Somewhere behind the glaring object that obscured his vision, he heard Knolls still talking. “Then it was like Chloe outgrew us. Whatever we said or did, it wasn’t enough.”

Mahler understood the thing in his line of sight to be a hallucination brought on by his migraine, and he knew from experience that this thing, this scotoma, would last a minute or two. He could not see past the dancing aura to the woman’s face, but he sensed Knolls watching him.

As he looked down, the aura tracked his field of vision. He reached with his right hand through the blind space for the pencil and picked it up, grateful for the reality of touch. He squeezed the pencil tight.

“We tried to talk to her, but all she wanted was to be with her friends, not us. Chloe had friends. It wasn’t like that girl didn’t have friends.”

The aura faded. The dead space slowly filled with the woman’s face, her eyes searching him. The tiny, sparkling stars flashed and disappeared.

“She started going out at night. Coming home at three and four in the morning. Wouldn’t say where she’d been. She said it wasn’t any of our business. Whose business was it? That’s what I want to know.”

Mahler’s pain slowly subsided, and he watched his vision restore itself.

Knolls leaned forward. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry your family is going through…this.”

“Do you think another girl will be killed like last time?”

“We’re doing everything we can to find whoever killed this young woman.” Mahler could not tell whether Knolls heard him. She continued staring at him, as if she expected something more.

“You have children?” she asked.

“No…I don’t.”

“You’ve no right to judge me then, do you?” Her face reddened.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I’ll bet when a girl’s killed like this, the first thing you think is, this wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for the parents. You wouldn’t have this terrible work if people weren’t so careless and stupid. People like us get what we deserve, isn’t that right?”

“Mrs. Knolls, please,” Mahler said. “I’m sorry your daughter’s missing. I’m afraid I can’t do anything at this time.”

“You can’t do anything at this time? What is this, some kind of a joke?”

“There’s a procedure—”

“I’ll bet there is.”

“Have you filed a Missing Person Report for your daughter?”

“Yeah, yeah. What difference does it make? You’ll find her when she’s dead.”