Page 92 of Lock Every Door

“Where should we look first?”

“Her call log,” Dylan says.

I swipe to the phone’s call history, starting with outgoing calls. The first one listed is a number with a Manhattan area code. Seeing it brings a tightness to my chest.

This is the last place Erica called.

I look at the time and date the call was made. Nine p.m., October fourth.

“That’s just hours before she vanished,” Dylan says.

“Do you recognize it?”

“No.”

I dial, my heartbeat knocking at my rib cage as the phone rings once. I hit the speaker button so Dylan can hear the second ring. Still, he presses against me, our shoulders touching.

On the third ring, someone answers.

“Hunan Palace. Takeout or delivery?”

Immediately, I hang up.

Dylan pulls away from me, his hopes dashed. “She ordered us Chinese food that night. I forgot all about that. Fuck.”

Undeterred, I scroll through a month’s worth of Erica’s outgoing calls. Nothing stands out to me. There are a few calls to Dylan. Some made to a woman named Cassie and a man named Marcus. I see another call to Hunan Palace made a week earlier, and a second one to Cassie a few days before that.

The rattle of my heartbeat slows to a disappointed crawl. I’m notsure what I expected. A frantic call to 911, I guess. Or a goodbye call to Dylan.

I move on to Erica’s incoming calls. The last one she received was from Dylan.

Yesterday. Three p.m. He didn’t leave a message.

But he did the night before, when he called shortly before midnight.

I play the message, watching the clench of Dylan’s jaw as he listens to his plaintive voice blare from the phone.

“It’s me again. I don’t know why I’m calling because it’s clear you no longer use this phone. I hope that’s the reason and that you’re not avoiding me. I’m worried, Erica.”

Dylan says nothing as I play the other messages he’s left in the past two weeks. In each of them, I note the way his voice wavers between worry and defeat.

It’s the same with messages from other people. Cassie and Marcus and a woman who doesn’t give her name but sounds vaguely British. Tension tightens their voices. An aural tug-of-war between forced hopefulness and barely contained concern.

Tucked among those messages are ones from less well-meaning sources. Visa calling to remind Erica that she’s sixty days late with her payment. Discover calling to tell her the same thing. A man named Keith calling from a collection agency asking where the hell their money is.

“If you don’t contact us in the next twenty-four hours, I’m going to call the police,” he warns.

That was eleven days ago. How wonderful it would have been if he’d followed through on that threat.

I search the text messages next. Again, Dylan is well-represented. He’s sent dozens of them. So many that my index finger cramps up before I get through the past week.

The most recent was sent shortly after midnight, two days ago.

Please tell me where you are.

It was followed a minute later by another.

I miss you.