“She always does, that’s the point.”

“Look, George, we can have this conversation later. Right now we need to concentrate on what we are going to do to find Pia. Agreed?”

George dropped his bluster and nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “And you’re not the only one beating yourself up. I should have been here myself when she told me a little of what she was planning to do, that’s the bottom line. So let’s go through it again, and see what we can’t figure out. We need to have all our ducks in a row when we go to the police, which I’m afraid we are going to have to do, even though we don’t have much to tell them. We have a woman who just didn’t show up when she said she was going to show up. I don’t think the police are going to do too much. I mean, there’s no sign of foul play or anything like that.”

“That’s part of the reason I haven’t called them yet,” agreed Paul.

“The obvious thing to do is check Berman’s house. Come on.”

“If he’s there with her, he’s hardly going to let us in,” said Paul.

“We have to try, Paul. Can I borrow your car? If you don’t want to come, that is.”

“I’ll come with you, of course.”

As they drove Paul’s Subaru to Berman’s house, Paul raised a question, a scenario he thought was possible, given what he knew of Pia.

“Let me ask you this, George. You’ve known her longer, but we both know how willful Pia can be, and, I have to say, insensitive to other people’s feelings. What do you think of the idea that whatever it was she discovered Sunday night, she just said, ‘Screw it, I’m not having any more to do with Nano,’ and actually did take off somewhere?”

George thought for a minute before responding. It was true Pia had a mind of her own, which was a major understatement, just as it was true that she often showed little regard for other people’s sensitivities, his in particular. But would she just take off? George couldn’t imagine it.

“No,” he said eventually. “I don’t think that’s possible. She’s what you have described, but a whole lot more, chief of which is tenacious. She’s the most tenacious person I’ve ever met. If she found something, she wouldn’t give up. She’d pursue it until hell froze over. Trust me on that.”

Paul nodded in agreement.

When they reached Berman’s gate, George got out and rang the buzzer, but there was no answer.

“He has state-of-the-art security, I assume,” said Paul. He stayed in the car.

“We’re being recorded right now. The camera’s up there.” George pointed it out to Paul.