Jonathan Ross, dead at twenty-eight, killed because he was a better reporter than even he had known. It was for him to write, and her to act. Vale.

"Boyfriend?" Kris asked.

"No," Tess said.

She sat in a cafe she had noticed while driving around town on Mission Ofrenda. The name, Twin Sisters, had drawn her in. It was apparently literal, although the photos of the owners invited disbelief. One had dark corkscrew curls, the other straight blond hair. The menu showcased the same kind of striking contrast, with pastries and tacos mixed in with more healthful fare. Tess asked for a bowl of fruit, pointed to a sugar-topped muffin in the case. "Oh yeah, the Jewish coffee cake," the waitress said, and Tess was taken aback. But surely it was meant as a compliment?

She skimmed the Eagle's weekend section, which provided a full schedule of this weekend's All Soul activities. She hadn't realized just what a big deal it was-B. B. King and Etta James were playing Saturday night, there was even a symposium on Robert Johnson. Meanwhile, the local listings claimed a band known as the Breakfast Club was still at the Morgue, while Las Almas Perdidas was scheduled to appear at Hector's. Hard to cancel gigs while one was on the run, she supposed, stealing glances at a family enjoying a late lunch. School was out, apparently, a teachers' conference according to the scraps of conversation she could overhear.

The younger child, a freckled-faced boy, was playing air guitar with a lot of Pete Townshend gyrations, while his sister rolled her eyes beneath a mop of amazing pre-Raphaelite curls, beautiful hair that would probably be her complete despair for much of her adolescence. Mother and father exchanged fond, if tired, looks over their heads, and the looks carried so much history that it made Tess ache a little. She wanted to know how these people, barely ten years older than she, had arrived at a shore that seemed so impossibly distant. Who had given up what? Who had pursued whom, who had followed? Had they ever fought, or had second thoughts? Tolstoi had it backwards. Unhappiness was the same everywhere; it was the happy families who were unique.

Sighing, she went back to her paper. She noticed the date: Friday, November 1, All Saints' Day. Tomorrow was not only Day of the Dead, it was the Day of the Deadline, the day Crow's parents expected to hear from him according to a telegram she had sent about eight million years ago. She would have to call them instead, explain how she had found their son only to lose him again. Good news, though: She now had the San Antonio Police Department helping in the search.

Why had Crow wanted a week? At first he had said it was because some record company executive was coming to town for the All Soul Festival. But even after Emmie had disappeared, and the future of Las Almas Perdidas seemed more likely to be played out in the criminal justice system than on the radio, he had been fixated on that date. You ruined everything, he had said to her in the garden of the Alamo, the next-to-last time she ever saw him. All I asked for was a week, and you couldn't even give me that. And it was only when Rick had said he couldn't expect to make bail, that he might be in jail over the weekend, that he had gone out the window. After Emmie. Not because he knew where she was, Tess realized, but because he knew he had to find her before Saturday. Why?

When Tess was a little girl, she had gone out an open window on the second story of her parents' home. She had been trying to re-create Goldilocks's flight, which seemed suspiciously easy to her. Sure enough, she had broken her collarbone, which had somewhat dimmed her pleasure in being right.

Last night, she had gone sailing out the window again, confident in own theories, and been proven wrong. That had knocked the wind out of her in much the same way.

But nothing hurt more than the thought that Crow had not trusted her with whatever secret he was hoarding. She had to find him-again, and before tomorrow. What was the law of missing objects? They can be found in the most obvious places. Crow was not an object, but he was in a city he didn't know all that well, with no car and very little money, and a mysterious deadline fast approaching.

The only thing to do, she realized, was to retrace her steps, as if she were looking for a set of keys, or a notebook, or her gym shoes. That was how you found things. Retrace your steps. Retrace them again and again and again. Think about the last time you saw or held the missing item. Retrace your steps. What you have lost is always there, you just don't always see it until the third, fourth, fifth time around.

Chris Ransome had said there was something unfinished between his son and Tess, an energy like a divining rod. It wasn't the kind of theory for which one won the Nobel Prize, but it was all she had.

Chapter 27

Before setting out, she stopped at La Casita to ask Mrs. Nguyen to keep an eye on Esskay for the rest of the day. She found the two fast friends watching yet another telenovela-Mi Amor, Mi Vida-and sharing a bag of pork rinds.

"Don't let her have too many of those," Tess cautioned. Esskay gave her a smug look, confident that she could charm the birds out of the trees. Or at least pry the pork rinds from Mrs. Nguyen's fingers.

"Okay. When you coming home?"

"No idea."

"Better take a jacket."

"Jacket? It's eighty-five degrees out there."

"See the sky?" Tess glanced at the little slice of sky visible from La Casita's office. It was bright blue, with a few white fluffy clouds. "No, other sky," Mrs. Nguyen said. "Blue norther coming in, from the northwest. Much rain, cool weather behind. Temperature drop twenty, thirty degrees just like that." She snapped her greasy fingers. "Chris Marrou on Channel Five said."

"I'll take a jacket, Mom," she said.

"And your gun!" Mrs. Nguyen called after Tess. "Always good for a girl to have her gun."

The cool front was only a rumor as Tess drove, windows down, re-covering all the ground she had covered in the past few weeks. She drove down the St. Mary's strip, where Primo's was already advertising "Lunch Box Nite!" and a new band called the Urkels. But the creepy manager was at the bank, and the smiling bartender had no news of Crow. She circled the Morgue, a forlorn place in daylight, all its doors locked and bolted, even the back entrance off the loading dock. She found the duplex on Magnolia Drive, where Crow's Volvo was still parked in the back. Had he left his car because he knew where to rendezvous with Emmie all along? She didn't think so. She thought Crow had done what she was now doing, moving in ever-widening circles, trying to find Emmie by visiting what he knew of her past. But Emmie had the home-field advantage.

She headed to Hector's, much scarier at three P.M. than it had been at two A.M. No Crow, no Emmie, she was told. Not since last Saturday night. Did she know if they would be there tomorrow? Doubtful, very doubtful.

The rhythm of driving was addictive, she couldn't stop. As long as she was moving, she was doing something. No location, no matter how tangentially related, should be overlooked. She ate an early dinner at Earl Abel's, glided past the Sterne house on Hermosa, cut over to Austin Highway, and saw the lonely band of picketers keeping vigil outside Sterne Foods. Her knowledge of San Antonio exhausted, she headed north, bypassing the town of Twin Sisters this time and going straight to the old Barrett place. She told herself she'd try Austin next, drive all night if she had to, watch the sun come up over I-35 and head back into San Antonio, repeat the whole crazy loop. Momentum was the only thing she had going for her.