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with Adrianne were Sarah Kolb and Cory Gregory.
    “Is this Sarah?” Officer Allen asked after a young female voice got on the line.
    “Yes.”
     
    After a few introductory words, Allen said, “Are you friends with Adrianne Reynolds?”
    “To be honest, no!”
    “Okay, but you had contact with her earlier today?”
    “Yes, I did,” Sarah said.
    “When was that?”
     
    “Oh, in between twelve thirty and one.” Sarah sounded calm. Maybe even a bit concerned for someone she had no trouble saying was as a former friend.
    “Were you and Cory Gregory giving her a ride somewhere?”
    “Yes, sir.” Sarah told Officer Allen that Adrianne did not want to be dropped off at home. So they let her out at the McDonald’s near her house. “Because,” Sarah added, “she said that she didn’t want her parents to see that she was in the car with a boy. And before, when I had hung out with her one time, she told her parents that Cory was my brother, and he’s not.”
    “Okay . . . ,” Allen said, beckoning Sarah to continue.
    “So I dropped her off at McDonald’s, which is, like, you know, right across the street from her house.”
    “Right.”
    “And that was the last time I saw her.”
     
    At one point, Sarah said Adrianne was wearing an “orange hoodie and blue jeans,” when she and Cory last saw her. Sarah gave Allen a few names of friends who might have seen Adrianne after they dropped her off. People the cops should be checking in with to see if Adrianne was with them.
    “You haven’t heard from her since then?”
     
    “No, I haven’t,” Sarah said before suggesting Adrianne had probably run away. “If you do hear anything,” Sarah added before they hung up, “I would appreciate it if you would call me and let me know.”

6
    As the nine o’clock hour came to pass on Friday night, January 21, 2005, the light snow that had started to fall earlier began to come down more steadily. Standing in his living room, looking out onto Seventh Street, watching the snowflakes collect on the grass, Tony Reynolds shook his head and wondered about his daughter. She was just a tiny thing: five feet four inches, 107 pounds. Her brown hair matched the color of her eyes. Tony kept seeing Adrianne’s smile. Hearing her voice. Seeing her walk through the front door into the living room.
    “It’s okay,” Jo told him, walking up and consoling her husband. “We’ll find her, Tony.”
    During that counseling session, which took place the Friday before Adrianne disappeared, Jo and Adrianne had had a breakthrough. Through tears and honesty, Adrianne admitted, being the intelligent young person (maybe beyond her years) she was, that by her “defying” Tony and Jo, she had been wrong. There was no room in their lives for insubordination, disobedience, and immature behavior, Jo contended. Adrianne was smarter than that. More grown-up. Jo and Tony had not asked for a lot from Adrianne, and she finally seemed to realize this. During the session Adrianne was asked how the problems she had been causing in school and at home affected her life.
    “I cannot be trusted,” she answered. It was a terse, direct response, which told the counselor that Adrianne understood the ramifications of her behavior.
     
    A major step forward.
    Later, during the same session, Adrianne added that she had done “nothing” to resolve those problems and wanted more than anything “to be able to tell the truth . . . and to know that I have earned back [that trust] I have broken.”
    “I brought all of this on myself,” Adrianne said, taking full responsibility for her life.
    She was on her way toward healing.
    Jo couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but then again, she knew Adrianne was a smart kid, with a big heart, who just needed to understand and feel that she was being loved.
    By the end of the session, they had made plans to go back in two weeks.
    But Adrianne was nowhere to be found, and the time for the second session had come and