“What did you see when you got here?” I ask.

“I saw Mr. Warner. Adam. I didn’t know his name. They came in last night. We left early this morning before anyone got up. It’d been a long night. Destiny and I slept on the Murphy bed and Clark on the sofa. I’m doubtful about renting a studio again. The Chrysanthemum is just too little for three people.”

“When you got back from Staircase,” I go on, “you saw Mr. Warner?”

She nods. “Right. He was on the lawn in front of the cabin screaming for me to call 911. He was in pretty bad shape. There was no doubt that something very traumatic had just happened.”

“What exactly did he say?” Montrose asks.

“His wife was gone,” she says. “That someone had taken her.”

She stops and wheels on Clark, who is back on the rope swing over the water. “Careful!” Teresa yells. “You almost knocked Destiny over!”

The blond-headed boy glances over at us. “Sorry, Grandma!”

I notice Adam is still on the phone. He’s pacing and looking over at us. He’s like a dog tethered to a chain, working his way over the lawn, back and forth. At one point he throws his hands up in the air and looks over at me.

“Find her!” he says to me. “Do something!”

We’re trying to, I think. I motion to him that I’ll be with him in a minute.

“Did you interact with Sophie?” I ask.

She shakes her head no.

“Was there anything happening last night at their cabin? Anything remarkable at all?”

Again she shakes her head. “I wear earplugs at night. You would too, if you had to sleep on a Murphy bed with a wiggle worm like Destiny. Girl’s a talker, even in her sleep.”

Clark comes over from the swing. His lips are stained red from a cherry ice pop.

“I heard something,” he says.

I forget how keen a child’s hearing is.

“What did you hear, Clark?” Teresa asks.

“Destiny got me up to get some water. It was late. I gave her the water and went back to bed, and while I was lying there, I heard a loud noise. A door slamming. Then a car started. I looked outside but didn’t see anything. No lights or nothing.”

“What kind of noise, Clark?”

The boy looks blank eyed. “I don’t know. Just a loud noise.”

Clark wasn’t making this easy.

“A noise a person makes?” Montrose asks. “Or something else?”

He looks upward. “No. More like something falling,” he says. “Or maybe like the sound our door makes when it slams shut. I don’t know. A noise.”

Clark’s a kid doing the best that he can. Describing a noise in the middle of the night—outside of gunfire—isn’t easy.

“Do you know when you heard it?” I ask.

“You mean what time?”

“Right,” I say. “About what time?”

“Late,” he says. “Dark. Probably after two. That’s about the time Destiny gets me up at home for a drink.”