that she needed to pop in a few other places—that’s why she’d borrowed the coat.
“Yes, Avery was here, but just for a short while,” Kit said. “From what she told me, she had additional stops to make but she didn’t say where.”
Dara had halted what she was doing by this point and was watching Kit, her expression concerned, as if she knew just from the snatches of conversation that something was brewing, and it wasn’t good.
“But why not get in the car—or at least tell the driver?” the assistant asked, her voice almost in a wail. “The guy waited like two hours and the dispatcher said they tried her cell a zillion times. She never answered.”
“Maybe the stops were close by and she decided to walk and never went back to the car.”
But even as she uttered the words, Kit realized how stupid they were. It had been practically raining sideways at the time, and even if Avery had decided to travel to the next location on foot, she would have dropped the fabric boards in the car instead of lugging them around with her.
“The driver says he was reading the paper so if she walked past him he might not have seen her, but it isn’t like her to just ditch the car,” the girl added. “No one’s heard from her, she hasn’t been tweeting, and she never showed for her eight a.m. meeting.”
A voice began to whisper hoarsely in the back of Kit’s mind: This has to do with me somehow. This has to do with everything bad that’s been happening.
“Have you been to her apartment?” Kit asked. But of course they would have checked there.
“Yes, someone from the office went up there after she missed the meeting and we couldn’t reach her on her cell. The night doorman doesn’t recall ever seeing her come in. Plus, the clothes she was wearing yesterday aren’t in her apartment.”
“You need to call the police,” Kit said. “And—I’ll go outside and ask around. At shops along the street. Maybe someone saw her.”
“Okay,” the girl said, her voice trembling now.
“Keep trying her cell, too,” Kit said. “Maybe she had an accident or medical emergency.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Kit signed off, promising to be back in touch soon. She quickly related the news to Dara.
“Did she look okay when she was here?” Dara asked anxiously. “I mean, you hear of people suddenly going into these crazy fugue states. Wasn’t there an NYU student that happened to?”
“She seemed okay to me, just busy. From what I’ve heard it takes the cops a while to act on a missing persons report, so what we need to do is hit the street and ask if anyone at a store or restaurant saw her after seven o’clock. We’ll split up to make it faster. Can you print out a couple of photos of Avery from the Internet to take with us?”
Kit could feel her dread blooming, but she commanded herself to chill, to think this through. Sure, Avery was a control freak, someone who ran her business fastidiously, but there was an impromptu side to her that surfaced now and then. Kit remembered that when the two of them had gone on their first idea-gathering mission together, Avery had suddenly ducked into a bakery and bought a box of macaroons for them to nibble on. Maybe last night her head had been turned unexpectedly and she’d given in to a spontaneous urge.
Across the room the printer began to whir and Dara snatched the pages, turning one over to Kit. Dara grabbed her coat and Kit a sweater and the two of them stepped out into the corridor. As Kit locked the door, she caught Dara looking at her almost pleadingly, desperate to know what was really going on. Kit didn’t want to share the fear that seemed intent on sucking her breath away.
“Why don’t you head south,” Kit said. “And if you recognize people from the neighborhood, ask them, too. I’ll go in the opposite direction.”
“Right.”
And then, a sound reached her ears, like the pinging of one of those gradual alarm clocks that slowly permeates the outside edges of your sleep. She froze. From Dara’s expression, Kit could tell that she’d heard it, too. It was the ringtone for a phone. Bamboo. She used that one herself, and she’d heard it on Avery’s phone, too.
“Where’s that coming from?” Dara said.
Kit turned her head slowly to the right.
“The stairwell,” she said. “Dara, you stay here. I’ll check.”