She stomped her foot. “I want Mommy! She told me she’d come home. Mommy told me she wouldn’t leave me.”

“Ree …”

“Mommy goes to work, she comes home. She goes to the grocery store, she comes home. Mommy told me, she promised me, she’d always come home!”

Jason felt his chest tighten. Ree had gone through an attachment phase where she’d cried and carried on every time Sandy left. So Sandy had started a little game she’d read in some parenting book, always notifying Ree when she was leaving, and always hugging Ree first thing when she got home. “See, look at me, Ree. I’m home. I always come home. I’d never leave you. Never.”

“Mommy’s going to put me to bed,” Ree said now, chin still sticking out obstinately. “It’s her job. You go to work, she puts me to bed. Go to work, Daddy. Go on. Leave!”

“Ree …”

“I don’t want you here anymore. You have to leave. If you leave, Mommy will come home. Go to work. You have to.”

“Ree …”

“Get out, get out. I don’t want to see you anymore. You’re a big meanie.”

“Clarissa Jane Jones.”

“Stop it, stop it!” She clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop yelling, I don’t want to hear you yelling.”

“I’m not yelling.” But his voice was rising.

His daughter continued as if she’d never heard him. “Angry feet, angry feet. I hear your mean feet on the stairs. Get out, get out, get out. I want Mommy! It’s not fair, it’s not fair. I want my mommy!”

Then his daughter twisted away from him and ran sobbing up the stairs.

Jason let her go. He listened as Ree stormed down the hall. He caught the distant boom as she slammed her door shut. Then he was left alone at the kitchen counter, with a half-eaten waffle and a heart full of regrets.

Day two of his wife’s disappearance and his daughter was falling to pieces.

He thought, in a spurt of ironic bitterness, that Sandy had better be dead or he’d kill her for this.

The police returned at exactly 8:45 P.M. Jason was standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the family computer, which was no longer the family computer, when they pounded up the front steps.

He opened the door. Sergeant Warren led the charge.

She thrust the search warrant in front of his face, rattling off in rapid legalese where they were allowed to go and what they were allowed to seize. As he’d suspected, they would be taking the computer, as well as miscellaneous electronic devices, including but not limited to gaming devices, iPods, BlackBerries, and Palm Pilots.