“How did Samuel get to work?” Ranger asked.

“He drove himself.”

“Has his car been found?”

“No. He just drove away in the car and that was the last we saw of him and the car. It was a gray Nissan Sentra . . . an older model.”

Ranger did a quick search of the bathroom and Nonnie’s room and we all moved downstairs to search the kitchen.

We were still in the kitchen when Nonnie came home.

“Have you found Boo?” Nonnie asked.

“Not yet,” I said. “Sorry.”

“It’s difficult to concentrate on my work with him missing like this,” Nonnie said.

“Nonnie is a manicurist at Classy Nails in the mall,” Mrs. Apusenja said. “She is one of their most popular girls.”

“I never skimp on the top coat,” Nonnie said. “That’s the secret to a superior manicure.”

It was a few minutes after six when Ranger and I left the Apusenjas. There was still time to make dinner at my parents’ house, but I was losing enthusiasm for the experience. I was thinking I’d had enough chaos for one day. I was thinking maybe what I wanted to do was get take-out pizza and go home and watch a bad movie.

Ranger lounged against my car, arms crossed over his chest. “What do you think?”

“Nonnie never asked about Singh. She only asked about Boo.”

“Not exactly the distraught fiancée,” Ranger said.

“If we believe everything we hear, we’ve got a nice geeky guy who got himself engaged and disappeared along with the dog.”

“The dog could be a coincidence.”

“I don’t think so. My Spidey Sense tells me the disappearances are related.”

Ranger grinned at me. “Your Spidey Sense tell you anything else?”

“Is that a mocking grin?”

“It’s the grin of a man who loves you, babe.”

My heart skipped around a little and I got warm in places only Morelli should be warming. “Love?”

“There’s all kinds of love,” Ranger said. “This kind doesn’t come with a ring attached.”

“Nice, but you avoided answering my question about the mocking grin.”

He gave my ponytail a playful tug.

“I’m going back to TriBro tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll make a pest of myself. Find out about the Internet job search. Talk to coworkers. If it’s anything other than a random murder, I should be able to get a lead.”

I DECIDED AGAINST the family dinner and instead I stopped at Pino’s on the way home. I slid the Pino’s pizza box onto my kitchen counter, kicked my shoes off, and got a beer out of the fridge. I punched the message button on my machine and listened to my messages while I ate.

“Stephanie? It’s your mother. Hello? Are you there?” Disconnect.

Second message. “Bad news. I’m gonna punk out on lunch tomorrow. The kids are sick.” It was my best friend, Mary Lou. Mary Lou and I grew up together. We went to school together and we were married within months of each other. Mary Lou’s marriage stuck and she had a pack of kids. My marriage lasted about twenty minutes and ended in a screaming divorce.