Tvist smiled. “I appreciate the irony. These people work in loose networks that have no organizational structure. But I am hopeful.”

“Why would the chief of police be interesting himself in our case?”

“You’re right to be skeptical, of course. Normally my role would be purely strategic, but this is a very extreme case and I want to know we are doing it right. Now . . .” He arranged himself, relaxed his shoulders, made his posture open and receptive. “There’s a troubling fact that has come to light. One with which I need your help. Because we have discovered your daughter’s telephone.” He reached into a drawer in the desk, produced an evidence bag with a white iPhone in it, and another with Elsa’s bangle. He handed the bags to me.

“You’re asking me if these are hers?”

“That is not the question. We know that this is Licia Curtis’s phone. Your wife confirmed that this was her bangle. “To Elsa, all my love, Cal.”

He was smiling: a studied, sympathetic smile. “The phone was found on Garden Island near the boat dock, without a SIM card. The bangle was found in some underbrush near a box full of ammunition. The question is, can you explain these facts?”

A horrible thought was growing, a sense that I was being walked into a trap. Behind Ephraim Tvist’s smile there was a keen intelligence, and something that felt increasingly like an accusation.

“What are you actually doing to find Licia?” I said. “We are seventeen hours into the twenty-four-hour window.”

“I’m sorry if you feel let down. But twenty-four hours is for cases of kidnap, and we have no reason to think Alicia Curtis has been kidnapped. Unless you know something that would affect our assessment?”

He was looking at me levelly. Nothing about his demeanor said he was sorry. “And there’s another question that arises from this, because although this phone was found on the island, simultaneously your daughter’s SIM card was being used to send encrypted text messages to phones that we cannot trace. From the mainland.”

“Maybe if you took the time to ask us about Licia . . .”

“Teenage girls lead complicated lives. They shout and slam doors, and you have to remind yourself that they’re crying out for your love, because that’s the very last thing they will express to you. Sometimes they lead many parallel lives. Perhaps Alicia Curtis lost her bracelet and somebody else picked it up?” He smiled, as if daring me to say it; as if we both knew the idea was absurd. “Perhaps your daughter has more than one phone? Or more than one SIM card? Did she confirm to you that she was on the island?”

“To my wife.”

“Is there a reason she didn’t speak to you?”

“No. We’re very close.”