“Tony. Is it short for Anthony?”

“Yes. It is. My letter?”

“Wait here.” A pat on the place she’d grabbed. “I’ll get it.”

Back in the hall, the two men and the dog watched Vera scuttle off to her apartment.

“You’re thinking of strangling her, aren’t you?” Julian asked conversationally.

“Oh, yeah.”

The letter was no help at all. It didn’t tell him where she was. It didn’t tell him what to do. It didn’t offer anything but more excuses.

What point in trying when loss is foreseen . . .

Nice attitude, old woman.

“The point of trying is trying!”

“You have a fortune cookie back there?”

“What?” Tony stared at the back of the cabbie’s head for a moment. “Uh, no. Just thinking out loud.”

“Do or do not, there is no try!”

“What?”

“Yoda.”

“Right.” That would make him Luke Skywalker, Amy could be Princess Leia, Henry’d have to be Han Solo riding to the rescue at the last minute, the Shadowlord had that whole Darth Vader thing down although he was significantly better looking, and Arra could be the irresponsible old wizard who chicken shitted away from a fight without even considering that she was fucking taking it somewhere else and now that it had found her was bailing on the whole goddamned mess!

“Please do not drive your fingers through my upholstery.”

“Sorry.”

Less caffeine might have been a good idea.

Tony had the cab let him off at the corner of Ogden and Maple, which put him west of the museum and shortened his walk out onto the point. He hoped like hell he didn’t have to search the whole beach. It was a big damned beach and even given the crappy weather lately, it was still pretty busy. Not so crowded as it would be in high summer when an oiled sun worshiper couldn’t change position without flipping the whole row, but there were bodies on the sand, at least one volleyball game that he could see, and, if he listened carefully, he could hear the grunts of the body builders heading for hernias. Squinting into the sun, he could see heads bobbing in the choppy water like sea otters. Oh, wait. Those were sea otters.

He had sand in his shoes, the late afternoon light bouncing off the bay was making his eyes water even behind his sunglasses, and he was in a significantly bad mood by the time he was out on the point.

No Arra.

“God fucking damn it!” He dropped down cross-legged and stared west. Since he was here, maybe he should take a moment to think quietly. To try and put all the pieces together. Yanking his phone out of his pocket, he punched in the personal and very private number CB’d given him.

“Not even my ex-wives have this number. Do not abuse it.”

“I won’t. I swear.”