When he reached Pia’s apartment, he noticed that his parents’ Corolla wasn’t in the parking lot. This wasn’t conclusive proof that Pia wasn’t home, but it pointed in that direction. Undeterred, Paul knocked on Pia’s door a number of times, then retrieved the spare key from the top of the door frame. Paul had chided Pia for selecting such an obvious hiding place, but she reasoned that she owned nothing worth stealing, and it wasn’t like there was any other convenient spot to hide a key. Besides, she told Paul that she always brought the key inside when she was home.

“Pia? Are you here?” As he called out her name, Paul half expected to hear a quiet fusillade of insults asking him what the hell he thought he was doing, but there was no sound. Pia wasn’t in her bed, which didn’t look as if it had been slept in, although with Pia, it was a little hard to tell. Housekeeping wasn’t Pia’s strong suit, and sometimes when she came home from Nano in the early-morning hours, she didn’t bother to take off her clothes and just lay on top of the covers or on the couch.

The lack of possessions in Pia’s apartment and the fact she kept little food there meant it would be hard to tell whether or not she’d been there recently. There never were any dishes in the sink; there never was a book open on a nightstand, because there was rarely any food, and no nightstand, and few books. A glance through Pia’s clothing was of little use to Paul—there were garments he recognized, of course, but nothing he saw that was missing. Paul sat on the arm of Pia’s couch and checked his phone again to see if he had missed a message from her. He hadn’t.

What were his options? In his mind, Paul ran through the conversation he would have with the police if he called them. Yes, I last saw her maybe six hours ago. No, she’s not technically missing. Why am I worried? Because I think she may have been caught at her place of employment, where she’s currently not welcome. In fact she could have been considered a trespasser, meaning they might have called the police themselves. In that case, is there a Pia Grazdani possibly being held in custody?

Paul was not optimistic about such a call. If Pia had been arrested, and she had been allowed her famous phone call, the person she would call was him. As far as Paul knew, there was no family, and George was hundreds of miles away in California. Paul reasoned that he was there in Boulder and would know the circumstances. But there had been no call, from Pia or from anyone else.

All Paul could do was go home and wait.

Chapter 46

46.