“I don’t know. She’s on a different floor. We usually don’t see each other. We spend enough time together stuffed into this place, so we don’t go out of our way to hang out during the days.”

“Is there anyone else she might stay with?”

“Not that I can think of,” Lucy said. “Her parents, maybe.”

Frost shook his head. “They said they hadn’t seen Brynn in a month.”

“Well, I don’t know. I’m used to her not coming home, but I just assumed she was at Gabe’s.”

“When did you meet up with her yesterday?” Frost asked.

“After work. She was already home when I got back.”

“Did she say anything about where she’d been?”

“No.”

“How was her mood?”

“Fine. Happy. Whistling. I told you, Brynn was always up. We dressed for the party, and then we headed out. She was completely normal, except for—”

“Except for what?” Frost asked. He thought about Brynn whistling, and he started to whistle, too, until he consciously made himself stop.

Lucy sat down in one of the chairs next to the matchbox kitchen table. “Well, I made some comment about thank God tomorrow’s Friday. She gave me the blankest look I’ve ever seen. She took out her phone like she was checking the date, and then she just shrugged it off.”

“Did she say what was wrong?”

“No, she just said, ‘Brain fart.’ That was it. We left for the party.”

Frost studied Brynn’s half of the studio again. “Did Brynn own a laptop?”

“Sure, she kept it under the bed.”

Frost got down on hands and knees and peered under Brynn’s twin bed. He slid out a Toshiba laptop and booted it up. When the screen turned on, it asked him for a password.

“It’s secured. Do you happen to know her password?”

Lucy nodded. “It’s BL-a-go-go.”

Frost keyed it in as Lucy spelled it out for him. When the home screen loaded, he opened up the calendar application. The only appointment listed for the week, other than last night’s party, was a dentist appointment for the previous day at nine in the morning. The calendar listed the dentist’s name and number, and he slid out his cell phone and dialed the office.

He explained who he was to the receptionist and asked his question. Then he hung up.

“Brynn was scheduled for tooth whitening on Thursday morning,” Frost said. “She never showed up.”

“Weird. Brynn was fussy about her teeth.”

“I’d like to know where she was that day,” Frost said.

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea. She didn’t say anything.”