just after 10 p.m., but didn’t pull up in front of the apartment Elyse shared with three other students until a few minutes before eleven. It was located in Westchester, near the Los Angeles International Airport. Tooney had told Logan Elyse was attending Otis College of Design, less than a mile away, where she was studying to become a motion graphics designer. He wasn’t completely sure what that meant, and neither was Logan, but it probably wasn’t important.

As he climbed out of the car, it didn’t even dawn on him that he’d been up for nineteen hours already. He was focused on Elyse. He wanted to find her quickly, and set Tooney’s mind at ease before something could go wrong. Hopefully, she was just sitting in her living room, having totally forgotten today was the day she’d promised to visit her grandfather. As for the phone, Logan could think of a dozen reasons why she hadn’t answered it.

Her apartment was in an older, two-story building with outside walkways and staircases. A quick glance at the numbers on a couple of the first floor doors told him her place, number 17, had to be up the stairs.

The doors to each of the second floor apartments opened onto the walkway. On either side of the doors were windows. Most of them had their curtains pulled shut. But while a few of the apartments were dark, the majority had at least some lights on.

He found number 17 near the back, just beyond an apartment where a TV was on and several people were laughing. The curtains were drawn across the windows of Elyse’s place, but the lights were on, leading Logan to think someone might be home and awake.

He pushed the button for the doorbell, and waited. When no one answered after half a minute, he pushed it again, and added a knock this time.

Nothing.

Tooney had said it was spring break. What if all four of the girls who lived there had gone out of town, and the last one out had forgotten to turn the lights off? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that had ever happened.