“Hey, don’t take this out on me,” Tia said.

“Then don’t ask me questions like I’m a moron. Of course I called him. I called him several times. I even left-gasp-messages for him to call me back.”

Tia watched Brett pretend not to listen in. She moved away from him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean-”

“Me neither. We’re both on edge.”

“So what should we do?”

“What can we do?” Mike said. “I’ll wait here.”

“And if he doesn’t come home?”

There was a pause.

“I don’t want him at the party,” Mike said.

“I agree.”

“But if I go over and stop him…”

“That would be weird too.”

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think you should go over and stop him anyway. You can try to be subtle about it.”

“How would that work?”

“I don’t know. The party won’t start for a couple of hours probably. We can think about it.”

“Yeah, okay. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find him before that.”

“Did you try calling his friends’ houses? Clark or Olivia’s?”

“Tia.”

“Right, of course you did. Should I come home?”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nothing you can do here. I got it under control. I shouldn’t have even called.”

“Yes, you should have. Don’t try to protect me from stuff like this. I want to be kept in the loop.”

“I will, don’t worry.”

“Call me when you hear from him.”

“Okay.”

She hung up.

Brett looked up from the computer. “Problem?”

“You were listening?”

Brett shrugged. “Why don’t you check his E-SpyRight report?”

“Maybe I’ll tell Mike to do that later.”

“You can do it from here.”

“I thought I could only get it off my own computer.”

“Nah. You can access it anywhere you have an Internet connection.” Tia frowned. “That doesn’t sound secure.”

“You still need your ID and password. You just go to the E-SpyRight page and sign in. Maybe your kid got an e-mail or something.”

Tia thought about it.

Brett moved to his laptop and typed something in. He spun it toward her. The E-SpyRight home page was up. “I’m going to, like, grab a soda downstairs,” he said. “You want something?”

She shook her head.

“All yours,” Brett said.

He headed for the door. Tia slid into the chair and began typing. She brought up the report and asked for anything that came in to- day. There was almost nothing, just a quick instant-message conversation with the mysterious CeeJay8115.

CeeJay8115: What’s wrong?

HockeyAdam1117: His mother approached me after

school.

CeeJay8115: What did she say?

HockeyAdam1117: She knows something.

CeeJay8115: What did you tell her?

HockeyAdam1117: Nothing. I ran.

CeeJay8115: We will discuss tonight.

Tia read it again. Then she took out her cell phone and hit the speed dial. “Mike?”

“What?”

“Find him. Find him no matter what.”

RON held the photograph.

He stared at it, but Betsy could tell he had stopped seeing it. His body language was beyond troubling. He twitched and stiffened. He put the picture on the table and crossed his arms over his chest. He picked it up again.

“What does this change?” he asked.

He started blinking rapidly, the way a stutterer might when he’s trying to get out a particularly difficult word. The sight terrified Betsy. Ron hadn’t done that rapid blink in years. Her mother-in-law had explained that Ron had gotten beaten up a lot when he was in second grade and hid it from her. That was when the blink started. It had gotten better as he’d gotten older. It barely surfaced now. Even after they heard about Spencer, Betsy hadn’t seen the blink.

She wished that she could take the picture back. Ron had come home and tried to reach out and she’d slapped his hand away.

“He wasn’t alone that night,” she said.

“So?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Maybe he went out with his friends first. So what?”

“Why didn’t they say anything?”

“Who knows? They were scared, maybe Spencer told them not to, or maybe, probably, you got the date wrong. Maybe he saw them briefly and then went out. Maybe this picture was taken earlier in the day.”

“No. I confronted Adam Baye at school-”

“You what?”

“I waited until school ended. I showed him the photograph.” Ron just shook his head.

“He ran away from me. There was definitely something there.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. But remember Spencer had a bruise by his eye when the police found him.”

“They explained that. He probably passed out and fell on his face.”

“Or maybe someone hit him.”

Ron’s voice grew soft. “No one hit him, Bets.”

Betsy said nothing. The blinking got worse. Tears started spilling down Ron’s cheeks. She reached for him but he pulled away.

“Spencer mixed pills and alcohol. Do you understand that, Betsy?”

She said nothing.

“Nobody forced him to steal that bottle of vodka from our cabinet. Nobody forced him to take those pills from my medicine chest. Where I left them. Just in view. We know that, right? That was my prescription bottle that, yes, I just left out. The ones I kept asking for renewals when, really, I should have been over the pain and moved on, right?”

“Ron, it’s not…”

“Not what? You don’t think I see it?”

“See what?” she asked. But she knew. “I don’t blame you, I swear.”

“Yeah, you do.”

She shook her head. But he never saw it. Ron was up and out the door.

NASH was ready to strike.

He waited in the lot at the Palisades Mall in Nyack. The mall was pure Americana ginormous. Yes, the Mall of America outside Min- neapolis was bigger, but this mall was newer, crammed with huge megastores in a megamall, none of those cute little eighties-trendy boutiques. They had warehouse price clubs, expansive chain book-stores, an IMAX theater, an AMC with fifteen screens, a Best Buy, a Staples, a full-size Ferris wheel. The corridors were wide. Everything was big.

Reba Cordova had gone into Target.

She had parked her Aberdeen green Acura MDX far away from the entrance. That would help, but this would still be risky. They parked the van next to her Acura, on the driver’s side. Nash had come up with the plan. Pietra was currently inside following Reba Cordova. Nash had also gone into Target briefly-to make a quick purchase.

Now he waited for Pietra’s text.

He had considered the mustache, but no, that would not do here. Nash needed to look open and trusting. Mustaches did not do that. Mustaches, especially the bushy one he had used with Marianne, dominate a face. If you ask for a description, few witnesses go beyond the mustache. So it often worked.

But not for this.

Nash stayed in the car and prepared. He fixed his hair in the rearview mirror and ran the electric razor over his face.

Cassandra had liked it when he was clean-shaven. Nash’s beard had a tendency to get heavy and could scratch her by five o’clock.

“Please shave for me, handsome,” Cassandra would tell him with that sideways glance that made his toes curl. “Then I will cover your face with kisses.”

He thought about that now. He thought about her voice. His heart still ached. He had long ago accepted that it would always hurt. You live with pain. The hole would always be there.

He sat in the driver’s seat and watched the people walk back and forth in the mall parking lot. They were all alive and breathing while his Cassandra was dead. Her beauty had no doubt rotted away by now. It was hard to imagine.

His cell phone buzzed. A text from Pietra:

At checkout. Leaving now.

He gave his eyes a quick swipe with his forefinger and thumb and climbed out of the car. He opened the back door of the van. His purchase, a Cosco Scenera 5-Point Convertible Car Seat, the cheapest in the store at forty bucks, was out of the box.