It was the other Bluto on the line. Crying. In her sleepy haze, she thought he’d picked up on her sadness about the dog. It dawned on her that he was talking about something else.

“You gottahelpme, Kate . . .” His words grew increasingly incoherent. “Don’t leavemeherealone, please . . .”

She told him to be calm. She grabbed her keys and, still in her flannel jammies, drove back to the Slumber Inn. This better not be a prank or a trap.

Outside room 105, she tapped on the door quietly, just as he’d instructed. After some rattling of locks, the door opened and she saw Bluto, his face funereal. She felt a queasy chill when she heard him quietly close the door behind her.

“I was asleep when it happened.” He gestured at the bed. King size, she noted. There was a humanoid lump beneath the floral bedcovers. “She’s gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?” Kate backed away. With one swift motion, he yanked off the covers. Girlish clothing scrunched together there, molded into a human form. Kate spotted the “Kiss Me I’m Irish” T-shirt from their first meeting, as well as the jean shorts. There was a lot of skimpy underwear—price tags were still on most of them.

“She’s gone,” Bluto repeated, more bleakly than before. “We went to sleep. And when I got up to pee—she just wasn’t here.”

A pink gym bag sat unzipped, emptied out, on the carpet. Glossy flip-flops lay splayed nearby. Her monogrammed gold necklace was draped around a lampshade.

“Is there a pool here? Maybe she went swimming.”

“No, there’s no pool here.” The life had gone out of his eyes. “She just vanished. I don’t know what to do. I mean, she’s got no clothes.”

Kate moved around the room, peering under the bed, opening closet doors and ripping aside the shower curtain. Could this be their idea of a prank? Was she hiding somewhere, videotaping this and giggling? She grabbed the empty pill bottle on Bluto’s side of the bed. Sleeping pills, prescribed for him by a Dr. Yamasato.

“What did you do, Bluto?”

“Nothing!” He raised his hands, like a perp proving he wasn’t armed.

Kate made for the door, “All right. I’ve had enough.”

“No! Please, don’t go . . . You have to help me find her.”

When she turned back, he was crumpled on the floor, holding his knees to his chest, despondent.

She moved a stack of dirty underwear and sat him down in the room’s lone chair. Motels like this made no bones about their purpose: if you were traveling, you checked in to sleep; if you were local, you checked in to fuck. You certainly didn’t check in to sit around with an old friend.

“When I came back from your house, she made a big stink about being left here all by herself. She was jealous, clearly . . .”