Her words hit me like a blow. “What happened?”

In a few sentences, she sketched out the story of Jenny’s disappearance from a tanning salon. Then she switched topics to what she could do for me. “I can assist you in getting the word out, help you deal with the media, set up a website, or whatever else you need. And I know about resources you can use. There’s a print shop downtown that will make missing posters for free. And there’s a fraternity at Portland State that might distribute them as a community service project.”

This was all going so fast. Just hearing Amy list everything she seemed to think I should be doing was overwhelming. I tried to find something to hold on to. “Wait. Your daughter. Jenny. Did they ever find her?”

Amy looked down at her black pumps with their sensible two-inch heels. “No.”

“So you don’t know what happened to her?” Even though I was sitting on the couch, I felt like I was falling.

This time she looked at me. Her eyes were the color of old ice. “No.”

“How do you live with that?” The words burst out of me.

“I won’t lie to you. Of course you want your child back. And if you can’t have that, then you want a body. When you realize this limbo might go on forever”—she raised her empty hands and let them fall—“it feels unbearable. Only you have to find a way to live with it.” She straightened her shoulders. “But it’s far too early to be talking about that. What we should be doing is figuring out how to maximize every resource to bring your daughter home. We need as many eyes as possible looking for Savannah.”

It was clear she was a much better mother than I had ever been. The best I could hope to do was follow her lead. “Okay.”

“The first thing to do is make a flyer and then get it put up all over the metro area.” She pulled a sleek silver laptop from her leather bag and set it on her knees. “Do you have a recent photo of her?”

“When Officer Diaz sent out one of those ‘be on the lookout for’ announcements to all the other cops, he used Savannah’s school portrait.”

“It would also be good to have a candid photo. Ideally, head and shoulders, with a light-colored background. But it needs to be sharp. So if you don’t have one that’s suitable, we’ll just go with the one from school.”

As I scrolled through photos on my phone, I realized how many there were of Tim and how few of Savannah. Again, shame washed over me.

While I searched, Amy asked me questions, gradually reducing my precious daughter to numbers and colors.

I found myself telling her what I never would have told Officer Diaz. “When I was pregnant with Savannah, I could feel her. Do you know what I mean?” I rested my hand on my belly. She stopped typing and almost reluctantly nodded. “Like this little hum of connection. And I can still feel it. I know she’s alive.”

Amy glanced away, blinked rapidly, then looked back at me again. “If that keeps you going, then good. Because you’re going to need every source of strength you can draw on.” She looked back down at her keyboard. “So have you found a photo?”

I held out my phone. “What about this one?”

It was Savannah the night she got her orange sash. She’d asked someone at her school to take the picture and then sent it to me.

Amy’s eyes widened. “My God!”

“What?”

“Jenny’s face was more rounded. But she and your daughter—they look a lot alike. And my daughter disappeared only about seven miles from here.”

Suddenly it seemed like Jenny’s mom and I had something in common after all.

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it.

—BRUCE LEE

SAVANNAH TAYLOR

I stared at the half-empty glass of water. Sir was going to let us die of dehydration. It was incredibly cruel. For us, but not for him. He wouldn’t even have to get his hands dirty.

I slumped into one of the swivel chairs. Putting my feet on top of the seat, I sat with my face pressed against my knees.

“What are we going to do now?” Jenny sounded close to tears. Water we couldn’t afford to waste.

“I don’t know.” I didn’t raise my head. My voice was muffled by my legs. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

“What? You’re just going to give up?” Her tone was a challenge.

I didn’t raise my head. “Everything you said earlier is true. There’s no way to get out of here. And even if we could, that dog’s out there just waiting for us. And even if we somehow managed to get past the dog, then Sir would hear all the barking, realize we’re escaping, and then he’d kill us.” My chest tingled, and there was an ache in the back of my throat.

“But there’s gotta be something we can do.”

Jenny’s words started to reach me. “Whenever I get stuck, I ask myself what Bruce Lee would do.” The question echoed and faded inside of me as it went unanswered. “That’s where I got the idea for putting the can in your tights, because it was kind of like these nunchucks he used. But I don’t think even Bruce Lee could get out of here.”

“Bruce Lee—that’s the kung fu guy your book’s about, right?”

I nodded, then got up and found the book. “It’s kind of ironic that his most famous quote is about water.”

“What did he say about it?”

I sat next to her. “Something about how you need to be like water, because it’s formless. He said that if you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup, or if you put it in a bottle, it becomes the bottle.” I started to flip through the book, looking for the quote. Jenny leaned in.

From photo after photo, Bruce Lee stared back at us. His dark gaze was intense, and his thick black hair looked almost like a wig. The muscles in his arms and abdomen were so defined that he could have posed for a medical textbook. In one picture he had parallel red scratches on his cheek as if a beast had clawed him. In almost every photo, he was unsmiling, but then I turned a page and saw him grinning up at me. There was no way to look at that photo without smiling back, at least a little. It was hard to believe that he was dead and had been for almost fifty years.

“When did he die?” Jenny asked.

“Nineteen seventy-three.” The word die reminded me of our own hopeless predicament. Abruptly, I closed the book. “Maybe Bruce Lee was saying there are times you have to stop fighting and redefine yourself based on your circumstances.” I felt like I had stepped up on the railing of a balcony.

“What do you mean?” Jenny’s hands twisted in her lap.

I leapt. “I mean—maybe we should just give up. We tried to get out of here, and we failed. Maybe we just have to redefine escape. Why should that creep get to decide how we die?” As I spoke, my voice strengthened. “If I’m going to die no matter what, I’d rather just get it over with.” I got up and started toward the bathroom. “Do you have any medication I could use to overdose?” If I was going to do this, it would be best if it was fast and painless.