“Bonded? What kind of pinko touchy-feely crap is that?” an equally drunken Tate had roared.

They’d been tight friends ever since.

Another knock on the front door.

“Maybe that’s her,” Bett said eagerly. But when Tate opened the door a crew-cut man in a cheap, slope-shouldered gray suit walked inside. He stood very straight and looked Tate in the eye. “Mr. Collier. I’m Detective Ted Beauridge. Fairfax County Police. I’m with Juvenile.”

Tate led him inside and introduced Beauridge to Bett while Konnie clicked the TV’s channel selector. He seemed fascinated to find a TV that had no remote control.

Beauridge was polite and efficient but clearly he didn’t want to be here. Konnie was the sole reason Megan’s disappearance was getting any attention at all. When Tate had called, Konnie’d told him that it was too early for a missing person’s report; twenty-four hours’ disappearance was required unless the individual was under fifteen, mentally handicapped or endangered. Still, Konnie had somehow “accidentally forgotten” to get his supervisor’s okay and had run a tag check on Megan’s car. And he’d put in a request for Jane Doe admissions at all the area hospitals.

Tate ushered them into the living room. Bett asked, “Would you like some coffee or…?“ Her voice faded and she laughed in embarrassment, looking at Tate, undoubtedly remembering that this had not been her house for along, long time.

“Nothing, thanks, ma’am,” Beauridge said for them both.

In the time it had taken Konnie to arrive, Bett had called some friends of Megan’s. She’d spent the night at Amy Walker’s. Bett had called this girl first but no one had answered. She left a message on the Walkers’ voice mail then called some of her other friends. Brittany, Kelly and Donna hadn’t seen Megan or heard from her today. They didn’t know if she had plans except maybe showing up at the mall later. “To, you know, like, hang out.”

Konnie asked Tate and Bett about the girl’s Saturday routine. “She normally has a therapy session Saturday morning,” Bett explained. “At nine. But the doctor had to cancel today. His mother was sick or something.”

“Could she just’ve forgotten about coming here for lunch?” “When we talked yesterday I reminded her about it.”

“Was she good about keeping appointments?” Beauridge asked. Tate didn’t know. She’d always shown up on time when he took her shopping or to dinner at the Ritz in Tysons. He told them this. Bett said that she was “semigood about being prompt.” But she didn’t think the girl would miss this lunch. “The three of us being together and all,” she added with a faint cryptic laugh.

“What about boyfriends?” Konnie asked.

“She didn’t-” Tate began.

Then halted at Bett’s glance. And he realized he didn’t have a clue whether Megan had a boyfriend or not.

Bett continued, “She did but they broke up last month.”

“She the one broke it off?”

“Yes.”

“So is he trouble, you think? This kid?” Konnie tugged at a jowl. “I don’t think so, He seemed very nice. Easygoing.”

So did Ted Bundy, Tate thought.

“What’s his name?”

“Joshua LeFevre. He’s a senior at George Mason.” “He’s a senior in college?” Tate asked.

“Well, yes,” she said.

“Bett, she’s only seventeen. I mean-”

“Tate,” Bett said again. “He was a nice boy. His mother’s some executive at EDS, his father’s stationed at the Pentagon. And Josh’s a championship athlete. He’s also head of the Black Students’ Association.”

“The what?”

“Tate!”

“Well, I’m just surprised. I mean, it doesn’t matter.” Bett shrugged with some exasperation.

“It doesn’t,” Tate said defensively. “I’m just-” “-surprised,” Konnie repeated wryly. “Mr. ACLU speaks.” “You know his number?” Beauridge asked.

Bett didn’t but she got it from directory assistance and called. She apparently got one of his roommates. Joshua was out. She left a message for him to call when he returned.

“So. She’s been here and gone. No sign of a struggle?” Konnie looked around the front hall.

“None.”

“What about the alarms?”

“I had them off.”

“There a panic button she could hit if somebody was inside waiting for her?”

“Yep. And she knows about it.”

Bett offered, “She left the house keys here. She has her car keys with her.”

“Could somebody,” Konnie speculated, “have stole her purse, got the keys and broken in?”

Tate considered this. “Maybe. But her driver’s license has Bett’s address on it. How would a burglar know to come here? Maybe she had something with my address on it but I don’t know what. Besides, nothing’s missing that I could see.”

“Don’t see much worth stealing,” Konnie said, looking at the paltry entertainment equipment. “You know, Counselor, they got TVs nowadays bigger’n cereal boxes.”

Tate grunted.

“Okay,” Konnie said, “how ‘bout you show me her room?”

As Tate led him upstairs Beauridge’s smooth drawl rolled, “Sure you got nothing to worry about, Mrs. Collier-”

“It’s McCall.”

Upstairs, Tate let Konnie into Megan’s room then wandered into his own. He’d missed something earlier when he’d made the rounds up here: his dresser drawer was open. He looked inside, frowned, then glanced across the hall as the detective surveyed the girl’s room. “Something funny,” Tate called.

“Hold that thought,” Konnie answered. With surprisingly lithe movements for such a big man he dropped to his knees and went through what must have been the standard teenage hiding places: under desk drawers, beneath dressers, wastebaskets, under beds, in curtains, pillows and comforters. “Ah, whatta we got here?” Konnie straightened up and examined two sheets of paper.

He pointed to Megan’s open dresser drawers and the closet. “These’re almost empty, these drawers. They normally got clothes in them?”

Tate hesitated, concern on his face. “Yes, they’re usually full.”

“Could you see if there’s any luggage missing?”

“Luggage? No… Wait. Her old backpack’s gone.” Tate considered this for a moment. Why would she take that? he wondered. Looking at the papers, Tate asked the detective, “What’d you find?”

“Easy, Counselor,” Konnie said, folding up the sheets. “Let’s go downstairs.”

What would Sidney Poitier do?

Joshua LeFevre shifted his muscular, trapezoidal body in the skimpy seat of his Toyota and pressed down harder on the gas pedal. The tiny engine complained but slowly edged the car closer to the Mercedes.

Come on, Megan, what the hell’re you up to?

He squinted again and leaned forward as if moving eight inches closer to the Merce were going to let him see more clearly through his confusion. He assumed the man, not Megan, was driving though he couldn’t be sure. This gave him a sliver of comfort-for some reason the thought of this guy tossing Megan the keys to his big doctor’s car and saying, “You drive, honey,” riled the young man beyond words. Made him furious.

He nudged the car faster.

Sidney Poitier… What would you do?

LeFevre had seen In the Heat of the Night when he’d been ten. (On video, of course-when the film had originally come out, in the sixties, the man who would be his father was doing basic training push-ups in.

Fort Dix and his to-be mother was listening to Smokey Robinson and Diana Ross while she worked on her 4.0 average at National Cathedral School.) The film had affected him deeply. The Poitier character, Detective Tibbs, ended up stuck in the small Southern town, butting horns with good-old-boy sheriff Rod Steiger. Moving slow, solving a local murder, step by step… Not getting flustered, not getting pissed off in the face of all the crap everybody in town was giving him.

Sure, the movie didn’t have real guts, it was Hollywood’s idea of race relations, more softball than gritty, but even at age ten Joshua LeFevre understood the film wasn’t really about black or white-it was about being a man and being persistent and not taking no when you believed yes.