Troy was no longer in the garage. He was in the basement. Leah was in bed. A.L. got all this from a young FBI agent who was playing solitaire on his computer at the dining table.

Everybody filling in hours in their own way.

A.L. opened the basement door and walked downstairs. He saw Troy stretched out on an old leather recliner, a TV remote in one hand and what looked to be a cocktail in the other. He was flipping through channels.

A.L. knocked on the wall. Troy looked over his shoulder. “News?” he asked, putting his footrest down.

A.L. shook his head. “Sorry, no.” Without invitation, he sat on the couch. “Have a minute?”

“Yeah,” Troy said, shutting off the television. “I wasn’t watching anything. Can’t concentrate.”

A.L. was reminded of something that Doug Franklin had said about Corrine Antler’s parents. That in a week they’d aged about ten years. It had been about half that for Troy Whitman but he looked well on his way.

His eyes were dark, his hair was unkempt, and it looked as if he was sleeping in his clothes. “Did you hear,” he asked, “that one of the drones thought they had something today?”

A.L. had. One of the heat-seeking drones had identified an object in a barn. It had been promptly investigated. It had been a child, just two years older than Emma, watching over her dog that was having puppies.

“Guess the good news is that they found something that was there,” Troy said.

“Right,” A.L. said. “Nobody has given up hope.”

Troy shook his head. “I think Leah has. She took some pills to go to sleep. Said she just can’t stand this anymore. That’s why I’m here and not out searching. I figured somebody needed to be here for the phone.”

A.L. glanced at the empty glass. “Got to stay sober for that,” he said.

“Stopped at two,” Troy said. “When I really wanted the whole fucking bottle.” He stared at A.L. “You got kids?”

“A daughter. Senior in high school.”

“So you got your own worries.”

“Not like this,” A.L. said. “This is about as bad as it gets. We know that.”

Troy said nothing.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, A.L. shifted. “I need to ask you about your day on Wednesday.”

“Okay.”

“What time did you leave for work?”

“After Elaine picked up Emma?”

“Right after? Ten minutes later? An hour later?”

“Pretty soon after,” Troy said.

“And how far a drive is it to your work?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“So you estimate that you probably arrived at Garage on Division by 7:45 at the latest?”

“That sounds right.”

“And what if I told you that your employees who were working that day estimate that you arrived around 9:00?”

Troy shrugged. “They’re wrong.”

“They seemed pretty confident.”