I hate it when people say “do the math.” I didn’t want to do math. I didn’t want to do this. I wanted to go paint frogs.

I glanced in the mirror. My face was tomato red, my bangs sticking out, stiff with sweat and last night’s hairspray. I’d worn two jogging bras to keep my breasts from having a life of their own. I didn’t have the physique for this. I didn’t have the physique for any sport except wet T-shirt contests.

Joey was another story. Built like a skinny fifteen-year-old, she was in her element. She caught my eye in the mirror and winked.

“Defense and counterattack,” Seth said, “are peanut butter and jelly. Self-defense without counterattack gets you killed, if you’re dealing with someone bigger, or someone with a stick, screwdriver, handgun…”

Screwdrivers? People were out there with screwdrivers?

“The main thing is, you don’t give up,” Seth said. “If you walk away with nothing else from today, take this: worst thing you can do is curl up in a ball and quit. Don’t quit, don’t get in their car, keep screaming, keep fighting. I don’t care how scared you are or how bad you’re hurt. If you’re not dead, you’re not done.”

“Is this great?” Joey bounced past in search of a towel. “Everything he talks about makes me think of sex.”

Before I could wonder about my friend’s carnal habits, we were back on the attack. Seth told me I was doing fine, I just needed to rotate my hips when I punched, but I knew what he meant was “You have no aptitude for this-I’ve seen houseplants in better shape.” Still, I appreciated his tact and, of course, his amazing muscles.

And then it was over. We bowed to Seth, Seth bowed to us, and I staggered into the locker room while Joey went to the front desk to sign up for a lifetime membership.

Twenty minutes later I found Fredreeq in the waiting area talking to a bald man who looked like he’d just been released from the state penitentiary. I was reading a testimonial letter on the wall when I heard him say, “Here she is now. Hey, Savannah!”

I looked up to see a petite woman in a baseball cap and a T-shirt that said “Contact Combat” hurry past the front desk. Even hearing her name, I needed a moment to place her as my fellow B.C. contestant, because I’d never seen her in the flesh.

Fredreeq hissed, flattening herself against a vending machine. Her tie-dyed spandex did not lend itself to inconspicuousness, and I didn’t understand the need for secrecy, but her paranoia was contagious. Obviously, she hadn’t expected Savannah to show up here. I looked for shelter.

Too late. Savannah raced across the lobby, cell phone to ear, and reached up to flick a switch on the television mounted on the wall. She was halfway between Fredreeq and me but paid no attention to either of us, or to the man who’d called her name. She stared at the TV and I stared too, at ads for cat food, allergy medication, and dental stain removers and, then, a Channel 4 Live late-breaking-news special report.

I knew him at once, the face smiling down at us, a face made for TV. Missing for forty-eight hours, the reporter said. Student at Pepperdine. Son of a congressman.

Rico Rodriguez.

His face disappeared, replaced by a couple in their mid-forties facing a barrage of cameras. The man looked familiar. Congressman Rodriguez, a journalist called him, asking a question I didn’t catch. The congressman nodded. “Richard was to drive home Sunday to join us on a family trip to Telluride for Thanksgiving. He spoke to his mother Saturday afternoon, confirming he’d be home for dinner. To our knowledge, that’s the last anyone’s heard from him.”

Another journalist asked a question, one that Channel 4 didn’t pick up, but it didn’t matter. The camera tightened on Mrs. Rodriguez, lovely, blond, anxious. Her answer came out softly. “His favorite. Linguine with clam sauce.”

His mother. A chill went up and down my spine, a feeling that had nothing to do with the shower I’d just taken, the wet hair dripping down my back. It was the sudden conviction I had that Mrs. Rodriguez would never make that particular meal again.

By eleven I’d gone home, changed, and made it to Santa Monica College. I had yet to feel the happy effects of the astrological transit Mercury trine Saturn that Fredreeq had promised.

The first thing I’d done, from Krav Maga, was call Detective Cziemanski. If the cops hadn’t made a connection between the disappearance of Rico Rodriguez and the disappearance of his girlfriend Annika, I could save them time. Cziemanski didn’t answer, so I explained this to his voice mail. I told myself Rico’s plight could be good for Annika, focusing attention on her case, but this didn’t cheer me up. Seeing Rico’s mother on TV had been profoundly disturbing.

The last thing I needed was a math test, but postponing it didn’t make sense, so I braved the parking facility and trudged across campus to the Liberal Arts Building, only to find the assessment-test office closed. Doughnut break?

I walked to the cafeteria for a doughnut of my own and realized that if the police were really going to focus on Annika, things could get complicated. I rummaged through my backpack and found the number for Britta, the au pair from San Marino, and left a message on her host family’s machine. In the cafeteria, I tried Cziemanski again, and got lucky. He apologized for our last conversation, then got to the point. “Everyone’s heard about the Rodriguez case,” he said. “The senator’s son.”

“Congressman’s son,” I said. “He was dating Annika Glück.”

There was a pause. “Really?”

“Yes. I talked to Rico last week. He had no idea where Annika was and now he’s gone too, and that’s an awfully big coincidence, don’t you think?”

“It’s worth looking into,” he said. “I’ll put in a call to the detective on the case.”

“Why aren’t you the detective on the case? You’re Annika’s detective, and if it’s a-a serial disappearance, shouldn’t all the cases get the same detective?”

“First, Annika’s ‘case’ right now is a missing person’s report. Second, Rodriguez goes to Sheriff’s Department, not LAPD. Third, we don’t know they’re related; if they are, LASD may get both.”

“How come Rico’s is a case and Annika’s isn’t? Because his dad’s important?”

“No. That’s why it made the news. It’s a case because the kid’s Corvette was found at LAX twenty-four hours after he was supposed to be home for dinner.”

“That doesn’t sound so dire,” I said. “Maybe he made a detour to Tijuana.”

Another pause. “If he did, he left two grand in the glove compartment. And what looks to be his own blood all over the trunk.”

Oh. I’d missed that, back in my apartment, channel surfing. The case was on the local stations, but I’d caught only snippets, most featuring Rico’s father, John J. Rodriguez: John’s career as congressman, John’s business as an industrial developer, and John’s ex-model wife, Lauren. One reporter stood outside the Rodriguez’s multimillion-dollar home in Lost Hills. John and Lauren did not appear, but a Dalmatian was spotted on the front lawn, its identity confirmed as the family dog, Hero.

His own blood in the trunk of his car. I felt sick. I pushed aside my doughnut, wishing I’d eaten it before calling Cziemanski.

I was headed back to Liberal Arts when my attention was caught by a guy smiling as he walked toward me. I couldn’t place him, but I smiled back anyway, on general principle.

He stopped. “Wendy,” he said.

“No, uh-”

“Winnie.”

“It’s Wollie.”

“Troy.” He stuck out his hand, and we shook. “We met last month. Some coffee place in West Hollywood. I’m Annika’s friend. Well, her tutoree. Tutee. Whatever. And you’re her other one, right? Alle meine Entchen?”

“Um, I don’t speak German. Sorry.”

“Oh, okay, I’m a geek.” He gave me a quizzical look. “She wasn’t tutoring you?”