J. J. started toward the reception desk, but Ellie grabbed his elbow and cocked her head toward the agitated girls.

“You go check that out,” he said. “I’ll take the key to the front desk and see if they can get us any information on it.”

As she approached the bell stand, she was able to catch the tail end of the girls’ conversation.

“We can’t leave without Chelsea.” The crying girl had dark brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail, topped off with a black headband. She wore a pink hoodie sweatsuit and Puma tennis shoes.

The girl’s friend was rubbing her shoulder soothingly. “I didn’t say we should leave without her. I just said we should go to the airport. Chelsea’s probably there.”

The comforting girl was petite with a black pixie haircut. Ellie spotted the top of some kind of tattoo peeking out from the back of the waistband of her jeans. The girl looked at her watch with a furrowed brow. “We’re missing our flight anyway. It’s almost seven o’clock.”

“They said it was delayed,” the girl in the ponytail reminded her. She was starting to get control over her tears. “Chelsea would never leave us hanging like this.”

Another bellhop hurried past the duo and grabbed a set of car keys from the counter beside them. “Andale,” he shouted, hurrying along the perplexed bellhop who was trapped with the girls.

“Chewanna cab or not?”

The question sent the crying girl into sobs again, and the bellhop finally gave up, grabbed a set of keys from the counter, and fled to the hotel entrance.

“Do you two need some help with anything?” Ellie asked.

The pixie threw her an impatient look, as if the attention of strangers was yet another piece of unwarranted drama.

“We’re fine, ma’am. We didn’t mean to make a scene.”

“No need to apologize.” Ellie flipped up the badge that was clipped to the waistband of her pants. “You’re looking for one of your friends?”

“She’s just running late. It’s fine-”

“Stop saying it’s going to be fine, Jordan.” The crying girl pushed her friend’s hand off her shoulder. “She’s missing. She should be here, and she’s not here. She knew what time we were leaving, and she’s not here. She’s…she’s missing.”

Ellie heard the girl’s pain in the way she spoke that single word. She said it with the knowledge that to be missing meant so much more than to be in an unknown location.

The petite girl with the pixie haircut and tattoo, the one whose name was apparently Jordan, said they just needed to get to the airport. If they could get to the airport, they could make it onto a later flight and wait for Chelsea.

“I told you, I’m not leaving.”

Jordan muttered something under her breath. Ellie heard it but hoped the crying girl hadn’t.

But she had, and she responded as predicted. “Seriously? Chelsea’s missing, and you decide to say you’re going to kill her? Do you have any idea how disgusting that is?”

“All right. Just try to calm down, both of you. Your name’s Jordan?” She spoke directly to the tattoo girl, who nodded in response. “No one’s killing anyone, Jordan.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Sorry, Stef.”

“And you’re Stef?” Ellie asked the crying girl.

“Yeah, Stefanie. Stefanie Hyder.”

“Okay. So you’re obviously upset, but I need one of you-only one,” she said, holding up a finger, “to tell me what’s going on. Can you do that, Stefanie?”

The girl sniffed a couple of times and tugged on her ponytail nervously. “We’re on spring break. Our flight leaves this morning-like, basically now. And our friend Chelsea isn’t here.”

“But-”

Ellie held up her hand. “You’ll get your turn.”

Stefanie continued without prodding. “We went out last night. It was time to come home, and she wouldn’t leave. Chelsea wouldn’t leave. I should have stayed, but it was time to go home. And she promised.”

Jordan placed her arm around Stefanie’s shoulder once more, and this time Stefanie didn’t push away. Her tears brought on sobs as she spoke.

“She looked me in the eye, and she promised she’d be back by now. She promised she’d be here. She promised. And she’s not. Something happened to her. Something’s wrong.”

Rogan had snapped a digital photograph of the girl from East River Park, but she didn’t want to do the ID that way. Not in a crowded Midtown hotel lobby. Not now.

“Do you have a picture of your friend?”

The girls both shook their heads.

“You sure?” Ellie recalled the band students outside snapping shots with their phones. “Not in your cell phone or something?”

“Yeah, right. No, of course.” The one called Jordan stepped over to a tangle of bags that were piled in the corner next to the bell stand counter. She rifled through a large white tote, pulled a patent leather clutch from the larger bag, and then began sifting through its tightly packed contents. “Sorry. You have to put everything in two bags for the airlines.”

She finally slid out an iPhone and pushed a few buttons before holding it out toward Ellie. “That’s her, just last night at dinner. In the middle.”

Ellie took the device from her and peered closely at the picture. The three friends were huddled together, posing for the camera with open-mouth smiles, as if they’d been laughing. A bystander in the background didn’t look too happy with them. The girls had probably been too rowdy for the restaurant. At least their last night together had been a happy one.

It was a small screen, but she could make out three faces. The girl on the right was Stefanie Hart, with her hair down and her eyes bright, not bloodshot as they were now. The one on the left was pixie-haired Jordan.

And Ellie recognized the girl in the middle as well. She recognized the long shiny blond hair before it had been hacked off. She recognized the red sleeveless shirt, chosen no doubt to match the crimson bead chandelier earrings that peeked out from behind the beautiful blond hair. And she recognized the smiling face before someone had used it as a carving board.

WHEN ELLIE WAS SEVEN years old, her father had come home with a bandage on his temple.

Jerry Hatcher had been working a missing child case for more than a month. For more than thirty nights, the family had known their daughter was missing. The family had known for more than a month that their girl was last seen leaving Cypress Park with an adult male whose description was wholly unfamiliar.

Ellie’s father focused on a suspect who had a pattern of arrests for indecent exposure to children in Cypress Park. The guy had missed work the day of the abduction. The next day, too. The evidence was thin, but the case was high-profile. Ellie’s dad managed to get a warrant. He found the missing girl’s body in an oil drum that was buried beneath the suspect’s brand-new hot tub.

Three days after delivering the news to the girl’s parents, Detective Jerry Hatcher had used the past tense. He hadn’t known how to fill the silence as the parents sat side by side on the sofa, staring at the framed picture of their daughter’s second-grade portrait. Everyone tells me your daughter had a smile that lit up the room.

It was a sentiment offered in kindness. Trite, maybe, but well intended. The victim’s father had upended the coffee table and shoved Jerry Hatcher into the fireplace mantel. Why? Because he’d used the past tense too soon.

Ellie’s memories of her father were filled with stories like that one. Other kids’ fathers talked about client meetings when they got home from work. Or a real piece of work on the delivery route. Or a tough cross-examination of a trial witness. Ellie’s father explained why he had a bandage on his head, and if the telling of the story happened to involve an eight-year-old girl buried in an oil drum, so be it.

And, although she didn’t realize it at the time, she’d learned from those stories. On that particular day, she’d learned never to use the past tense. Even after delivering the news to the family. Even after the official ID. Even after the body’s in the ground. Until the family starts using the past tense, everyone else must remain in the present.