3. Electric, sustainable, practical—Ellen to a T.

Ethan didn’t know why he was thinking about Ellen, other than he hadn’t looked in Sutton’s car on day one, which struck him as a Very Stupid Move. Clearly he needed to read more mystery novels; he would know better what to do to find his wife. Amateur sleuth he was not.

Steeling himself, he unlocked the door—they always locked their cars even in the garage, a theft deterrent—and looked inside. Empty.

Oh, the relief. What would he have said if she’d been here the whole time? It would have looked bad for him, very bad.

His search of the X5 was brief. Her car was as clean and organized as she was. Nothing out of place, no stray receipts or empty peppermint wrappers or barrettes. Everything in its place. There was nothing amiss.

He glanced at his watch, cursed, and jumped into his own vehicle. When he got back, he’d look at the GPS, see where she’d been last. Maybe that would give him a clue, though she usually walked most places during the day.