“No, you’re not. You’re … wait a minute Rose, hang on a sec.”

Grace’s mother said something about wanting to use the phone.

“All right, all right, I said okay,” Grace yelled to her mother. “I gotta go now,” she said to Rose. “I’ll call back later.”

Grace didn’t call back, but Rose wasn’t thinking about it anyway. As Grace had said, she wasn’t concentrating. She was thinking about Daniel, feeling alternately over the moon and down in the dumps. Happy one minute, confused the next. She was overwhelmed with a new truth: Nothing was as interesting or as important as Daniel.

She spent most of the early afternoon lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Every once in a while she’d think about getting up and doing something productive and then just keep on lying there. But then she was only doing what Muriel advised, sitting in it like Buddha.

Eventually, the voices from below intruded: Barney and her parents talking excitedly. With great effort, she shifted her mind off Daniel. Maybe tuna on toasted rye. Amazingly, she was hungry. She’d always thought you lost your appetite when you were in love.

Jerram burst into the room, destroying mouthwatering visions.

“Did you hear?” he said.

“Hear what?”

“No, of course you didn’t hear.”

She struggled to a half-sitting position. “Jerram, what are you talking about?”

“Fast-breaking news from the Barney network. They’ve identified the skeleton you found. And another girl is missing.”

She sat all the way up. “The skeleton I found?”

“You know what I mean, Rose. It’s a girl from Danville, Helena Klout, missing for five years. Her family was convinced she’d run away. They’d had a big fight about her seeing some guy, and she’d left a note.”

“So the boyfriend probably did it.”

“No, he never left. Has an alibi, checked out even after all this time. She wrote to him, too, saying she was going to the city. She never got there, obviously. It all fits in. Her parents said she always hitched rides. Whoever this guy is, he’s using a car, getting his victims to take a ride with him.”

She lay back down. “I really don’t care anymore.”

“You have to care,” Jerram cried.

“No, I don’t.”

Jerram was agitated. “But this new girl, you have to help find her.”

“She’ll only be dead,” Rose said and saw Jerram flinch. “I told the police, I don’t want to keep finding dead bodies.”

“But you might get a message anyway, whether you want to or not. You’d tell then, wouldn’t you?”

She gave him a defiant glare. “I don’t know! You think it’s so easy? Well, why don’t you take a nap and get a message and see how you like it. As far as I’m concerned, I’m out to lunch.”