“Not for a couple days. She didn’t answer her phone or reply to my texts. Actually, I thought she was shutting me out. I’d floated the idea of her moving in with me, and I was worried that she wasn’t ready for a step like that. Then she texted me back yesterday and said everything was fine. We were planning to go away for the weekend.”

“Did she say that anything unusual was going on in her life? Did she mention any problems?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“Her roommate, Lucy Hagen, said that she and Brynn went to a party in Alameda last night. Do you know anything about that?”

“Yes, I was supposed to be there, too. I had a client emergency. The host was a law-school classmate of mine who’s an in-house counsel at Oracle.” Tejada noticed Frost’s smile and added, “A lawyer’s party isn’t as stuffy as it sounds, Inspector, when you have that kind of money. I think he flew in Iggy Azalea to perform. This was all young, pretty people. Like Brynn.”

Frost didn’t want to admit that he had no idea who Iggy Azalea was.

As young as he was, Frost took pride in being unhip. He knew the wild side of San Francisco, but rarely joined the crowd. He was single and had made his peace with staying that way. His brother, Duane, periodically tried to fix him up, and Frost got a lot of offers because he gave off a Justin Timberlake vibe that women found attractive. More often than not, he said no. When he went on dates, they typically didn’t lead to relationships. It wasn’t that he was uninterested. He simply enjoyed his solitude. If he had a free evening, he usually spent it reading history books in a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant two blocks down from the Russian Hill house where he lived. The owner let him bring Shack in a carrier.

“Was Brynn uncomfortable going to the party without you?” Frost asked.

“Brynn was never uncomfortable. She fit in everywhere. The one who was probably uncomfortable at the party was Lucy. She’s sort of a fragile flower. If there was anyone who would go nuts and have some kind of breakdown, I would have put money on her, not Brynn.”

“Your lawyer friend, does he throw parties where drugs are available?”

Tejada shrugged. “Pot? Maybe. Anything harder? Doubtful. And Brynn had no time for drugs of any kind. It wasn’t her scene.”

“That’s what Lucy said, too. And Brynn’s parents.”

“Well, they’re right,” Tejada told him. “I can’t explain what happened to her, but you can rule out drugs.”

Frost wasn’t so sure. People were good at keeping secrets from those close to them, whether it was about affairs, alcohol, or addictions.