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his message from the night before. Half of them were bounced e-mail and automatic out-of-town notifications. But the sight of a dozen or so solid replies was encouraging. Each one held potential.
    “Someone please know something,” he said before opening the first e-mail.
    His prayer went unanswered. Everyone expressed their shock at Sarah’s disappearance and wanted to be kept informed, but no one knew anything. All of it was supportive, but all of it was useless.
    The e-mails had proved helpful in one regard. He now had a sense of some of Sarah’s friends. Most had introduced themselves to him in their replies. A couple of people had gone to college with Sarah, while others had worked with her. It hadn’t been hard to glean she’d only had a business or professional relationship with the remainder. He found that disturbing. What did that say about his wife? She was either selective about who she made friends with or kept everyone at a distance. That wasn’t the woman he knew. Maybe he was different, and he’d broken down her barriers. That thought erred on the side of wishful thinking. If he’d gotten really close, he’d know where she was this minute.
    Terry called a cab company then brushed his teeth. Thirty minutes later, a cab tooted its horn in the driveway.
    “Where to?” the driver asked.
    “The sheriff’s office,” Terry said as he got in.
    After a short ride, the cab dropped Terry off in front of the sheriff’s office, and he walked inside. Obviously, Edenville wasn’t the crime capital of America. Terry was first and last in line. Holman and Deputy Pittman stopped their work at his arrival.
    “Mr. Sheffield,” Holman said brightly. “Did your wife come home?”
    Terry shook his head. “No.”
    “I guess you’ll be wanting to start the ball rolling on that missing person’s report.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Would you like me to start a case file, Sheriff?” Deputy Pittman asked without much enthusiasm.
    “I don’t think so. I’ll take this one. Mr. Sheffield deserves my attention. He’s had a rough welcome to the US. I want to show him that people here are decent.”
    “Thank you, Sheriff,” Terry said.
    “You’re welcome.” Holman unlatched the counter door. “Follow me into my office, if you wouldn’t mind.”
    Holman led the way into a cluttered room. There was barely room for his desk and chair and a couple of chairs for visitors. Filing cabinets consumed most of the space, and the American and Californian flags dangling from individual poles didn’t help matters. The office was painted a utilitarian gray-green, not unlike the color of the sheriff’s jacket but with the life drained from it.
    “Take a seat, Mr. Sheffield,” Holman said. He sat and fired up his PC. “So she didn’t come home then?” he said, rephrasing his earlier question.
    “No.”
    “Well, that’s not good.” Holman’s PC beeped. “Give me a second to get this machine working, and I’ll pull up the appropriate form; then we’ll get this show on the road.”
    Terry was getting Holman’s bedside-manner treatment. His comments were a little too kind, but at least he was making the effort. He seemed to be trying to make up for yesterday’s mistake.
    The sheriff pecked gingerly at the keyboard as if each key would bite him. After several minutes of manipulation, the PC beeped again.
    “Right, we’re in business. Can I have your wife’s full name?”
    “Sarah Lauren Sheffield.”
    Holman tapped in the information. “Date of birth?”
    “October the fifteenth, nineteen eighty-one.”
    “What was her maiden name?”
    “Morton.”
    Holman proceeded to enter Sarah and Terry’s mundane personal details into the computer.
    “Okay. How long has she been missing?”
    “I would guess it’s been five or six days.” Terry went on to remind him about the stacked-up mail and the phone messages.
    “But you can only be sure about the last twenty-four hours, correct?”
    “Yes,” he replied