But I wasn’t to be so lucky. From the first time Bob mentioned her name-“Do you think she ran? Or do you think she was kidnapped? Mallory?”-I became concerned that Bob and I would begin to spend some unknown number of Tuesday sessions rehashing the latest news and gossip about her. Since Bob devoured the Enquirer and the Star-he didn’t buy them; he scoured the student union looking for discarded copies-I was even going to be force-fed tidbits about Mallory that I wouldn’t have been exposed to in the more reputable news sources.

How did I know all this?

Because Bob had been transfixed by the Kobe thing, too. And the Michael Jackson thing. Not to mention the Scott Peterson thing. That’s how I knew.

I was realizing, almost even begrudgingly accepting, that it was beginning to look like I couldn’t get away from Mallory Miller no matter how hard I tried.

The Tuesday session with Bob during the week between Christmas and New Year’s was like dozens before it. Bob was distracted and distant, and we spent a chunk of the allotted time in silence. He surprised me by ending the appointment with a request he’d never made before: He asked if we could meet again later that week.

Could I actually be witnessing nascent signs of attachment, the therapeutic Holy Grail in the treatment of a schizoid personality? Highly unlikely, but I gladly offered him an additional session on Thursday, the penultimate day of the year.

The phone rang later that evening while I was giving Grace her bath. Lauren spoke for a few minutes before she joined me in the bathroom and handed me the portable and a towel for my hands. “It’s Diane,” she said, and I exchanged the delights of playtime in the bathtub for the dubious pleasures of the telephone.

It struck me as not a great deal.

“Hi,” I said as I moved out of the bathroom and walked across the master bedroom to the big windows facing the mountains. The still-snowy spots on the winter landscape seemed fluorescent in the moonlight.

“I’ve been thinking,” Diane said.

“Yeah.”

“About Hannah.”

I wasn’t at all surprised. Diane and I had talked about Hannah a dozen or more times since her death. We’d do it a dozen more, and maybe a dozen more after that. My friend liked to process out loud, and Hannah’s death continued to haunt her.

“These things take time, Diane. They just do. This time of year especially, you know. The holidays make it harder.”

She sighed. “That’s not what I mean.”

I stuffed my repertoire of grief platitudes back into storage and said, “Okay.”

“What if this is why she died? Because she met with Mallory Miller. What if somebody killed Hannah because she met with the kid that one time?”

“I’m… listening.”

“Don’t use that voice. I hate that voice. You think I’m crazy? Tell me this didn’t cross your mind.”

“I can honestly say it didn’t cross my mind.” It had-briefly-but I wasn’t about to admit it and inadvertently provide monster chow for the dragons inhabiting Diane’s cave of paranoia.

“Hannah might have been murdered, right? That’s a possibility?” Diane’s tone was hoarse, slightly conspiratorial. I couldn’t figure out why.

“Are you at home?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t know. This is the sort of thing people whisper about, isn’t it?”

“Okay, just wondering.”

“Now answer me.” She was still almost whispering. “It’s a possibility that Hannah was murdered, right?”

“Yeah.” The coroner’s finding on manner of death was “undetermined.” That conclusion didn’t mean Hannah had been murdered, nor did it mean that she hadn’t been murdered. We both knew Diane had her own hypothesis on the matter.

She spelled out her theory for me anyway. “Slocum hasn’t been able to identify a motive to support a conclusion of homicide, right?”

“Yeah.” I could graciously grant Diane the motive argument, fully cognizant that Slocum hadn’t been able to identify means or opportunity, either. He was 0-for-3.

“Well, what if this was the motive? Something Mallory told Hannah. Something that needed to stay secret.”

I tried to imagine some possibilities. Couldn’t. The time frame seemed wrong. Hannah had died over a week before Mallory disappeared.

“Like?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I thought you would have… an idea. This is your bailiwick, not mine.”

Bailiwick? I was hoping it wasn’t a new companion word to holy moly. Regardless, Diane was doomed to be disappointed by the sparse contents of my bailiwick. I didn’t have any theory about the secret that Mallory might have shared with Hannah.

From the bathroom Lauren called out, “Check the stove for me, sweetie. I have something cooking.”

I inhaled, and followed the tantalizing aroma of spicy hot cider all the way to the kitchen. A cinnamon stick and some cloves were floating in a steaming apple brew. Lauren had been preparing a treat for us when the phone rang. I shut off the gas to the burner but stayed close by so the steam would rise toward my face.

Diane wasn’t patient about the delay. “You still there?” she asked.

“I’m thinking.” What I was thinking about was whether I should add some good whiskey or a dollop of rum to my cup of hot cider.

“You done yet?”

I said, “Maybe if Hannah had died after Mallory disappeared, it might make some sense to wander down this road. But Hannah died first. And that was over a week before Mallory disappeared.”

“You think I’m crazy.”

It wasn’t a question. “No crazier than I thought you were before you called.”

“Funny.”

“Based on what you told me there was nothing incendiary about the session. Nothing worth killing Hannah over.”

“She said her father was ‘up to something.’ Remember?”

“But the question is what? She may have meant that he wanted her to take up the viola, or change schools, or get braces. Who knows? Hannah didn’t spell it out.”

“I expected you to be more helpful, Alan.”

No doubt because this is my bailiwick. I said, “Sorry.”

“You don’t want to do this, do you?” she asked.

Her question wasn’t an accusation. Diane was belatedly recognizing my resistance to be involved with anything that had to do with Boulder’s latest missing girl.

“No, I don’t. But I will.”

“Is it because of Grace?”

“I’m sure that’s part of it.”

“What then?”

“I’m working on that. I don’t like the parallels to eight years ago. The whole thing is creepy. I’m a father now, it’s…” I could have just admitted that I wasn’t working on it very hard, but Diane wouldn’t have let me off the hook. The truth was that I wanted the whole Mallory Miller thing to go away.

She softened. “Think about it, please. See if anything jumps out at you. Can you at least do that?”

“Sure,” I said. “I can do that.”

Grace was in fresh jammies, Lauren was swathed in soft flannel, her slender feet cushioned in sheepskin Uggs, and the mug of hot cider, with a little bourbon, was warming my hands. The three of us sat together on the couch in the living room and read bedtime stories about little girls and flowers, and dogs and friends.

Grace cackled and giggled and was delighted at the pages.

I held my daughter a little tighter than usual as Lauren’s late-day gravelly voice soothed us all.

I waited until Grace was in bed and Lauren was settled into the soothing rhythms of a game of pool in what-had we possessed a table and chairs instead of a tournament-quality pool table-should have been the dining room, before I went downstairs and climbed on the road bike that I’d set up for indoor workouts in the basement. I warmed up quickly, maybe too quickly, and soon had my spin up where I wanted.