“Well, I’m sorry, but that won’t be convenient for me.” He sounds insulted. When he finally emerges from the dark hall, he is short and gray haired with a bulbous nose and huge ears. He has a thick unsightly scar on his throat, near his Adam’s apple.

“I have you on a twenty-thousand-dollar retainer, Doctor. Paid out of my own pocket,” Rachel shoots back, not even turning his way. “I decide what’s convenient. I’ll be in touch.”

Once the doctor huffs out, Rachel locks the door behind him.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go back to my office. It’s more comfortable in there.”

RACHEL’S OFFICE IS indeed nicer than the rest of the place, if only a little. It’s brighter and cleaner with new, cheap carpeting and the wood paneling is painted white.

“Okay, now, what the hell is going on?” She motions for us to sit in the worn wooden guest chairs facing her desk.

I’m so relieved to be there, but as soon as I open my mouth, my throat squeezes tight. I will myself to keep it together. “My dad was supposed to call you—”

It’s too late. Already, I’m crying.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Rachel jumps up and comes around the desk. She puts a hand on each of my arms, then shoots an accusatory look Jasper’s way. Like he is somehow to blame. “Why was he supposed to call me? I never talked to him. Tell me what’s going on.”

And so I begin again, breaking down everything that has happened. I talk for at least five minutes without taking a breath. When I finally get to the part about calling my dad, Rachel stops me.

“So he was in the airport when you spoke to him?” she asks. “And then his phone ended up somewhere else in DC?”

I nod. “Yeah,” I say. “There’s no sign of him at home either, and he never came to the hospital. And he would have come if he could have.”

“Of course he would have.” Rachel goes to stand behind her desk. Then crosses her arms as she sits back down. She is very worried, though she is doing her best to seem not the least bit concerned. “Okay, well, at least his phone didn’t turn up in Florida.”

“Florida?”

“Oh, that blogger,” she says, waving off her own suggestion. But now all I can think about is EndOfDays.com. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up. Your dad wasn’t worried about that. You shouldn’t be. And this is going to be okay, Wylie. We’ll find him. Do you know who he was meeting with in DC or what flight he was on?”