SONIA DIDN’T NEED a calendar to know what day it was. When Owen stormed into Fusco’s and started ordering drinks two at a time, nobody said a word. After delivering his first Jim Beam and Budweiser, she watched it disappear in seconds while the patrons at the pool table looked on in fascination. A man’s self-destruction was always a good show.

“Where’s Henry?” Sonia asked as casually as possible.

Owen looked at the empty stool next to him as if he expected the boy to be there and shook his head. “Back in the truck.”

She got her coat and went out to check Owen’s pickup. Heavy flakes of wet snow were tumbling and swarming everywhere, clinging to her hair and eyelashes, smoothing over the edges and seams of the world and rounding off the corners.

“Henry?” she asked. “Hey, kiddo, are you—”

The passenger side door was open.

The truck was empty.

SONIA RAN AROUND BEHIND the bar to where she had parked the Corolla, under the sign EMPLOYEE PARKING ONLY, and pulled her sleeve down over her hand to swipe a thick hood of snow off the windshield. Despite the weather, the engine started right up, and she rolled out onto the street, hoping to catch a flash of Henry’s jacket somewhere up the sidewalk.

It wasn’t the first time that Owen had left the boy in the truck only to have him wander off. The last time, back in August, she had found him standing in front of a closed toy shop window with his nose against the glass, watching the electric trains. But it wasn’t summer now, it was the beginning of a blizzard, and the temperature was dropping by the minute.

She dialed Scott and got no answer. Then, reluctantly, she called Red’s cell.

“Hey,” he said, sounding far away. “What’s up?”

“Henry’s missing.”

“Who?”

“Owen’s little boy.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. “You at work?”

“At the moment, I’m driving around looking for him.”

“Who, the kid?”

She felt a sharp finger of impatience prodding in her chest. “Where are you?”

“Doing a little online shopping. How do you feel about white gold?”

“Red, the kid’s only five,” she said. “He shouldn’t be out here alone.”

“Uh-huh.”

She sighed, realizing she had to spell it out. “You think you could possibly help me out on this one? Rouse yourself to action?”

“Where’s Owen in all this?” Red said, sounding irritated now. “No, wait, let me guess: halfway between the stool and the floor.”

“People were there for you when you needed it.” This wasn’t exactly true, actually more the opposite, but she was counting on him being sentimental enough to let it slide. “I’m wondering if you could at least call some of your friends in the fire department.”

“For Christ’s sake, Sonia, he’s not some cat stuck in a tree.” She heard a keyboard clicking in the background: at home all right, but probably Googling himself, a habit that he’d confessed from his New York days. “Call Lonnie Mitchell. Tell him he owes me one. If you don’t find the kid in the next half hour or so, let me know, I’ll see what I can do, okay?”

“Forget it.”

“Wait, princess, hold on a second—”

She hung up on him, turning left at the intersection of Norway and Aickman Avenue, heading back downtown. It wasn’t just getting dark out now, it was dark, the only light filtering from the few shops that were still open. Snow pounded the windshield in waves. Sonia turned up the car’s heater. There was an iron quality to New England darkness this time of year that she could practically taste. A little boy wandering around in this weather wouldn’t last through the night.

Red would help her if she forced the issue.

She turned left, heading out to the McGuire house.