“Oh, David, you’re home.” He likely thought I was confronting him, the guilty jerk. But I wasn’t. It was about Mary.

David stiffened, and looked into my eyes. “What’s going on?”

“I’m worried something has happened. Cash is here. Mary isn’t,” I said.

“Betsy, what’s going on?” David patted my back and wrapped an arm around me. I could feel his body tensing as if he wished he could push me away, as if he already had.

“I don’t know, Dad. But Cash is acting weird, so is Mom. Did you call her phone?” Betsy crawled out from under the table and called her sister.

“Of course I called her. No answer.” I’d tried it. It rang and went to voice mail. It still had battery life, then, and even though it had taken a big tumble, it still worked. For a short period of time.

“It went to voice mail. What do we do?” Betsy asked. She looked at both of us. Her parents. We are the perfect family, the perfect parents. We should know what to do. And yet we didn’t have the answer. What do you do when your daughter is missing? It’s everyone’s nightmare, yet there aren’t any standard steps.

David had jumped into action. “We call her friends. Betsy, start with her high school buds. Call Liz, and Brad. I’ll call Morgan from USC. She’s got to be around somewhere.” David seemed pleased with himself.

“Someone must have seen her this afternoon.” I look at Betsy, who turns her back to me and makes a phone call.

They didn’t give me an assignment, so I made dinner, to keep myself busy. It’s times like this when distractions help. I sliced carrots and onions, crying over the cutting board. It was such a long, sad night. We found out later, when Betsy gave her statement to the police, that she’d lured Mary to the park for a hike. Now I realize there is even more to the story. Maybe she wanted her sister to meet her secret lover. Mary must have been furious. Did their argument escalate to violence? One can only wonder—and only Betsy would know the truth.

We didn’t find Mary that night. Or the next day, or for three days. A “Help Us Find Mary Harris” Facebook page was created and hundreds of people joined. We were celebrities. The police swarmed our home, interviewed each of us individually. As I mentioned, they ruled out Brad. But everyone else was a suspect at first. Once they cleared the family they pushed us to go on television, to put a face on the tragedy. Meanwhile, drones scoured the thousand-acre Point Park and preserve, aided by search and rescue teams. Mary’s sorority sisters joined in the search, too, starting just outside the back gate where poor Cash was found.