I forced another smile onto my face. “You talk to her at all, notice anything? She have anyone in the car with her?”

“Didn’t see no one. And I didn’t talk to her, neither. She just filled up, was all. I like a girl pumps her own gas.”

“How about when she left? Which way did she drive out?” If she’d been heading back to Oakwood at this point, she’d have probably gone left, or west. If she’d turned right, and gone east, it was anybody’s guess where she’d gone.

Hector thought back. “Actually, she just pulled out and parked across the street and I think she went into that store over there.” He pointed to a children’s clothing store with a sign over the window that said Terri’s. First, Sammi’s, then Terri’s. The town had a y shortage.

“Did you see her leave after that, notice which way she went?”

Hector shrugged. “It’s not like I hung around to see where she’d go. I’m not like some sort of perv or something.”

“No,” I said. “Who’d ever think such a thing?”

I thanked Hector, moved my car so it wasn’t blocking the pumps, and found a parking spot on the main street. I walked back down to Terri’s, surveyed the display window featuring clothes and brightly colored, chunky-looking plastic toys for youngsters. A bell tinkled as I opened the door to go inside, and I browsed the tables until a woman in her mid-thirties with reddish-blonde hair approached.

“May I help you?” Her voice was soft, almost whispery.

“Hi,” I said. I’d never done much of the clothes shopping for Sarah and Paul—didn’t even do that much for myself, not without a lot of arm twisting. And my kids certainly weren’t of an age anymore where anything in this store would fit them. “Uh, a friend of mine, he and his wife have just had a baby, and I was thinking I should get them a little something.”

“We have infant clothing at the back of the store. Did they have a girl or a boy?”

“Uh, they had…” Come on, you dumb bastard. Just pick one. “A boy.”

She led me to the back of the shop. “I think this is the place someone recommended to me,” I said. “I have a friend who shops here for her daughter, I think.”

The woman cocked her head. She smiled playfully. “You don’t sound too sure. Are you not sure whether she has a daughter, or are you not sure whether it’s her daughter, or not sure that she shops here?”