Staring at the house really didn’t tell me anything. I don’t know what I was expecting.

Then her parents showed up.

I had been parked across the street and two houses down, so I didn’t attract the attention of Horace and Gretchen Richler as they got out of their twenty-year-old Oldsmobile.

Horace opened his door slowly and put his foot on the ground. It took some effort for him to turn in his seat and bring himself out. He was slowed by arthritis or something similarly disabling. He was in his late sixties or early seventies, a few wisps of hair, a couple of liver spots. He was short and stocky, but not fat. Even at this age, it looked like you’d have to take a good run at him to knock him over.

He didn’t look like a monster. But then, monsters often don’t.

Horace was going around to the trunk as Gretchen got out. She moved slowly, too, although she wasn’t quite as creaky as her husband. Even though he was out of the car before her, she was to the trunk before him, and waited for him to fit the key into the lock and pop it.

There wasn’t a lot to her. She was tiny, under five feet, probably no more than eighty or ninety pounds. Wiry. She reached into the trunk and looped her fingers through the handles of half a dozen plastic grocery bags, lifted them out and headed for the door. Her husband closed the trunk and followed, carrying nothing.

They went into the house, and they were gone.

They didn’t appear to have spoken a word between them. They’d run their errands, and they’d come home.

Was there anything I could read into what I’d seen? No. And yet I was left with the impression that these were two people going through the motions, living out the rest of their lives a day at a time without purpose. While I picked up no hostile body language from Horace toward Gretchen, I did detect an overall sadness about them.

I hope you’re sad, I thought. I hope you’re fucking miserable for what you did.

When the Oldsmobile had pulled into the driveway, I’d initially had an impulse to get out, march over, and tear into Horace Richler. I wanted to tell him what a terrible man he was. I wanted to tell him that a man who would abuse his daughter-even if that abuse was limited to emotional-didn’t deserve to be called a father. I wanted to tell him that his daughter had turned out well despite his attempts to sabotage her. I wanted to tell him that he had a wonderful grandson, but because he’d been such a miserable bastard he was never going to meet him.

But I didn’t tell him anything.

I watched Horace Richler go into the house with his wife, Gretchen. I watched the door close behind them.

Then I drove home, and never told Jan about the stop I had made along the way.

I thought about my visit to the Richler home on the way back from the bridge with Dad.

What if Jan had been wanting, for years, to say to her parents what I’d wanted to say when I’d parked out front of their home? What if the way her father had treated her had been eating her up for years, in ways she’d never let on? Revealing how much her father’s actions still hurt her might have made her feel vulnerable. And yet, Jan had told me over the past two weeks how fragile, how potentially self-destructive she had been feeling.

I just didn’t know anything anymore.

I tried to put myself in Jan’s position. I’m in a bad place, thinking about taking my own life. Before I do such a thing, do I want to confront my father, tell him what I think of him? Tell my mother she should have stood up for me? Tell both of them how they ruined my life before I end it?

I shuddered.

“You okay there?” Dad asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“It’s a good thing,” he said. “That we didn’t find her there. Under that bridge. That’s a good thing. Because if that’s the place she was talking about doing herself in, well, stands to reason that she didn’t.”

Dad was trying really hard. Driving out to that bridge, it had been a long shot at best. The fact that Jan wasn’t there just meant that Jan wasn’t there. The fact was, we didn’t know where she was. But I didn’t want to make my father feel bad by dismissing his hunt for a silver lining.

“I suppose,” I said. “I suppose.” Jan had also mentioned the much taller bridge in downtown Promise Falls, but if she’d tried something there, I told myself, there would have been witnesses. The police would have heard almost immediately.

Dad pointed up ahead. “You see that? Guy didn’t signal. How hard is it to put your blinker on? Christ almighty.”

Not long after that, we were riding behind a driver who moved into the oncoming lane in preparation for a left turn into a driveway, allowing us to scoot past.

“What the hell is that?” Dad said. “People in the country pull that stunt all the time. What if someone was passing us, or someone suddenly showed up in the oncoming lane? I swear to God, how do these people get their licenses?”

When I didn’t respond to either of these observations, Dad decided to dial it down a bit. Finally, he said, “So, you been thinking about my idea? About Jan looking up her parents?”

“Yeah, I have.”

“You got any way to get in touch with them? Your mother’s told me Jan doesn’t talk about them, that she’s never even told you who they are or where they live.”

“I think I could find them,” I said.

“Yeah? How would you go about that?”

“They live in Rochester,” I said. “I know the address.”

“So she did tell you?”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Well, if I was you, I’d call them up, see if she’s been in touch. If they’re in Rochester, Jan would have had plenty of time to drive there by now.”

In what? I was in my car, and Jan’s was at home.

“How long a drive is it? Three, four hours?”

“Under three,” I said.

“So when we get back, we’ll give them a call. It’s long distance but I don’t care about that.”

That was a major concession on Dad’s part. He hated long-distance calls being made on his phone.

I glanced over and smiled. “Thanks, Dad. But I’m afraid the moment I say Jan’s name, they’ll hang up on me.”

He shook his head at the thought of it. “How can parents be like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, you didn’t always do what we wanted but we never disowned you,” Dad said, forcing a smile. “You could be a real pain in the ass sometimes.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“You have to let your kids make their own decisions in life, good or bad.”

“Is that why you’re so reluctant to offer advice?” I asked.

Dad shot me a look. “Smart-ass.”

We were getting back into Promise Falls, only a few blocks from my parents’ house. It was nearly dark, and the streetlights had come on. I felt a sense of imminent doom as we rounded the corner, expecting to see one or more police cars parked out front. But there were no unfamiliar cars parked at the curb.

My mother was standing at the door. She opened it and came out as we pulled into the driveway. She had a hopeful, expectant look on her face, but I shook my head.

“Nothing,” I said. “We didn’t find Jan.”

“So she wasn’t-she didn’t-”

“No,” I said. “Any news here? Anything from the police?”

She shook her head. We all went into the house, where I saw Ethan on the third step of the stairs, preparing to jump.

“Ethan, don’t-”

He leapt down to the main floor, hitting it with a thump. “Watch!” he said, ran up to the third step, and did it again.

“He’s been a madman,” Mom said. “I let him have half a glass of Coke with his macaroni.”

Mom always liked to blame Ethan’s rowdiness on something he’d had to eat or drink. It had been my experience that it didn’t much matter.

I gave her a kiss and went into the kitchen to use the phone. I had Detective Duckworth’s card in my hand and dialed his cell.