Diane moved the Greek salad away from her, one hand on her stomach.

“Yes. I remember working with Evan. I remember him going missing from our office the same time you were out sick. He called me the day you came back, and when I went to his cubicle, where I was certain he worked, there was no cubicle there. Just a plant and a photo and a chair.”

“Mm.” Dawn’s mouth was full of omelet. She seemed very hungry. It must have been the recovery from the food poisoning.

“And neither you nor Catharine remember anyone named Evan working with us?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t,” Dawn said, having swallowed the mouthful of egg. Diane felt a surge in the back of her mouth and had to take a moment to keep herself together.

“It’s just that,” she said after that moment, “how can you sit so close to where someone worked and have no recollection of them?”

“Well, Diane, I—”

“You didn’t call in. Catharine had some of us ready to go to your house to find you, Dawn. But then you get back to work and Catharine is like ‘No, I was totally in the know,’ and you were like ‘Yeah, just food poisoning.’ But I’m telling you the feeling around the office before you came back was that you and, and”—Diane glanced at her notepad—“Evan were both missing. We almost had to get the Sheriff’s Secret Police involved.”

Dawn set the pen down and slid the notepad back to Diane. Her lips were stern and thin and had a bit of egg on them.

“Diane, tell me what you remember about this Evan.”

“I remember working with him. For years.”

“Did he like sports?”

“I don’t know.”

“Movies? TV shows? Books? Certain types of dogs? What kind of clothes did he wear?”

“I remember a tan jacket.”

“What else? What color shirts? How tall was he? Was he married? How old was he? What’s a memorable thing he once said? Did he ever tell you a joke? Or maybe he had some insight during a meeting? What department did Evan work in, Diane?”

A long pause became a short pause became a quick beat became nothing.

“I don’t want to make you seem crazy, Diane. I really don’t. Listen, I’m just happy to have a friend to hang out with. I can’t remember the last time I hung out with somebody. But I can tell you there was never an Evan at our office.”

Dawn’s face was flushed, and she was breathing hard. She seemed furious, but it might have just been the food poisoning.