He’s younger than I originally thought. Isaac’s age. Maybe a year older. It’s hard to tell, but he’s closer to being a boy than a man.

The light changes. A group of giggling girls in their school uniforms race in front of me, pointing up at a giant screen on a building that in between news programs is featuring highlights from the “USA Proud” pop boy band currently touring all fifty-one states. I dodge around them and hurry forward, determined to keep the guy I’m following in view. He glances over his shoulder, and I try to pretend I’m just another tourist looking up at—what? I fix my eyes on a bronze statue of a man with his fist raised to the sky and wait several heartbeats before glancing back.

Damn. The black hoodie has gotten farther away.

Sweat drips down my neck as I zigzag through the people on the walkway. The boy crosses the street and heads for the bridge that leads over the river. I pick up my pace from a jog to a run.

A horn honks.

Fingers dig into my arm, and I’m yanked backward to the curb. I stumble and clutch my tablet as cars stream by.

A man in jogging shorts and a Chicago Cubs T-shirt helps me get my balance. “I’m sorry if I grabbed you too hard, but I didn’t want you to get hit.”

I stammer my thanks, then rise on my tiptoes and shift from side to side, catching glimpses of the sweatshirt as it gets farther and farther away. The light changes and I bolt forward. I push through people who are crossing the street in the opposite direction. My heart drums faster as I hurry toward the bridge, but when I get halfway across the expanse of the river I have no choice but to admit the obvious. The black sweatshirt and the boy who pocketed the paper have vanished.

How much time has passed in my wild-goose chase, I don’t know, but Rose and Isaac are going to be seriously worried and probably a whole lot annoyed if I don’t contact them soon.

Shaking my head, I turn and walk along the arching, rust-red iron bridge back to the side I came from, feeling foolish for having wasted so much time on . . . whatever that was. The light is red and I tap my foot, impatient for it to flash green. A seagull calls overhead. I look up and watch as the stretched white wings soar against the blue sky, then dip lower. The bird flies in front of the top of one of the large stone support posts that flank the end of each side of the bridge, and even though everyone else starts walking toward the crosswalk, I can’t move. My feet are like stone.

On the top of each of the supports is a set of windows. Above those windows is an artistic iron roof. And in the center of it is a design that I know almost as well as I know my own face. I should. I’ve looked at it every day for the last three months. The hard curves and dark shapes.