The man’s face was slack. He swallowed. “Uh,” he grunted from around a partially full mouth. “It’s uh… good.” He looked shocked. “It’s really good.”

The restaurant seemed to heave a sigh. Piscary straightened to all of his short height, clearly delighted as the conversations started up with a new, excited edge to them. “You’re welcome here anytime, FIB officer,” he said, and Glenn froze, clearly worried that he had been made.

Piscary grabbed a chair behind him and swung it around. Hunched over the table across from us, he watched us eat. “Now,” he said as Glenn lifted the cheese to look at the tomato sauce under it. “You didn’t come here for dinner. What can I do for you?”

Ivy set her pizza down and reached for her wine. “I’m helping Rachel find a missing person,” she said, flicking her long hair needlessly back. “One of your employees.”

“Trouble, Ivy girl?” Piscary asked, his resonate voice surprisingly gentle with regret.

I took a sip of wine. “That’s what we want to find out, Mr. Piscary. It’s Dan Smather.”

Piscary’s few wrinkles folded into a soft frown as he gazed at Ivy. With telltale motions so slight they were almost undetectable, she fidgeted, her eyes both worried and defiant.

My attention jerked to Glenn. He was pulling the cheese off his pizza. Appalled, I watched him gingerly pile it into a mound. “Can you tell us the last time you saw him, Mr. Piscary?” the man asked, clearly more interested in denuding his pizza than our questioning.

“Certainly.” Piscary eyed Glenn, his brow furrowed as if not sure whether to be insulted or pleased as the man ate the pizza, now nothing more than bread and tomato sauce. “It was early Saturday morning after work. But Dan isn’t missing. He quit.”

My face went slack in surprise. It lasted for three heartbeats, then my eyes narrowed in anger. It was starting to fall together, and the puzzle was a lot smaller than I had thought. A big interview, dropping his classes, quitting his job, standing his girlfriend up at a “we have to talk” dinner. My eyes flicked to Glenn, and he gave me a brief, disgusted look as he came to the same conclusion. Dan hadn’t disappeared; he had gotten a good job and ditched his small-town girlfriend.

Pushing my glass away, I fought off a feeling of depression. “He quit?” I said.