“Sandra Jones works over at the middle school,” Miller started out, speaking low and rushed as they ate up the first block, heading toward the water. “Teaches sixth grade social studies. We’ve got two uniforms over there now, but no one has heard from her since she left the school yesterday at three-thirty. We’ve canvassed the local businesses, taverns, convenience stores; nothing. Dinner dishes are in the sink. A stack of graded papers next to her purse on the kitchen counter. According to the husband, Sandra didn’t usually start work until after putting their daughter to bed at eight P.M. So we’re working on the assumption that she was at home with her daughter until sometime after eight-thirty, nine P.M. Cell phone shows no activity after six; we’re pulling the records for the landline now.”

“What about family? Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins?” D.D. asked. The sun had finally burned through the gray cloud cover, but the temperature remained raw, with the wind blowing off the water and slicing viciously through her leather coat.

“No local family. Just an estranged father in Georgia. The husband refused to specify, just said it was old news and had nothing to do with this.”

“How nice of the husband to do our thinking for us. You call the father?”

“Would if I had a name.”

“The husband won’t give you the name?” D.D. was incredulous.

Miller shook his head, jamming his hands in his pants pockets while his breath came out in faint clouds of steam. “Oh, wait till you meet this guy. Ever watch that show? The medical drama?”

“ER?”

“No, the one with more sex.”

“Grey’s Anatomy?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. What’s the name of that doctor? McDuff, McDevon …?”

“McDreamy?”

“That’s the one. Mr. Jones could be his twin. That rumpled thing going on with the hair, the five o’clock shadow … Hell, minute this story breaks, this guy is gonna get more fan mail than Scott Peterson. I say we have about twenty more hours, and then either we find Sandy Jones or we’re totally, completely screwed.”

D.D. sighed heavily. They hit the waterfront, made a right, and kept moving. “Men are stupid,” she muttered impatiently. “I mean, for heaven’s sake. It’s like once a week now some good-looking, got-everything-going-for-him guy tries to solve his marital difficulties by killing off his wife and claiming she disappeared. And every week the media descends—”

“We got a pool going. Five to one odds on Nancy Grace. Four to one on Greta Van Susteren.”

D.D. shot him a look. “And every week,” she continued, “the police assemble a taskforce, volunteers comb the woods, the Coast Guard sweeps the harbor, and you know what?”

Miller appeared hopeful.