I started driving before I knew where I was going. I had everything except the one crucial piece of the puzzle: Who was Ethan’s real father? After what happened with Guy, it wouldn’t take much to convince Virginia she needed to start talking. The father was clearly dangerous, and it was only a matter of time before he decided it wasn’t worth the trouble of keeping the kid alive.

I was halfway through retracing my route back to Virginia’s house when a passing truck splashed thirty gallons of rainwater onto Dolores like a crashing wave. Some ice-cold sprinkles slipped through the rust-eaten roof, and the spritz woke me up.

The police would still be crawling around her house. Virginia definitely wouldn’t talk if I aired out her dirty laundry in front of the cops. Besides, another man banging on her door in the middle of the night was sure to collapse her fragile constitution and give her a heart attack.

She needed some time to cool off before she could think logically. So did I. If we met before we both got some sleep, it would be a screaming match. Nothing would get solved, and Virginia would waste what energy she had left on shedding tears.

I turned off I-18 and headed for home—my apartment, not my office. As soon as I stepped through the door, I felt a powerful tug toward the bedroom. I wanted to strip down and curl up on the mattress with a few ice packs pressed against my sore body.

I checked the freezer, but didn’t find so much as a bag of frozen peas. A red light pulsed, lighting up the cupboard doors beside me. I whipped around with my hand on the butt of my gun.

The streetlights next to my building were in extremis, but one was close enough to my window to fill the apartment with bands of yellow-orange between the blocky shadows of the blind’s slats. It was more than enough light to see my kitchen was empty.

The red glow wasn’t the end of a cigarette or the spark of a lighter, but a pulse from the answering machine I had hooked up in a more optimistic era.

I let go of my gun. As tired as I was, it was a marvel I hadn’t put two rounds through the desk lamp next to the phone. Having the gun on me made me more jumpy.

I limped over with my tail between my legs and pressed the playback button. The tape rewound to the beginning and a beep sounded. Marcella’s voice came on after a few beats of static.

“Howl, it’s your favorite Daily Glyph reporter. Don’t ask how I got this number, but I already tried your office.”

I stepped away from the machine while she talked and went to the bathroom to get the shower running.

“I know you told me to back off, but I thought you would like to know I checked in on the clinic. They don’t seem amenable to doing cosmetic surgery at all. I tried to get information on Virginia, but they iced me out. You have any luck talking to her in person? Call me back.”

The machine beeped again as I fished out the box of stale cereal I had dipped my paw into the day before. Marcella’s voice came back. “What the fuck, Howl? I just got wind of the callout to Virginia’s place. Tell me you didn’t do anything crazy.”

Another beep, another call from Marcella. “Jesus Christ, I’m getting more information from the scene now. Thank God you showed up when you did. Let me know when you know more about the guy you sent downtown. I can help you figure out who he was working for.”

The machine beeped again, and I sidled up to it. I couldn’t take any more nagging.

My finger hovered over the stop button, but I paused when a different voice broke through the static.

“Hi Howl, sorry to call so late,” Isabel said. “Just thinking about you and wanted to see if your old number worked. You find out anything regarding what I sent your way yesterday? Wouldn’t mind talking about it if you’ve got some time. Maybe we can meet up for dinner… Anyway, call me back.”

She fed me her phone number in case I had forgotten it, then hung up. I was stupefied by the message, but when another beep came, followed by Marcella’s indignant griping, I shut the machine up. I downed the rest of the bag of cereal, then went to take my shower.

With the lights off, I couldn’t tell if the water had cleared up, but it was lukewarm at least. I would have preferred scalding, but I took what I could get.

When I got out of the shower, I dried off as well as I could with the thin towel on the back of the door and carried my balled-up clothes into the bedroom. I fell down onto the mattress and crawled back to get my notepad out of my jacket. I meant to write down some of what I’d uncovered, but it was too dark. The desk lamp I had on the floor next to the wood-grain alarm clock burnt out over a year ago.

I closed my eyes, getting up the strength to stand up and hit the light switch. Thoughts weren’t pinging around inside my skull anymore. I had a path forward, and I was too exhausted to spin my tires anymore. The notes could wait.

I woke to a fever and a blinding pain behind my eyes. I thought I was hungover or had been drugged. My mind reeled, trying to remember what I had done the night before, but when I opened my eyelids to a searing white lance, I realized I was just baking in the sunlight.

I jolted up and groaned as pain bloomed throughout my body. My sleep-addled mind thought I must have been shot. The pain started as one giant bruise over my entire body, but it became more refined as I patted around looking for holes. I felt the pulled muscles in my shoulder, the soreness of my legs, and the twisting of my empty stomach.

When the sharpest pain settled on my bladder, I threw back the scratchy sheets I’d burrowed under and ran to the bathroom. As soon as I was empty, I got busy refilling by starting a pot of coffee.

My urgency built as more concrete memories filtered back in. I almost ran out the door, but made myself slow down. It was embarrassingly late in the morning, but Virginia wasn’t going anywhere.

I threw back the first cup, let the burns wake me up before the caffeine even hit my bloodstream, then poured a second and brought it with me. Dolores took only a few vulgar pleas to get going, and I was on my way.

The smooth sailing lasted only a few blocks before I hit a wad of traffic, accompanied by a ragged mob of pedestrians clumping like bacteria cultures. Their nucleus was a school I thought had been condemned months ago. Rumor had it, the proximity to the ClearLife factory caused development problems—as in, problems with kids developing extra fingers and radioactive urine.

I wanted to turn back and drive around the block, but there was already a stack of cars behind me. There were too many pedestrians on the sidewalk for me to cut out and skip past all the law-abiding citizens waiting in line.

I risked electrocution by turning on the radio so I could figure out what the hell was going on. When I found a channel with more signal than noise, there were no klaxons, Morse code beeps, or governmental officials breaking in to tell everyone to duck and cover. The show’s host keyed me in himself when he blustered about how only un-American sexual deviants voted for anyone but Regis.

It was election day, and I found myself jammed up outside a polling place. You’d think in an area so destroyed by Regis’s policies, there would be fewer people turning out in support, but I saw an endless sea of bumper stickers and tee-shirts bearing his inane slogans. I cursed the whole system as the pulsing traffic pushed me along and floored it as soon as I was on the other side.

Dolores’s engine sputtered, but I coaxed her through it and hopped onto I-18. With the billboard featuring Regis looming over the overpass, I couldn’t quite avoid thinking about him. I met eyes with the sign and was surprised to see someone had vandalized it. Some enterprising youths had climbed up the posts with cans of pink spray paint and drawn a crown over Regis’s head. They had also splattered the words “All Hail the King” over the call to action beside him. It was a messy job with long drips of wet paint streaking down from the marks, but the kids’ hearts were in the right place.

When I got off I-18 two exits south, I watched out for the signs of other polling places and avoided them. Closer to Virginia’s house, the demographic was less destitute-out-of-work and more working-class. As much as they wanted to support their local hero, they couldn’t afford to take off work in the middle of the day to go to the polls. They’d try to squeeze in before their shifts and during their lunch breaks, but a majority would be waiting in line long into the night. Their votes would be counted as long as they got in the queue before the polls closed, but by then the election would be all but decided. The futility of the exercise still wouldn’t stop them. Thanks to voices like that of the DJ blabbering on through Delores’s stereo, they felt it was their patriotic duty to punch a hole next to Regis’s name.

I snuck up on Virginia’s house again, making sure the cops had blown off before I stormed in. My search didn’t turn up any patrol cars staking the place out. It did reveal a vacancy where Guy’s Cadillac had been, so I pulled Dolores in.

The house was still, sleeping in after the harrowing night it had. I waffled back and forth about bringing my gun, and ultimately decided to take it. I didn’t want to get spooked and turn Tommy into Swiss cheese by accident, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t left standing around with my dick in my hand if the person who had sent Guy could have sent someone else to take revenge.

A cop had moved Ethan’s bike away from the sidewalk to clear the way for the massive body bag Guy took his last ride in. I looked around for any sign I was being watched before approaching Virginia’s door, then knocked gently. I didn’t want to get started on the wrong foot, and I knew she would be high-strung after last night. It wouldn’t take much to set her off.

Virginia didn’t show up, and I didn’t hear anyone moving around inside. I pounded harder, testing the limits of the hasty repair the officers had done to keep the door stuck after I had broken it.

I rubbed my shoulder as I waited, one ear raised and pointed toward the house, but I didn’t hear anything. Either Virginia had fallen comatose with exhaustion, or she wasn’t home. I couldn't imagine her stepping out for work after what happened, but maybe she felt she didn’t have a choice.

I looked in the window visible from the stoop. The investigators had made a mess of the place. They left trails of muddy footprints all over the floor, and hadn’t set right any of the overturned shelves, tables, or lamps. The only mess the actual intruder had left was a sloppy red patch on the kitchen tile. It looked like someone had made a half-hearted attempt to mop it up with a sponge but gave up halfway through.

Something didn’t sit right with me. I thought maybe Virginia was inside, but had decided she just wasn’t dealing with any more shit right now. It was a smart choice, and maybe the one I would have made in her place if my child wasn’t missing.

I went around the house to the patch of dirt a realtor would call a rustic back yard. My shoes crunched on something as I approached the back door. I lifted my foot and saw a diamond spray of glass fragments, then followed their trajectory to a broken window next to the door.

I jerked for my gun, and it was already in my hand by the time the conscious signal to grab it traveled down my arm. The glass had been intact when I swept the house after killing Guy. There was no reason for the investigators to break it out, either.

The door was unlocked, so I didn’t make much noise getting in. It was a moot point considering the racket I’d made at the front door, but I didn’t want to rush. I kept my gun hand ready but pointed at the floorboards, cognizant that around any corner could be either a murderous thug or an innocent child. The risk of being too slow on the draw was worth making sure I wasn’t too quick.

I paced heel-to-toe down the hall, dipping my head into the kitchen and living room before heading upstairs. All the doors were open, and I could see into each from the top of the stairs. I didn’t see Virginia, Tommy, or any intruders, but my dander stayed up as I went around and checked behind doors and inside closets.

Someone had ransacked Virginia’s room. The drawers were jerked out, their contents scattered across the floor. A jewelry box had been left open on a vanity with nothing left inside but the errant back of an earring and a few dust bunnies. The mattress had been pulled off its frame and lay tilted to one side so someone could reach the space underneath the bed.

My search ended in the boys’ shared bedroom. Tommy’s side, bedecked with crayon drawings and posters of cartoons, had been plundered, except for a shelf of stuffed animals above the bed. There, only a single blank space in the middle gave any sign something was amiss. I checked the closet and found a similar empty spot in the back corner. Shining my flashlight in the void revealed seven dimples in the stiff carpet: one group of four next to another set that would have been identical except one dot was missing.

My mind latched onto the shape. I’d seen it before—on the night Al’s ticket got punched. The spacing was the same as the rubber feet on Ethan’s suitcase. The police had his, the one with a missing foot, locked up in evidence, but there had been another one in the closet. Where was Tommy’s luggage now?

I didn’t need to stretch my detective muscles far to figure it out. The adrenaline faded, and I sat down on Tommy’s bed, putting my gun and my flashlight away.

Virginia had taken Tommy and ran. She tried to cover her tracks by making it look like she had gotten snatched too, but she was no good at it. She had broken the window by the back door the wrong way, so the glass sprayed away from the house. Virginia’s room looked trashed enough, but the carefully removed toy from the shelf behind me betrayed a degree of control and deliberation.

At first glance, I thought Ethan’s side of the room had been trashed worse than the others. As I stared into it, I realized it had been like that before. Clothes were piled up on the floor and models and magazines were strewn about, but the drawers were all still in place. Virginia had tried to make the break-in look real, but she couldn’t bare to mess up Ethan’s things.

She cared enough to leave them the way he had in case he ever came back, but she didn’t care enough to stick around and try to find him. The thought of her abandoning her son like that made me angry, but more than that, it made me despondent. What was the point of trying to find Ethan if Virginia had already given up?

No, that wasn’t quite fair. If she stayed, she would also be putting Tommy in harm’s way, risking the same fate for him as had befallen Ethan.

I looked at the wall behind Ethan’s bed, at his posters. They weren’t cartoons like Tommy’s, nor the scantily clad women many boys his age were transitioning toward, nor were they the marijuana culture references one might expect given his predilections. They were all movie posters. Some of them were newer blockbusters, but just as many were older films most kids Ethan’s age had never heard of—the flicks film school professors across the country lost their minds for.

Becoming an actor wasn’t a passing fancy to Ethan; it was his passion. From my brief foray into the scene, I knew it was a dismal life, but I couldn’t make the decision whether he should pursue it for him. The most I could hope for was that he was still alive to choose a life for himself. Virginia might have given up on him, but I couldn’t.

I heard a car creep down the street in front of the house. My hand rested inside my coat, with my fingers inches from my holster, as I peeked through the gauzy curtains. Wandering around Virginia’s house had caused me to contract the fears that had pushed her out the door. I expected a black land yacht like the one Guy had driven up in.

I saw a thug behind the wheel and another in the passenger seat, but these mobsters were in uniform. The car was black and white, with tumorous sirens and strobes growing out of its roof, hood, and bumpers.

The mean-looking chimp in the driver’s seat had been at the scene the night before. I hadn’t heard much compassion from him, and I knew the jackal he towed along didn’t give half a damn about Virginia. The wellness check wasn’t their idea, and they laughed as the chimp turned dials on his radio and looked over the case file. I was glad I couldn’t hear what they were saying or else I might have finished what I had started with the jackal outside Guy’s car.

I stole down the stairs while they loafed and escaped out the back door. As I eased it shut the last inch and gave it a yank so the latch engaged, I heard poorly suppressed laughter and footsteps tromping up the stairs at the front of the house.

The cops knocked, waited, and knocked again. I edged around the side, pressing up against the corner five feet from them.

“I bet the bitch is sleeping in,” the jackal said. “Probably expected to be up all night with that John, anyway.”

“Hey now, Officer Wilhelm, we don’t know she was going to doink him.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t know she wasn’t either. Got to assume something though, since she wouldn’t talk.”

The chimp knocked again.

“You know, I’ll bet the scream the neighbors heard before Howl blasted up the place had nothing to do with the big guy’s gun. She probably just got a peek at his John Thomas and freaked.”

The chimp chuffed, but followed it with a disconcerted hum. “Look like a bit of a mess in there to you?”

There was a pause as Officer Wilhelm checked for himself. “I guess. Hard to say when the house was a sty to begin with. On top of that, our guys had to tear up the floorboards looking for clues.”

“Sure,” the senior officer said. “But I don’t remember busting out any windows. Maybe we weren’t the only visitors Mrs. Calhoun had last night.”

“Think we should call for backup?”

“Nah. Not worth bothering dispatch. Would be better if we checked it out ourselves.”

The jackal let out a wheezy cackle, and I heard the snap of a holster lashings coming undone, the chunk of metal pulled out of hard leather. I leaned around the corner and saw both men focused on the door. The chimp’s lips counted up to three, then Officer Wilhelm threw himself into the door, shoulder first. He was a shrimpy guy, much bigger in his mind than the space his body took up, and his ego grew when the weakened door flew open with the first hit.

“HTPD!” the chimp yelled as he rushed inside. “Drop your weapons and put your hands up.”

I ran across the yard as soon as the two blundered into the house. The burst of movement shredded my tight groin muscles, and I fell against the trunk of the police car. The purring exhaust pipe spewed noxious fumes into my face, spoiling the sense of smell I was only now recovering after steeping in the heady mephitis of the Velours Noir.

Virginia’s house didn’t take long to clear. Digging around in the cop car was a risky prospect, but I couldn’t help myself. I popped open the driver’s side door and found two notepads laying on the dashboard. I riffled through each like a card cheat might riffle a deck, looking for aces. If both pads went missing, it would have raised too many red flags, but nobody would think twice about a cocksure rookie losing track of his. His would have what I was after anyway: information about Guy and his car.

Someone inside the house shouted, “Clear!” and the other echoed him. I pushed myself out the door and closed it as near silently as I could manage, then hobbled across the street to Dolores.