BECKER: Mr. Stone, I admit I’ve become frustrated by the lack of any physical evidence to either your daughter’s disappearance or this Sean Price she claimed to have met. And that frustration has caused some disorientation. And, yes, what you’ve told me about your daughter, what I’ve heard from witnesses, and undoubtedly her physical beauty has helped to create a sentimental attachment to her which is not conducive to a professionally detached investigation. All true. But I’m close. I’ll find her.

STONE: When?

BECKER: Soon. Very soon.

HAMLYN: Mr. Stone, I urge you to allow us to employ another operative on this case as chief investigator.

STONE: I’ll give you three days, Mr. Becker.

KOHL: Mr. Stone!

STONE: Three days to come up with tangible proof of my daughter’s whereabouts.

BECKER: Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much.

“This is bad,” I said.

“What?” Angie lit a cigarette.

“Never mind everything else in the transcript, look at Jay’s last line. He’s being obsequious, almost sycophantic.”

“He’s thanking Stone for saving his job.”

I shook my head. “That’s not Jay. Jay’s too proud. You get a single ‘thanks’ out of the guy, you probably just saved him from a burning car. He’s not a ‘thank you’ type of guy. He’s way too cocky. And the Jay I know would have been ripshit they even considered taking him off the case.”

“But he’s losing it here. I mean, look at his last few entries before they called that meeting.”

I stood up, paced back and forth along the dining room table. “Jay can find anyone.”

“So you’ve said.”

“But in a week on this case, he’d found nothing. No Desiree. No Sean Price.”

“Maybe he was looking in the wrong places.”

I leaned over the table, worked the kinks out of my neck, and looked down at Desiree Stone. In one photo, she was sitting on a porch swing in Marblehead, laughing, her bright green eyes staring directly into the lens. Her rich honey hair was in tangles and she wore a raggedy sweater and torn jeans, her feet bare, dazzling white teeth exposed.

Her eyes drew you in, no question, but it was more than that that kept you fixated on her. She had what I’m sure a Hollywood casting director would call “presence.” Frozen in time, she still radiated an aura of health, of vigor, of effortless sensuality, an odd mixture of vulnerability and poise, of appetite and innocence.

“You’re right,” I said.

“How’s that?” Angie said.

“She is gorgeous.”

“No kidding. I’d kill to look that good in an old sweater and torn jeans. Christ, her hair looks like she hadn’t brushed it in a week and she’s still perfect.”

I grimaced at her. “You give her a good run in the beautiful department, Ange.”