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circumstances. You asked if she knew anything about her sister’s disappearance, and she replied negative. In fact, from what I observed, the younger sister believes this is a runaway situation.”
    “She never said that.”
    “She implied it. To my mind anyway. Granted, that doesn’t necessarily equal the Reyes girl supplying the drugs. There’s about a million reasons a teenage girl might run away. Maybe she just didn’t like being told not to date this Peralta kid.”
    “What about Seward and Reyes? Didn’t you think there was something off in the timing there? Who called the police—and when?”
    He shrugged. “Seward’s a rich asshole pulling strings. Reyes is your average member of any minority community. Doesn’t like the cops, worried about his job, so he lets Seward call. Nothing unusual as far as I can tell.”
    “Yeah, well, I think there’s more here than meets the eye. We should look beyond the obvious.”
    “Honestly, ma’am, I’ve never found much call to do that on this job. The obvious generally works pretty well.”
    Ray-Ray slowed down and scanned the numbers on a series of rundown tenements. He pulled up across the street from one of them.
    “That’s the place,” he said, jerking his head toward the building. “What do you advise we do?”
    Melanie checked her watch. It was seven o’clock in the morning. “He’s probably inside. You knock and announce, then ask to interview him. If he says no, I run back to my office and type a quick subpoena while you sit on the house to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”
    “Sounds like a plan,” Ray-Ray said.
    They got out of the car and crossed the street. Plows had gathered last night’s snow into ugly gray mounds, now decorated with intermittent streaks of bright yellow dog pee. Ray-Ray tried the door, plate glass embedded with chicken wire, with a huge crack across it. It was unlocked. They climbed three flights up a steep, poorly lit staircase to Peralta’s apartment. It wasn’t lost on Melanie that Ray-Ray kept his hand on the gun at his waistband. Normally Melanie didn’t ride along like this. The agents went out, located the witnesses, and rendered them safe—translation: disarmed them—before bringing them back to the sterile sanctuary of her government office to be interviewed. But with an investigation this urgent, there wasn’t time for such niceties.
    The door of Peralta’s apartment boasted a tattered poster of the blue-and-white Salvadoran flag. Ray-Ray raised his fist and rapped loudly with his knuckles.
    “
¿Quién es
?” asked an old woman’s faltering voice after a pause.
    “Drug Enforcement Administration. We’re here to speak with a Mr. Peralta, ma’am,” Ray-Ray said.
    “
La Dea
! ” the old lady shouted.
    From inside the apartment came the sound of pounding footsteps, followed by the screech of a window being thrown open. Ray-Ray lowered his shoulder to hurl himself against the door. Melanie grabbed his arm.
    “Exigent circumstances!” he barked, looking at her accusingly.
    He was right. They could hardly afford to wait for a warrant. A young girl was missing, and someone who might have information was escaping out a window.
    “Go!” she yelled.
    Ray-Ray threw himself against the flimsy door several times in quick succession until it burst open. Inside, curtains flapped in the wind as a dark head disappeared from view down a metal fire escape.
    Ray-Ray blew into the room and out the open window. Melanie raced after him, leaning out the casement in time to watch him clamber down the fire escape in hot pursuit of his quarry. The dark-haired kid reached the end of the metal railing and jumped the remaining six feet or so, hitting the ground and rolling. Ray-Ray leaped right behind him, scrambled to his feet at the same instant the kid did, and lunged for his legs, yanking them out from under him. In a second Ray-Ray had the cuffs on him and looked up at Melanie with a huge grin on his face. She saw