“That’s kinda not your thing, Dad.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Taking people on. You’re kind of—and don’t get mad when I say this—but you’re kind of where Brian gets it from. You don’t return things to the store when they break down, you never send back your steak even when they do it wrong, you always let the other guy cut in and take the parking spot you had dibs on.”

“I save my anger for the fights that matter,” he said. “No sense getting killed over a parking spot.”

“Oh, Dad.” She leaned into him. “I mean, come on, if you were going to confront someone, you could start with Mom.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to go along,” he said.

“You can’t always do that,” his daughter said.

He looked at her. “You’re tough.”

“You can be too,” she said.

Albert paused. “I have to make it right with Brian. I have to do something.”

“Yeah, well, the police are looking into it now.”

Albert went very quiet. Monica slipped an arm around him, patted his far shoulder. “I love you, Dad.”

He said nothing.

At the far end of the hall, Constance appeared. She walked briskly in their direction.

“There you are,” she said. “I was looking all over.”

“What’s happening?” Monica asked.

“Nothing. I just wanted to know what happened to you two.”

“We’re talking,” Monica said.

Constance said, “I want to speak to that policeman again. What was his name?”

“Duckworth,” Monica said. “I think.”

Albert stood, took a moment, then walked past his wife without looking at her.

“And just where are you going?”

“I’m going to see my son,” he said without looking back.

“Yes, you should do that,” she snapped.

When Albert got back to the ward attached to the ER and found his son’s curtained examining room, he paused for a moment.

Steeled himself.

He whisked back the curtain.

The bed was empty. Brian’s clothes, which had been on the chair, were gone.

Albert went to the nurses’ station a few steps away and asked whether his son had been moved to a room or taken somewhere for tests.

“I think I just saw him walk by,” the nurse said. “Far as I know, he hasn’t been discharged. But come to think of it, he was all dressed.”

Albert ran down to the ER, then out through the sliding glass doors to the bay where the ambulances pulled up.

There was no sign of Brian.

His son was gone.

ELEVEN

BARRY Duckworth sent a text to his son Trevor: Need to see you.

He hit Send and stared at the phone for the better part of a minute, waiting to see whether Trevor would respond right away. Sometimes, when Barry sent him a message, Trevor got back immediately. But just as often, he could take an hour or two, or even into the next day, to reply. Of course, it was less of an issue now that he was living with them. Sometimes Duckworth would see his son in person and simply ask him what he wanted to know. To Trevor’s credit, Duckworth thought, he was not a slave to his phone the way some people were. He often muted it and didn’t check for messages of any kind until the end of the day.