Sara reversed down the drive, and I half-expected to see my mother running after us. She didn’t. The car shuddered as we rocked onto the road, but steadied once we started moving. The top was down. Wind took Sara’s hair, and she looked sideways with an amused smile. “Is your mother always like that?”

“Pretty much.”

“It could be worse.” She raised a narrow shoulder. “I don’t talk to my mother.”

“Not ever?”

“Not for eight years.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so we drove in silence as buildings rose, and city lights climbed higher. Sara fiddled with her hair, chewed her bottom lip. When she spoke at last, we were at a stoplight with cars lined up across the road, their headlights on her face. “Have you seen Jason?” she asked.

“I thought this was about Tyra.”

“I was hoping they might be together.”

“I saw him today. He was alone.”

“Did he mention her?”

“Not really.”

She smoothed hair away from her eyes, and when the light turned, she drove faster, the little car tilting on the curves. A mile later, I recognized the street. “This is where you live.” She nodded, and I thought maybe she was crying. I didn’t know what to say or do, or how to help. She was a grown woman; I wasn’t even wearing shoes. In the driveway, I asked her, “Sara, what’s going on?”

“I can’t find Tyra.”

She turned off the engine, and I looked at the condo, at all the light spilling out. “Since when?”

“Last night.”

“Some other guy, maybe. Some other party.”

“Not this time.”

“You can’t know that.”

That made sense, I thought, but Sara told me about their argument and her missing car and a box of doughnuts, abandoned in the driveway. “She wouldn’t have left them. Not like that, not crushed in the drive.”

“You called the police?”

“They said twenty-four hours. Maybe your dad…?”

“He’s working. I don’t know where he is. We can call the station.” She looked hopeful, but I wasn’t. When Dad worked late, he was impossible to reach. “How long until the twenty-four hours are up?” I asked.

“A few hours, maybe.”

“There you go. Not bad.”

“Will you come inside with me?”

“Um…”

“To be honest, I’m a little afraid.”

When French arrived at the hospital, Burklow was waiting outside the emergency room entrance. “I’m sorry, Ken. I know you had to wait.”

“It’s not like you to run silent.”

“Radio problems, some other stuff. Is he ready for us?”

“He said to bring you down.”

They passed through the emergency room doors, and into a waiting room. Bypassing the elevator bank, French took the stairs down, Burklow at his heels. At the bottom, a keypad allowed entrance to a hallway that served the medical examiner’s office. “Radio problems, huh?”