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wave of nausea swept over me and I was momentarily confused. Images flashed in freeze frames in my mind. Adrian bent over the fallen cyclist in Cleburne. The white car speeding away. The lifeless and bloody body on the ground. The smears of blood on Adrian’s shirt that didn’t come out after three washes with bleach. These are just memories, I reminded myself, but a vague sense of unease remained that I couldn’t reconcile. Maybe I needed a snack. I snagged a handful of macadamia nuts from a jar in my desk drawer and texted Sam:
“Remember Adrian will pick you up after practice. Please confirm.”
    I didn’t get a response. Typical. Although I supposedly required Sam to keep his phone with him, he carried it about one day out of fifty, and on that day it would have no charge. Ah, nature (his father) or nurture (his stepfather)? With Sam, probably both. I hadn’t heard from Adrian since lunch, either; he had a knack for leaving himself stranded without his phone, too. I hated not hearing from Adrian or being able to reach Sam, and my nerves were jangling. I had to focus, though. I had to finish
SBRQ
.
    At five, my cell phone rang with an unfamiliar number. I never answered those, but I remembered that Sam didn’t have his phone, and Adrian apparently didn’t have his, either, so I squeezed the phone between my shoulder and ear and kept working my keyboard. One hour until we went to press.
    “Hello.”
    “Mom, Belle left me.”
    “No, Sam, she had late swim practice. Remember? We decided this morning that Adrian was picking you up after practice.”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “I tried to text you. You should carry your phone. I don’t know why we even pay for it.”
    “I do carry it. Sometimes. And Adrian’s late.”
    “It’s only five o’clock. Give him a few more minutes.”
    He groaned. “Yeah, more like half an hour. I’ll look like an igmo standing out here. And it’s hot. Can’t you come get me?”
    “I’m finishing something that’s going to print tonight, honey. You’re going to have to be an igmo. I’ll see you at home. Love you.”
    “Ugh. Bye.”
    I sent Adrian a quick message:
“Don’t forget Sam.”
    Forty-five minutes later the phone rang again with another unfamiliar number. I closed my eyes. I just needed five more minutes of peace to finish up so I could get out of there.
    “Yes?” I pushed the speaker button and set the phone on my desk. I kept typing.
    “Mom, he’s still not here.”
    I pursed my lips and released my breath slowly. I was going to kill Adrian. “I’ll come get you, but you could walk home faster than I can get there.” My phone flashed with yet another number I didn’t recognize, but caller ID said it was the Houston Police Department.
    Sam’s voice whined from my phone, but I didn’t really hear him. I stared at the number on my screen, and I knew. Without even answering it, I knew. With my son standing outside at Bayland Park talking on a borrowed phone and waiting for a ride that wasn’t going to come, I knew.

Chapter Three
    People passed by my office door, their voices serving and volleying. I clung to my phone with both hands and stared at the screen, which kept insisting I had a call from the HPD.
    “I’ll call you back, Sam.” I pressed the button to hang up with him and accept the new call. “Hello,” I said. Or at least I thought I did. I couldn’t hear my own voice over the ringing in my ears.
    “Mrs. Adrian Hanson?” The voice on the other end was deep.
    Yes. Yes, that’s me. That is who I am. But I didn’t want to say it. I wanted to hang up the phone and stop the thing that was coming for me.
    “Ma’am, are you there?”
    I forced the words through my frozen lips. “Yes, this is Michele Lopez Hanson.”
    “This is Detective Young of the Houston Police Department. I went by your home to talk to you, ma’am, and since you weren’t there, I took the liberty of coming to your place of work. I’m right outside, and I wonder if