Anette looked around at the room’s spartan decor: a desk with a worn wooden chair, bookcases brimming with books, a full clothes rack, and a dresser. That was it. The room was as clean and tidy as the rest of the condo, but nowhere near as cozy.

Prefab frames hung close together over the desk, displaying black-and-white images, charcoal drawings of human forms, naked bodies, faces with downcast eyes, and limbs that faded into black.

“Did Oscar draw these?”

“Yeah, he drew all of them. He’s damn good. When we were younger, he always used to try to teach me. You know, he would put a vase of flowers in front of me and demonstrate how to draw in perspective and do shading, the little stinker. I could never do it, and he would get all grumpy and say that I was messing it up on purpose, to tease him.”

Anette smiled.

“When did you last see him?”

“At breakfast yesterday,” Victor answered hesitantly, his voice sounding brittle, on the verge of breaking the whole time. “We ate in the kitchen like we usually do—with my little sister—and then we went to school together. Oscar and I go to the same high school. He’s a freshman, and I’m a senior.”

Victor fiddled with his headphones.

“Mom says someone took him. Do you think that’s right?”

“It’s too soon to say.”

Something snapped off the headphones, and the boy looked at the little piece of plastic in his hand, puzzled.

“We had agreed we would walk home together, but I… I had to talk to someone at school. Maybe if I had stuck to our plan…”

He eyed her pleadingly. Anette wished she could reassure him, but she didn’t know any more than he did. And maybe he was right.

He took off the headphones and tossed them on the floor.

“One of my friends says that he saw my little brother talking to someone in a black car outside the Botanical Garden after school.”

Anette held her breath.

“What’s the name of your friend?” she asked.

“Jokke. Well, Joakim. He’s in the same grade as me.” Victor held up his phone and showed it to Anette. “I wrote to everyone I know on Messenger a little while ago. He just wrote me back.”

She handed him her own phone.

“Could you please type in, uh, Jokke’s phone number for me?”

He complied.

“Do you think Oscar could be mixed up in something he shouldn’t be? Maybe with a friend your parents don’t want him to see?” She smiled amenably to signal that he wouldn’t get in trouble.

“No! My little brother is a good kid.”

Anette looked around the room again, at the pictures, the desk, the dresser, and the room’s only chair, in which Victor was sitting.

“Uh, where does he sleep?” Anette asked.

“In the family bed.”

She looked at him blankly.