“Angie’s not here,” I said, although I could not be certain of that. I’d run in and out of the house pretty quickly, and if she was home, and knew Trevor was outside, she was probably hiding someplace in the basement.

“Well then, I’ll just give her a call later.” He slipped the sunglasses back over his eyes, slid the laptop back into the backpack and slung it over his shoulder, and said, “Come on, Morpheus, let’s go.”

Neither Lawrence nor I said anything as he and Morpheus headed up Crandall, the dog walking obediently at his master’s side. He was almost to the corner when he stopped and got into an old black Chevy, Morpheus hopping into the backseat. He started the car, turned around in a driveway, and headed back down the street past us. The car was rusted, without hubcaps, and rumbled as it drove by. Trevor didn’t glance our way.

Lawrence walked out into the street, studied the car as it trailed away, then walked back up the drive.

“I am definitely running a check on that kid,” Lawrence said. “Whether you want me to or not.”

I’d just had my first face-to-face encounter with Trevor, and I could honestly say I was not nuts about him. “I won’t try to stop you,” I said.

Lawrence got back into his car. “I’ll give you a call later, set things up for tonight at Brentwood’s. I’ve already talked to the cops. The moment we see anything, if we see anything, I call them. No chases tonight.”

“Good.”

He gave me a little salute, backed out of the drive, and sped off.

About the same time, Paul appeared, walking up the street from the south, no sunglasses, no trenchcoat, a pretty normal looking kid. He had his own backpack slung over his shoulder and was returning from his day at high school.

“Hey,” he said to me, and then his eyes landed on the Virtue. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at it. There was no way I was going to let him drive it, not when he didn’t have his license yet. I prepared myself for an onslaught of argument.

Instead, he said, “Tell me this isn’t our car.”

I cocked my head. “Yeah, it is. I got it at the auction today. It’s a great car. Is there a problem?”

“I hope you’re not expecting me to drive that when I get my license. It’s one of those enviro-friendly cars. I’m surprised you were able to get it up the driveway. There’s nothing under the hood but gerbils.”

“It’s got a sunroof,” I said, but he was already walking past me into the house, snorting and shaking his head in disgust.

It’s a terrible burden, being the only one who wants to save the planet.

I BOUNDED INTO THE HOUSE after Paul.

“Angie!” I called out. I mounted the stairs to the second floor and rapped on her bedroom door. “Angie, you in there?” When there was no answer, I opened it tentatively. “Angie, you home?”

The room was empty. I came back downstairs, passed Paul in the kitchen, and poked my head through the door to the basement. “Angie?”

“She’s not home, Dad,” Paul said. I was inclined to agree with him. I put one hand on the kitchen counter, resting. My heart was pounding, and I felt a little winded from running around the house. I was relieved that Angie wasn’t home, that Trevor hadn’t had a chance to find her here, but then again, where was she?

“What’s up?” Paul asked. “Did you get that car at the auction? Didn’t they have any cheap Beemers?”

“Where’s your sister?” I asked him.

“She’s at class, Dad,” Paul said, looking at me like I was an idiot. “She’s not going to be home now.”

Of course. I was an idiot. “Right,” I said. “Where else would she be?” Pulling myself together, I opened the fridge and grabbed a beer.

“Can I have one?” Paul asked.

“No,” I said.

“It’s not like I’ve never had a beer, you know,” he said. “And I think it would be a lot better, you know, if I had a beer in the open, with my dad, instead of, you know, trying to sneak around to have a beer.”

My mind went back to that six-pack left between the back of the garage and the fence.

“Is that what you do now, sneak booze?”

Paul’s face flushed. “Of course not.”

“Because if you are-”

The phone rang. I grabbed the receiver. “Hello?” I said.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Angie!” I said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. “Hey, we were just talking about you.”

“Who?”

“Paul and I. We were just saying you were probably in a class.”

“That’s right, Dad. That’s what I do. I’m at college.” Still a bit frosty.

“I know, I know. We were just thinking about you, that’s all.”

“Is Mom there by any chance?”

“No, hon, she’s at work. What can I do for you?”

There was a hint of a sigh. She would have to deal with me. “Would I be able to have the car tonight? Because I’ve got a bunch of things to do, and I need to go to the mall, and then I have to do some research for this essay, and-”

“Guess what. I bought a car today.”

A hesitation. “Oh my God, are you serious? Like, not to replace the Camry, but a second car?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s so awesome! What did you get?”

“Listen, why don’t I drive down and show it to you? I’ll give you a lift home.”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Now, I have to warn you, you may not like it. The car has not been unanimously endorsed by members of this household.” I glared at Paul, who had reached into the fridge, grabbed a beer bottle, and was miming the act of opening it, looking at me for approval. I shook my head.

“Oh well, as long as it’s got wheels,” she said, and told me to pick her up in front of Galloway Hall at 5:30 P.M., when her last tutorial of the day would be over.

I hung up the phone and barely had time to tell Paul to put the beer back into the fridge when the phone rang again. It was Sarah.

“This retreat thing starts early tomorrow morning,” Sarah said. “So the paper’s paying for a room at the conference center so we can go tonight, be ready to start fresh in the morning, instead of having to get up before dawn and driving an hour and a half.”

“Great,” I said.

“So I’m getting out of here now, gonna come home and throw some stuff in a bag, have a quick bite to eat, and then Bev, you know her? The foreign editor?”

“Yeah.”

“Bev’s being sent to this thing, too, so she’s going to pick me up around six and we’re going to head up.” It was already a little past four.

“If you’re here by five,” I said, “I’ll see you, but I’ve promised Angie I’d pick her up at five-thirty. I’ll get some dinner started.”

I had some pork tenderloin in a mushroom gravy going when Sarah got home at four forty-five. She dropped herself into one of the kitchen chairs.

“I saw the car,” she said. “In the drive.”

I waited.

“It’s kind of cute,” she said.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, it should do us. Although I looked all around it and couldn’t find the outlet where you plug it in.”

“That joke’s really running out of gas.”

“Hey, that’s a good one,” Sarah said. “I have to say, it’s perfect for Angie getting back and forth to school.”

“Paul hates it,” I said.

Sarah shrugged. You reach a point when you stop worrying about what your teenagers hate.

I called Paul to dinner, setting out three plates, and making up a fourth and covering it with plastic wrap for Angie to eat later. I stood and ate by the sink, Paul grabbed his plate and went to the basement, leaving Sarah the only one to actually sit at the kitchen table to eat her meal. But because she had to be ready to leave in a little more than an hour, she shoveled it down like a teenager.

“Guess who was prowling around the backyard when I got home,” I said.

Sarah glanced over, one cheek puffed out with pork tenderloin. “Urmff?” she said.

“Trevor Wylie.”

“Hmmff?”

“That’s right.” I filled her in on the conversation Lawrence and I had had with the boy. The dog named Morpheus. The satellite program, the six-pack in the backyard.