I reached into my pocket and pulled out the brass key to our back door, pressing the cold metal into his palm.
“In case she comes back while I am out looking,” I said.
Roy closed his hand over the key, his nod slow.
“Go inside, Helen,” he murmured.
“She did not take her savings,” I said. “She has forty dollars in a drawer.”
“Forty dollars does not go far in Richmond,” Roy said, his pencil pausing over the paper.
“She has her student ID,” I said.
“We will find her, Helen,” he said, though he did not look at me as he spoke.
He got back into the sedan, the door closing with a thud that seemed to vibrate through the gravel.
I stood in the driveway and watched the car shrink down the street until it turned at the corner by the bakery.
The air smelled of cut grass and asphalt, and the street was completely empty.
The shadow of our maple tree lay long and dark across the grass, pointing toward the empty road.
