That dog didn’t like people, and especially not kids, but Jason couldn’t help himself.

Phyllis scooped up Bernard’s wriggling body with a disgusted look on her face and kept staring down at us. “On Christmas?”

Amy hadn’t moved, but now she piped up. “What’s wrong with that? She’s tired.”

Phyllis eventually went back into her apartment, but kept looking out through the slit between her drapes. Meanwhile I told the kids how good they were and that I was proud of them. And I was. Whatever worry I felt about my mother was balanced out by the lightness of the day, how easy things felt, except for the exchange with Phyllis, how free. Mom had “a lot on her plate,” as she often put it. Even with food stamps, feeding three kids was no picnic. As erratic and moody as Red could be, he always had a way of making her laugh. Now that he hadn’t been in the picture for a while, nothing stopped her from dropping down a deep well of a mood. She was lonely and tired, and life was passing her by.

Once, I found Amy in the hallway listening to Mom cry in her room through the door. She’d been in there all day.

“What is Robin so worried about?” Amy asked when I gave her a handful of animal crackers to distract her.

“A lot of things. You wouldn’t understand.”

(fourteen)

Will’s office is the same one his father had, I find. He looks up from his desk as I knock, surrounded by paperwork in a pool of fluorescent light, red-blond stubble flaring along his cheeks and upper lip, his eyes tired but expectant as soon as he sees me, and clearly surprised.

“Anna. Hey. What’s going on?”

“Do you have time to talk?”

“Things are pretty intense right now. Can I call you later today?”

“Actually I’m hoping you’ll let me help you with the case.”

“What?” He blinks rapidly. “Are you serious?”

“Very.”

He pours us coffee in stained ceramic mugs and tips in powdered creamer, the smell sweet and chemical, familiar. Everything is, the gray-beige industrial-wasteland cinder-block walls; the creased manila file folders spilling scraps and forms; the curled Post-it notes and half-used three-by-five notebooks; the scattered blue Bic pens with the caps bent and chewed. Behind Will’s desk a sheet of butcher paper hangs with scribbled lists of names, dates, and times for Cameron’s case. Just beside it is another missing poster, pinned at eye level.

KIDNAPPED

At Knife Point

Polly Hannah Klaas

D.O.B. 1/3/81

Brown hair—Brown eyes

4'10"—80 lbs

Last seen October 1, 1993, in Petaluma, Calif.

My eyes catch—snag—as everything speeds up. October 1 was yesterday. “Wait. What’s this?”