Ellen began thinking out loud. "She must have stayed in the Philadelphia area, because she chose a lawyer in Ardmore. She even had meetings with the lawyer."

Gerry shrugged. "Cheryl might know."

"Can I have her number?"

Gerry hesitated. "Why exactly are you tryin' to find Amy?"

"It's a medical thing, about the baby," Ellen lied, having prepared for the question.

"Does she have to give it a kidney or something?"

"No, not at all. At most it's a blood test. His heart is acting up again, and I need to know more about her medical history."

"She didn't have no heart problems. None of us have heart problems. We got cancer, runs in the family."

"I'm sure, but the blood test will show more than that." Ellen was freewheeling. "If you'd prefer it, maybe you could give Cheryl my number and ask her to call me?"

"Okay, I'll do that." Gerry reached out and patted her hand. "Don't worry. I'm sure the baby will be okay."

"I don't want to lose him," Ellen added, unaccountably.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Ellen got into the cold car, turned the heat up, and took off down the street under a cloudy sky. Her BlackBerry started ringing as soon as she left the block, and she steered the car with one hand and dug in her purse with the other, finding the device by its smooth feel. She pulled it out, and the screen showed the same unknown number as before, so she answered the call.

"Ellen, where are you?" It was Sarah Liu, sounding panicky. "I've been calling you. You missed the projects meeting. Marcelo asked about the think piece."

"Damn." The Thursday projects meeting. She'd completely forgotten about it, preoccupied with finding Amy.

"Where are you?"

"I wasn't feeling well this morning." Ellen was fast becoming an accomplished liar. "Was Marcelo pissed?"

"What do you think? When are you coming in?"

"I'm not sure, why?" Ellen checked the dashboard clock, 10:37.

"We should meet about the think piece. I want to see your draft."

Ellen tensed. The week had flown. She hadn't even transcribed her notes from Laticia Williams. "We don't need to meet and my draft isn't ready."

"When will it be? Our deadline's tomorrow."

"Sarah, we're grown-ups. I don't have time to give you a draft, and I don't need yours. Don't tell Daddy."

"What the hell are you doing? You didn't call Julia Guest, and I greased it for you."

Ellen switched lanes to pass a VW Beetle, fighting annoyance. "Thanks, but I have my own leads. I won't need to talk to her."

"She's connected in the community, and she wants to talk to us."

"People who want to talk are never good leads. I don't need the community spokesperson."

"Why not call her, even for background?"

"I know what I'm doing." Ellen braked, checking the car on the way downhill. "Let me handle my end. You handle yours."

"Have it your way, but make that deadline."

"I will."

"Good-bye." Sarah hung up, and Ellen hit the gas. She had to make the deadline, or she was out of a job. She pressed the button for information, then took the ramp to the expressway.

Heading east under a threatening sky.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Ellen got ahold of Lateefs teacher, Vanessa James, while her class was down the hall at the library. Tall and rail-thin, the teacher munched on a green apple as she moved quickly around the classroom, picking up stray books and crayons, straightening undersized chairs, and restoring a knit hat to its cubbyhole.

Vanessa asked, "It's all right with Laticia if we talk, right?"

"Yes, I called her on the way over. Sorry it's such short notice."

"No problem." Vanessa wore a long red sweater with black slacks and low heels. She had large eyes, a smile slick with lip gloss, and her hair straightened into a stiff bob, which showed off tiny diamond earrings winking in her earlobes. "We have fifteen minutes until they get back. What do you want to know?"

"Just a few things." Ellen slid her notebook from her purse and flipped over the cover, pen at the ready. "What kind of kid was Lateef?"

"Right to it, huh?" Vanessa paused in mid-bite, the apple at her mouth, her gaze suddenly pained. "Teef was like a light. You could say he was a class clown, but that wouldn't do him justice. He was the one who made everybody laugh. But he was a leader."

"Is there any example you can recall?"

"It hurts my heart to think about it." Vanessa tossed the apple into a scuffed brown wastebasket, where it made a loud clunk. "Okay, here's one. On picture day, he combed his hair flat as he could, which wasn't much, and he said he was Donald Trump. The photographer told him to cut it out, and he said, "You're fired." Her pretty face relaxed into a smile, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "All the kids looked up to him. We just finished our unit on African-American history. It's part of the new core curriculum in social studies the SRC set up."

"SRC?"

"School Reform Commission. For Dr. King's birthday, Lateef was voted to be Dr. King. He memorized a few lines of I Have a Dream," and he did a great job. He liked to be in front of the class." Vanessa paused at the memory. "He was quick as a whip. We do basic addition and subtraction, but he could have moved on to the third-grade curriculum, fractions and geometry. He was good on sentence structure, too; we have to get them ready for the PSSA'S."

"What's that?"

"State tests. On our report cards, I have to pick from a lot of categories, like "eager to try new things." Vanessa chuckled softly. "Lateef was my category buster. He was his own little category."

Ellen made rapid notes. "So how did the class deal with his murder?"

Vanessa shook her head, with a sigh. For a second, she seemed to focus on the large bulletin board on the wall, which was covered with red construction-paper hearts, each with a fold down the center. At the top of the board, gold glitter read, Get Ready For Valentine's Day In2But!

Ellen waited for the teacher to respond. Experience had taught her that silence could be the hardest question to answer.

"These kids, they're used to death. We lost two kids already this school year, and it's only February." Vanessa kept her face to the bulletin board. "But Lateef, everybody knew him. Everybody felt him. The District sent us grief counselors. That child was too full of life not to be missed."

"Do the kids talk about it?"

"Some of them, and some of them cry. They'll never be the same. They're not innocent, like children are supposed to be." Vanessa turned to her, her lips forming a tight line. "What I see is a real deep sadness, and it goes all the way inside. These kids, they're heartsick. And those are the lucky ones."

Ellen didn't get it. "What you mean?"

"The unlucky ones, they don't even know what's bothering them. They can't express their feelings. They have an underlying grief and fear, but instead of expressing it in words, they act out. They fight. Bite. Kick. Bully each other. Their world isn't safe, and they know it." Vanessa pointed to one of the desks by the window, in the second row. "That was Teef's seat. It's there, empty, every day. I think about moving it, but that only makes it worse."

Ellen felt a pang. She thought instantly of Will's cubbyhole in his preschool, with his name card and a picture of Thomas the Tank Engine. What if one day that were empty, never to be filled again? "What will you do?"

"I'll leave it there. I have no choice. The first week, we made a little memorial and the kids brought flowers. Here, come look at this." Vanessa crossed to the desk with Ellen following her, and she lifted up the desk lid. Inside the well sat a huge pile of cards and dried red roses, their petals shriveling to black. "These are his Valentine's Day cards. Every day somebody comes by with another one. It kills me."