The Saab had clearly been knocked around. The driver’s-side mirror was missing, and the paint job had been scratched bumper to bumper. Archie looked around for what she’d hit, and spotted a pickup truck with a crumpled fender. He made his way over to it and saw a folded piece of paper under its windshield wiper. She’d left a note.

He leaned over the hood, lifted the wiper blade up, and peeled the sopping paper from the wet glass. He recognized the size of the lined paper as a page from Susan’s notebook. The ink had bled, but he could still make out the gist of what she’d written.

He folded the note in half, put it back under the wiper where she’d left it, and returned to the Cutlass.

“Anything?” he asked Flannigan when he got in the car.

“Heil’s still not picking up. Ngyun hasn’t heard from him since he left the office.”

“She said she was going to walk,” Archie said.

Flannigan held up his notebook, showing a page covered in a hurried scribble.

“What’s that?” Archie asked.

“It’s the list of addresses Heil was tracking down. Ngyun found them in the MapQuest history on Heil’s computer.”

Archie took the notebook and tried to make out the words. It looked like it was in another language.

“There are two in this neighborhood,” Flannigan said. “One in Ladd’s Addition, and one at Twentieth and Division.”

Archie looked out the rain-streaked window. The world was a dark and blurry place.

Division would have been on Susan’s way home.

He could tell that Flannigan was thinking the same thing.

“Let’s go,” Archie said.

He backed down Twelfth and took side streets around to Division, avoiding the flooded intersection.

Division was a two-lane street, but it was an arterial and usually busy. Not tonight. Archie only saw one other set of headlights as they made their way east, passing under dark traffic lights and past closed bars. The commercial buildings quickly gave way to the residential ones, with small bungalows on one side and older, larger houses on the other.

Water gushed along the curbside.

“There,” Flannigan said.

Archie saw it, too. Heil’s car.

Flannigan glanced down at his notes and then squinted at the house numbers. “He’s parked right in front of the house,” he said.

Archie turned the wheel and pulled into the driveway, sending a spray of water up from the gutter.

The house was simple and compact. One-story. No frills. The living room light was on, but the curtains were drawn.

It had been over an hour since Susan had left her second voice mail. If she had stumbled upon Heil and everything was fine, they wouldn’t still be here.