Paul and George rode to the Boulder police station, arriving a little after eight in the morning. For a few minutes, they sat in the car and discussed the best approach to take. George Wilson was very impatient; he had been ever since he arrived back in Colorado, and he looked the part with mismatched clothing and a two day’s growth of beard. He felt there must be something more they could be doing after checking out Berman’s house and trying to get into Nano, while Paul counseled patience. Paul had worked his shift at the ER the previous evening and would work again that night. He had tried to get some time off, but Paul’s private practice that had the contract to run the ER was already down to two doctors, all the others were out on family summer vacations. Consequently Paul would have to keep working while they looked for Pia. George, on the other hand, had a lot of free time. Before he left L.A., he had managed to arrange for a two-week vacation on an emergency basis. The powers that be had looked kindly on his request as he had not taken any vacation since starting the residency program, and they had been encouraging him to do so.

George had done his best to get Paul to do something more, but in Paul’s estimation, George’s ideas—breaking into Berman’s house and breaking into Nano—were ridiculous and would be counterproductive. Under the surface he was as frantic as George, but he didn’t show it. He was certain there was no sense in racing off and getting arrested: they had to go to the police first and play it by the book, and they would do it that morning if they hadn’t heard from Pia, and they hadn’t.

The upshot of the strategizing was that Paul insisted on doing the talking with the police. Actually he would have preferred to go in alone, but George was having none of that, although he did acquiesce to the idea of letting Paul be the point man. Paul had told George it was he who knew the situation better, it was he who had last seen Pia and to whom she was due to return. In reality, Paul was worried George was likely to fly off the handle and make wild accusations against Berman and Nano that he couldn’t substantiate. They had to be calm and businesslike, and that was Paul’s department.

But meeting with the police wasn’t quite as easy as they had envisioned. After a half hour of waiting in unforgiving plastic chairs in the lobby of the building with what looked to be a half dozen other derelicts, some even less presentable than George, even Paul’s patience was wearing thin. By then George was pacing around like a caged animal, checking his phone and sighing loudly.