THE DOG THAT CAME BACK

By morning, Lorenzo had moved Sophia and Emma to a hotel under police protection. Emma wanted to know why they couldn’t go home.

“Because the hotel has pancakes,” Sophia told her.

Emma accepted that answer. Sophia wished she could.

Lorenzo met Rachel at the medical examiner’s office. The blood from the warehouse matched a reference sample from Isabella’s medical records.

Rachel placed the report in front of him.

“She was alive this week,” she said.

Lorenzo read the result twice. Relief hit him so hard he had to grip the chair. Isabella was alive. She had been injured, hungry, and hiding while he mourned her.

“Where is she?”

“We’re looking.”

“And the woman I buried?”

“We’re reopening the identification.”

The first review exposed a serious problem. The dental records used after the crash had been supplied by Dr. Calvin Rusk, a dentist connected to Lorenzo’s family. An independent specialist found that the records did not match every surviving feature of the remains.

Claire Donnelly, a thirty-four-year-old event coordinator from Yonkers, had vanished the same week as the crash. Further testing identified her as the woman in the car.

Lorenzo asked about her family.

“She has a sister,” Rachel said. “We’re notifying her.”

He looked down at the report. Claire’s family had been searching for her while he visited a grave bearing Isabella’s name.

“Do you know how Claire got into that car?”

“Not yet.”

Dr. Rusk had closed his practice three weeks after the crash and moved to Florida. Rachel was arranging an interview with him.

Before she could say more, her phone rang. She listened, her expression tightening.

“What is it?” Lorenzo asked.

“Rusk’s gone. His neighbor saw him leave with a suitcase before dawn.”

Rachel ended the call. “He bought a plane ticket yesterday.”

“To where?”

“He never boarded the flight.”