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segue, but it was all she could think of.
    “I knew he would reach out to you. You were such a good influence.”
    “I was?” As Tess recalled, Crow had committed at least one felony under her tutelage. Then again, that was before they started dating, and it had not been her idea.
    “He finished school at last. Even the breakup had its positive aspects. He went to Texas, decided to get serious about his music.”
    The conversation seemed increasingly surreal, and Tess found herself conscious of the wine she had been drinking all evening. But perhaps Mrs. Ransome had been sitting by her phone, dialing the same number that no longer rang in Texas, sipping her own drink?
    “Well, it was nice to talk to you at last,” she offered lamely. Mrs. Ransome seemed to know so much about her, while Tess couldn’t remember anything more about Crow’s parents other than a few scraps of details. Had she not been paying attention? Sometimes she had tuned out Crow’s happy prattling. It hadn’t seemed to require close attention.
    “I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon,” she said. “Crow’s always been responsible.”
    “That’s my point,” Mrs. Ransome said. “He’s too responsible to do this to us, unless something is horribly wrong. We were thinking of hiring someone—”
    “I’d be glad to help you,” Tess interrupted. “Make some inquiries, hook you up with someone in Texas.”
    “—but your call seems providential, I realize now. Not to sound too Celestine Prophecy-ish, because I’m not that kind of person. Usually. But things do happen for a reason, don’t you think? I need a private investigator and here’s one calling me, one I know to be a fine, trustworthy person.”
    “I’m really not—” Tess stopped. It wasn’t that she didn’t consider herself fine and trustworthy, it was just that Mrs. Ransome’s exalted opinion sounded suspiciously like one shoe dropping.
    Mrs. Ransome wasn’t listening. It was possible that she had never really listened. From the moment she heard Tess’s voice on the line, she had been working toward just this, focusing on a single goal in her own gracious way, intent on throwing down this second shoe.
    “Tess Monaghan, would you find my son?”

Chapter 3

    T hirty-six hours later, Tess was en route to Charlottesville. She owed Crow’s parents the courtesy of a face-to-face rejection, or so she had rationalized, only then could she make them see the sense of finding an investigator who knew the territory. There were worse ways to spend a crisp Sunday in October than driving along the edge of the Shenandoahs.
    Strangely, Tyner had wanted to come along, claiming she was too nice, that she was just a girl who couldn’t say no. But it seemed to Tess that he was desperate for a distraction. He was restless lately, bored with his job and his routines, which surprised her. She had thought such feelings belonged exclusively to the young.
    “Don’t worry, I’m not going to take the work,” she had assured him. “I just want to make sure they hire someone reputable, someone who won’t run up a huge bill and never do anything more than place a classified ad.”
    “Your Toyota can’t make Charlottesville,” Tyner had said. “We’ll have to take my van.”
    “As Tonto said to the Lone Ranger, what’s this ‘we’ shit, Kemo Sabe? Besides, a car with 130,000 miles on it can easily go 400 miles more.”
    “But maybe not all in one day. And if you should decide to take the case—”
    “It would be a disservice to them to take their money. The only thing I know about Texas is ‘Remember the Maine.’”
    “‘Remember the Alamo .’ ‘Remember the Maine’ was the Spanish-American War.”
    “See? That’s how little I know.”
    Tyner gave her a sour look. “I remember when the public school education in Baltimore was something to brag about.”
    “It still is. I only got beaten up once in four years. It was a school record.”

     

    So it was that Tess’s