Metro, a forensic pathologist who lived in Bethesda, Maryland. I got lost on the way there and by the time I arrived the only seats available in the backyard were next to Sharon from H.R. or next to Ray and the baby. It was an easy choice. The minute I sat down, Miles raised his chubby little arms up for me to hold him—and I did. Like I said, he was a mama’s boy. Later on, I found out that Ray’s ex-wife had decided shortly after giving birth that she had no interest in either marriage or motherhood, and had freed herself of both by filing for divorce and moving to Florida. My marriage to Ray hasn’t always been easy, either—we’ve had our share of tough times, especially after we bought our place in D.C. and money was tight for a while—but I’ve never had any doubt about Miles. He wasn’t my blood, but he was mine all the same. The way he smiled just before he made a winning move on the chessboard, that was me. The persistence he showed whenever he tried to solve a puzzle, that was me, too. I saw myself in him every day. Our bond, woven moment by loving moment for thirteen years, was strong. Yet now, glaring at me on the sidewalk, he was trying to break it. I couldn’t understand what had caused him to disown me, or why he’d chosen this particular moment to do it. “Why are you saying this?” I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper.
“Because it’s true.”
“It’s not true. Why are you talking like this? What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, something’s going on.” I put my hand on his cheek and when he raised his eyes to me, I saw that he was fighting tears. My poor, sweet son. “Tell me, baby. What happened?”
“Brandon says we can’t go to the movies.”
“He said that? When?”
“He just texted me.”
“So maybe his plans changed. Why are you so upset? You can go next week.”
“No, he’s going with Sam.”
“Which one is Sam? The one with the red hair?”
He shrugged and got all quiet again. I wondered if this was about race, the other kids were white, but whenever I had seen Miles with Brandon, the two of them seemed to get along well. It’s a terrible thing to watch your child suffer, a terrible thing. It made me feel helpless. There was nothing I could do to make my son’s pain go away. I couldn’t even comfort him with a hug, because we were standing outside the library and it might embarrass him and make things worse between us. “Tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t you work on your math, and then Dad will take you to the drive-in tonight? You can get popcorn and those Sour Patch Kids you like so much.”
He shrugged.
“Is that a yes? Say yes, it’ll be fun.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
We went inside, found a spot between an old man in a baseball cap reading one of those Left Behind books and a teenage girl leafing through brochures for the community college. Miles started a set of problems in his workbook, and I pulled out my laptop. The $25,000 reward that Nora Guerraoui had offered had been announced in the Hi-Desert Star and on KDGL three days earlier, and I’d put up posters everywhere I could think of, including the bus stop and the grocery stores, but I didn’t have any serious takers yet, just the usual white noise that comes with any announcement of a monetary reward. I wrote another email to Vasco, asking yet again if I could have that recanvass. Someone had to have seen something. I just needed to find them.
By the time we left the library, it was the middle of the afternoon and the air had cooled considerably. The arthritis in my elbow joints flared when the weather changed abruptly like this, and I buttoned my jacket against the wind. I wondered if we might be getting a thunderstorm later, which would mean no movie at the drive-in, and I looked up worriedly at the gray sky. That’s when I spotted the security cameras mounted on the eaves