“Kate, tell me what happened.”

“Last night she went out with some of our friends to the Woodshed, a new place we’ve been talking about trying.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s on the border of the Village and SoHo. Leesey stayed after the others left. There was a really good band, and you know how she loves to dance.”

“What time did the others leave?”

“It was about two o’clock, Dr. Andrews.”

“Had Leesey been drinking?”

“Not much. She was fine when they left but she wasn’t here when I woke up this morning, and no one has seen her all day. I’ve been trying to reach her on her cell phone, but she doesn’t answer. I’ve been calling everyone I could think of who might have seen her, but no one has.”

“Did you call that place where she was last night?”

“I spoke to the bartender there. He said that Leesey stayed till they closed at three o’clock and then left alone. He swore that she absolutely wasn’t drunk or anywhere near it. She just stayed till the end.”

Andrews closed his eyes, trying desperately to sort out the steps he needed to take. Let her be all right, God, he prayed. Leesey, the unexpected baby born when Helen was forty-five years old and they had long since given up hope of having a second child.

Impatiently, he pulled his legs off the hassock, pushed it aside, stood up, brushed back his thick white hair from his forehead, then swallowed to activate the salivary glands inside his suddenly dry mouth.

The commuter traffic is over, he thought. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to get down to Greenwich Village.

“From Greenwich, Connecticut, to Greenwich Village,” Leesey had joyfully announced three years ago when she decided to take early acceptance at NYU.

“Kate, I’ll start down right away,” Andrews said. “I’ll call Leesey’s brother. We’ll meet you at the apartment. How far is this bar from your place?”

“About a mile.”

“Would she have taken a cab?”