“Do you have any idea what it’s like to explain to your five-year-old why her best friend is never coming back to day care? Why they’re never going to play together again?” He pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You know, my wife and I didn’t let our daughter play outside for almost a year. We...we were afraid that the person who’d taken Corrine would see her and come back for her.”

Suddenly, he pushed back his chair and walked to his desk. He sat down and started punching keys on his desktop computer. “We scan every piece of paper in every file.”

They let him work. And four minutes later, he looked up. “The only address we had on Coyote Frogg was the address of the property that was being sold.”

“We appreciate your time,” A.L. said.

“Just find the bastard this time, will you?”

Neither of them said anything as they left the title company and drove to the high school. Rena felt mentally bruised. And exhausted. Corrine Antler’s disappearance had changed people. Was this the journey that so many in Baywood were just beginning? Naive still to the trauma that would set in, unaware of the bitterness they would shoulder going forward. It was a depressing thought.

When A.L. pulled up in front of a two-story redbrick house, she studied it. It was big, certainly bigger than any of the neighbors’. And it had an attached four-car garage. Perhaps there was still a vintage mustang behind one of the doors.

They knocked and a teenage boy answered. He was wearing a faded University of Wisconsin T-shirt and pajama pants and had a cell phone in his hand. “Is your dad Chuck Hayes?” A.L. asked.

“Stepdad.”

“Is he at home?”

“No.”

Rena gave the kid credit. He wasn’t giving anything away. “I’m Detective Morgan and this is my partner, Detective McKittridge. Your stepdad is not in trouble and there’s nothing wrong but we do need to talk to him.”

“He’s playing tennis. At the community courts.”

Rena pulled her phone and used the map function. “Right here?” she asked, pointing at the screen.

“That’s the one,” he said.

“Thank you,” Rena said. By the time they got back to the car, the kid was already talking on the phone. Maybe to call his stepdad to warn him that the police were looking for him. Maybe his best friend to laugh about the same.

They found Chuck Hayes sitting on a bench, on the side of an empty tennis court, no partner in sight. Both Rena and A.L. flashed badges. “I assume your stepson told you we were coming, Mr. Hayes,” Rena said.