As trying as the circumstances were, Haley had seamlessly fitted into their lives as if she belonged there. When he thought about it, Vince had a hard time believing it had been only a few days.

He went downstairs to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, which he drank too hot, but he needed the jolt of caffeine.

Hiding.

The word came to him again as he went into his office and turned on the desk light. Settling in his chair, he put his glasses on and started digging through the notes he had made regarding Zander Zahn.

According to the cop in Buffalo, Zahn’s mother had abused the boy in various ways, including locking him in a closet for days at a time and just leaving.

He picked up the phone and dialed Mendez, who answered with a mumble.

“Wake up, Junior,” Vince said. “You need to get a search warrant.”

“We searched the house yesterday,” Mendez said. “He wasn’t in it. What makes you think he’s here now?”

They stood outside the gate of Zander Zahn’s property. Fog had rolled in over the mountains from the coast, giving the valley an eerie, otherworldly feeling. It seemed fitting.

A small flock of reporters had followed them out of town but were being kept at bay by deputies. One of the most brilliant mathematical minds in the country was missing and possibly attached to a brutal crime. America was salivating for the story.

“He feels safe hiding,” Vince said.

“Didn’t his mother lock him in a closet?” Hicks asked. “Wouldn’t that do the opposite? Make him claustrophobic?”

“For some people it would,” Vince agreed. “For others, the cage is safer than the world outside the cage. Zahn needs everything to be controlled and orderly. If he’s panicking because he feels out of control, I think he’ll hide, and the smaller the space the better.”

“Oh my God,” Rudy Nasser said. “I’ve found him a couple of times in his office at school under his desk. I never understood why.”

“That’s why,” Vince said. “He was probably feeling overwhelmed. Under the desk was the handiest safe place.

“We’ve got to look anywhere physically possible for him to hide,” Vince said. “And I mean anywhere. Closets, cupboards, inside these refrigerators in the yard. Everywhere.”

Nasser punched in the code for the gate, and the search began. Mendez, Hicks, and two deputies took the house. Vince walked the yard with Rudy Nasser, looking in Zahn’s collection of refrigerators and freezers.

“I always thought Zander’s obsession with that woman would end badly,” Nasser admitted. “But I never saw any of this coming.”

“Why were you so against him being friends with Marissa?”