Atlantic City was a small place, but it was large enough that if someone was hiding, or missing, they could make themselves difficult to find. The honeycomb of hotel rooms. The dark nooks of the casinos. The shadowy piers. I wondered if I could call the police and leave an anonymous tip about Luis. My phone was still in my hand. I dialed a 9, deleted it. Dialed it again, then a 1. Surely they would trace my call—what if Clara was wrong? I would seem deranged. I could even get in trouble, couldn’t I? But the way she had looked at me the day before. Like I was failing her. By the time I got home, it seemed like the only thing I could do was wait and hope she would text back or call.

I stopped in the driveway to pick up the newspaper, shook it from its plastic sleeve, and sat on the porch to read it. More cops and firefighters were losing their jobs. More abandoned houses had been set aflame. The governor had signed off on a new tax on fantasy sports. Hurricane season would be stirring up soon, and the paper offered tips for protecting your house. I flipped to the obituaries. A former linebacker who’d sat behind me in history class in eleventh grade had died, the obituary worded the way Steffanie’s was. Taken from us suddenly, in lieu of flowers please send donations to Drug Free NJ. I remembered that his cheeks used to get ruddy in gym class and it seemed like it took the entire afternoon for him to lose his flush. I didn’t know how his death connected to Clara’s vision of the bodies in the marsh, but something brutal was still happening here—and maybe Clara knew more about it than anyone else.

I HAD a short shift that afternoon, two to eight. I was surprised to see Carrie at the desk when I arrived. She was sucking down one of her blended coffee drinks, a sludgy mess of whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

“Oh, thank God you’re here,” she said. “Emily pulled a no-show. I have a mind to fire her ass.”

“Wait, what? And we have that meeting today? That Whitney thing.”

“I know! Can you stay up front? I’ve gotta go prep. If you see her, send her straight back to me. Fuck, my heart is racing.” I heard her swearing under her breath as she walked away from the desk.

I texted Emily. Where are you? Carrie is flipping out! Everything okay? I waited for her to write back, hoping for good news on her behalf. That she’d gotten a better offer somewhere else and just split without a second thought. What was going on?