McGovern hesitated, her eyes on Lucy. She unlocked the Explorer.

“Okay,” she said. “Climb in.”

“I’ll file a flight plan,” Lucy said as she sat in front. “So you can check on where we are, if that will make you feel better.”

“It will,” McGovern said, starting the engine.

McGovern got on the radio and called one of the agents inside the house.

“Put Marino on,” she said.

After a brief wait, Marino’s voice came over the air.

“Go ahead,” he said.

“Party’s taking off. You going along?”

“I’ll stick to the ground,” his answer came back. “Gonna help out here first.”

“Got it. We appreciate it.”

“Tell them to fly safe,” Marino said.

A campus police officer on bicycle patrol was standing sentry at the helicopter when we got there, and tennis was going strong on the courts next door, balls clopping, while several young men practiced soccer near a goal. The sky was bright blue, trees barely stirring, as if nothing bad had happened here. Lucy went through a thorough preflight check while McGovern and I waited in the car.

“What are you going to do?” I asked her.

“Bombard the news with pictures of them and any other info that might cause someone out there to recognize them,” she answered. “They’ve got to eat. They’ve got to sleep. And he’s got to have Avgas. He can’t fly forever without it.”

“It doesn’t make sense that it hasn’t been spotted before, refueling, landing, flying, what all.”

“Looks like he had plenty of his own Avgas right there in his garage. Not to mention there are so many small airfields where he could land and gas up,” she said. “All over. And he doesn’t have to contact the tower in uncontrolled airspace, and Schweizers aren’t exactly rare. Not to mention”—she looked at me—“it has been spotted. We saw it ourselves, and so did the farrier and the director of Kirby. We just didn’t know what we were looking at.”

“I suppose.”

My mood was getting heavier by the moment. I did not want to go home. I did not want to go anywhere. It was as if the weather had turned gray, and I was cold and alone and could escape none of it. My mind churned with questions and answers, and deductions and screams. Whenever it went still, I saw him. I saw him in smoldering debris. I saw his face beneath heavy plastic.

“. . . Kay?”

I realized McGovern was talking to me.

“I want to know how you’re doing. Really.” Her eyes were fastened to me.