Alice studied me like I was a sudoku puzzle. Then she said, “Kinda like your dad.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling a sting of anger at the connection. “And I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen, and now the exact thing I predicted would happen has happened—except it feels so much worse than I imagined. Maybe if he’d just listened to me, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Except there is no ‘we’ in this mess. There’s just me. Alone. Like, apparently, I will always be.”

“Um. You are hardly alone. You are hanging out with your BFF.”

“I mean—romantically alone.”

Alice’s voice went high and squeaky with manufactured hopefulness. “Maybe there’s some other explanation?”

“Yeah, I can’t come up with one.”

But Alice was forever finding the upside of things. “Well,” she said. “If you are right—and I’m not convinced that you are, but just for argument’s sake: probably better to know now. Right?”

“Right,” I answered, defeated.

“I mean, at some point, he was bound to witness you”—and here, she searched for a euphemism, which struck me as very kindhearted, given my fragile state—“not at your most graceful.”

True.

“Better he disappear now than after you’d had, like, ten kids.”

“Ten kids?”

She nodded, all deadpan. “Two sets of twins, and two sets of triplets.”

“That’s a lot of kids,” I said.

“See that? You’ve averted disaster. How could you ever reach your potential with all those kids? He did you a favor, really. And the kids, too.”

“Sounds like it,” I said, giving her a thanks-for-trying smile.

She gave me the exact smile back. Thanks for letting me.

Then she shook her head, as if to clear the whole subject away, turned her attention to the now-perked decaf, and said, “We should take a line-dancing class.”

And just as she said that, as if to punctuate, our cell phones dinged at the exact same time.

My phone was in my bedroom, but hers was in her pocket.

She pulled it out, checked, and then looked up. “It’s from the school. A kid has gone missing. They’re calling us in for a search party.”

twenty-six

It was Clay Buckley.

When we got there, we found Tina in tears, Babette drained and anxious, and Kent Buckley prowling around like an angry animal, growling at people.

The school was awash with cops and detectives. They were setting up a makeshift headquarters for the search in the cafeteria. Mrs. Kline was already there, at a folding table, organizing search packets and working from a clipboard.

Alice and I asked her what happened.

“It was Clay’s birthday,” Mrs. Kline said. “His dad was supposed to pick him up after school and take him to some pirate ship museum down toward Matagorda Bay. But his dad never showed up. From security tapes, it looks like Clay went to visit with Babette—and she confirms that he told her he was going to the library to read—but, instead, at four thirty-seven, he let himself out of the back gate.”

“But those gates are locked!” I said.

“He had the code,” Mrs. Kline said. “Or he figured it out. The video shows him pressing the keypad and then swinging it open.”

“Which way did he go?” I asked.

But Mrs. Kline shook her head. “It doesn’t show. You can just see him leaving.”

“So … he’s been missing since this afternoon?” Alice asked.

“He’s been missing since about four thirty,” Mrs. Kline said, “but they didn’t figure out he was missing until eleven thirty. At night.”

“Holy shit,” Alice said.

“Language, please,” Mrs. Kline said. Then she added, “His mother thought he was with his father—that he’d picked him up at car pool and the two had gone off on their adventure. But apparently”—Mrs. Kline glanced around and lowered her voice—“Kent Buckley forgot about the whole thing. Entirely. And so he stayed at work late and then went for drinks with some clients, and he didn’t get home until after eleven. When he got home and didn’t have Clay with him … that’s when they called the police.”

“She wasn’t expecting them home until eleven?”

“She wasn’t expecting them home at all. It was supposed to be an overnight trip.”

Alice was nodding. “So that explains why Kent Buckley is so red-faced and angry.”

Mrs. Kline frowned and nodded, like Oh, yeah. “Tina’s angry, too. She’s absolutely on the edge of losing it.”

“Understandable,” Alice said.

“They’ve already had several shouting matches since I’ve been here.”

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Since about two. The police searched likely places he’d be first—the school, Babette’s—before deciding to call everybody in. They’ve recalled all their officers, and we’ve texted everybody on our notification system. As people come in, we’re sending them out in teams—giving everybody a grid section of the city to search.”

This was Mrs. Kline at her multitasking best. She gave us an assignment—to walk the seawall heading east for ten blocks. If nothing turned up, we should report back to her by text, she’d send us a new section. Before we headed out, she told us to check in with the officer by the door, who was giving each team instructions.

Alice and I headed that way. A few other people were already waiting. Emily and Donna had their packet already and seemed antsy to get going. Carlos had been paired up with Coach Gordo, who was wearing his reflective car-pool safety vest. Everyone had that look—of being awakened from a dead sleep and hurtled straight into a state of maximum adrenaline.

Just as Alice and I arrived for instructions, Duncan came around a corner and saw me. He was walking with one of the officers, and at the sight of me, he slowed to a stop and stared for just a second.

There are no words to describe the sting of humiliation I felt at the sight of him—and, specifically, at the sight of him seeing me. It hijacked my entire body so tightly I felt like one big charley horse. It was physical. It was agony.

And then it was over.

There were bigger things going on. Another officer came up to Duncan with some new piece of urgent news, and he turned and walked off.

Fair enough. We had a situation.

As I watched him walk off, I had to mentally remind myself to breathe and relax.

He was still in the suit he’d been in yesterday, the suit he’d been wearing as he plunged into the ocean after me—probably still damp. His oxford shirt was dry, but stippled the way shirts are when they haven’t been pressed. His navy blue tie was nowhere to be seen. His shirt was open at the collar.

I couldn’t entirely read his reaction to seeing me—partly, I’m sure, because my reaction to seeing him was so intense. The moment was over almost as soon as it started, but the aftereffects lingered, aching for a long while after.

I knew he’d be there, of course. He was the principal. He was in charge—on the school end of things, anyway. But I hadn’t had time to plan. At minimum, I’d hoped to avoid eye contact. I’d figured he’d be off in some far corner working in some kind of makeshift headquarters, not just wandering around loose like that making random eye contact with the lovelorn.

What was that eye contact, anyway? What had I seen in his eyes? Surprise, maybe? Or maybe fear? God, was I that scary?

I had just about refocused my attention on the moment at hand, when I saw him walking back toward me. He was holding up a hand, like Be right back, to the group of officers he’d left behind

He came up beside Alice and me. She looked at him, then at me, like What’s going on here? But, to her credit, she didn’t say anything.

Duncan gave Alice a nod, and then he turned to me. “Hey. You’re here.”

The stinging of humiliation came back and took me over. I almost couldn’t look at him. I stayed totally still. “As are you.”

“I just—wasn’t sure if you’d be up for it.”

“There’s nothing that could have kept me away. Clay might be my favorite kid on the planet.”

“Where are they sending you?”

“Seawall.”

“Okay,” he said, like he was making a note of it. “Be careful.”

And that’s when his tone shifted a little, and rather than just being all business, he edged a little closer, like he was going to say something more personal. “Are you—” he started.

But that’s when the officer giving instructions to the search teams barked, “Okay, folks, listen up.”

Duncan gave a quick nod and stepped back.

The officer went on. “Cover your area and your area only. Text or call any of the numbers on your sheet if you see anything. Mostly, you’ll be walking, using your flashlights to check for anything out of the ordinary. The child was in gray uniform pants and a white shirt. He had black sneakers. He had a blue backpack with school items in it, and also several comic books and some kind of reference book about marine life. You’re not just looking for the kid himself. If you see a shoe, if you see a backpack, if you see a book lying in the street. Do not touch it. Take a picture. Note your location. Call us and we’ll send officers to determine the next step.”