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We arrived just in time to sit in on the interview Odelia and Chase were conducting with Carmel Kraft, Angel’s best friend.

“Where were you?” asked Odelia when we jumped up onto the bench. When I told her we met Big Mac and gave her a brief report of what we’d learned—minus the alien stuff—she frowned, and I could see that the wheels in her mind were turning already as she tried to reconcile this new information with what we already knew.

Carmel, who’d joined us at our table and was still wearing her McDonald’s outfit, looked nervous. She was a petite young lady, with a lot of frizzy dark hair and fine-boned features.

“This stuff is great,” said Chase as he worked through a bag of French fries, freely dipping them into the small container of mayonnaise that came with them.

Meanwhile Odelia had distributed a few tasty morsels of food for Dooley and myself, and we both eagerly dug in.

“So you have absolutely no idea where Angel could be?” asked Odelia, continuing a conversation that had clearly already begun.

“No idea,” she confirmed.

“But you did see her last night?” Odelia asked, taking a sip from her soda.

“Oh, yes,” said Carmel. “There were six of us. Angel, me, Amy, Beatrice, Jody and Bridget. We’ve been besties since middle school, and we keep in touch, even though Bea and Jody are in college now, and Angel is considering going next year.”

“So we talked to Mariko Jarmusch,” said Chase, “and she told us that Angel is dating a boy named…” He consulted his notebook, which was lying open on the table. “Um, Matteo…”

“Drews. Matteo Drews. Yes, that’s right. Angel and Matteo started dating a couple of weeks ago, which we all thought was weird, since we figured Matteo wasn’t into girls. But apparently he is.” She made a face.

“Is it possible that Angel is with Matteo?”

“No, he’s in Milan right now—that’s in Italy.”

“Okay, so take me through the events of last night, Carmel,” said Odelia.

“Well, we all met up at Amy’s house, like we always do, and got ready to go out. Amy has the most amazing collection of clothes and accessories—her mom owns her own boutique and she has great taste and so does Amy. So it’s become a tradition that we go over to her place and have fun gettingdressed and put on makeup. And so then we came here to have a little supper and we started off by going to Club Couture, then to Eclectic—that’s a new place we wanted to check out—it sucked, by the way. And from there we pretty much went from club to club, like we always do, and then we usually finish back here, for a bite to eat.”

“But last night Angel left early, is that correct?”

“Yeah, she did. She wasn’t feeling good, so she decided to skip the last part and go home, take an ibuprofen and crash.”

“What time was this?”

“Oh, around… two-ish, I guess?”

“And the rest of you took a cab and came here?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“And Angel walked home.”

“Yeah, she said she thought some fresh air would do her good. It would sober her up.” She bit her lower lip. “We shouldn’t have let her take off like that, should we? She was probably snatched by some maniac in the woods.”

“We don’t know that, Carmel,” said Odelia reassuringly. “All we know right now is that she made it to the woods near where she lives, and that’s when the trail runs cold.”

“So she never made it home?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“I tried calling her this morning, and when she didn’t pick up, and didn’t answer any of my messages, I knew something was wrong.” Suddenly she burst into tears. “This is all my fault. I should never have allowed her to walk home all by herself!”

“It’s not your fault, Carmel,” said Odelia, and gave the girl’s arm a comforting squeeze.

Carmel glanced up when a man dressed in a manager’s outfit called out her name, looking none too friendly.

“I have to get back,” she said, then looked at Odelia imploringly. “Please find her, will you? She’s my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do if…” She swallowed, and tears sprung to her eyes anew. She wiped them away.

“Can I ask you one more thing? Is it true that you fancied Matteo at some point?”

An amused smile flitted across the girl’s face. “Who told you that? Yeah, I did fancy him for a little while—all the girls did. But that was before someone told me he was into boys.”

“So what did you think when Angel started dating him?”

“I was surprised,” said the girl. “Angel said it wasn’t serious, though. Said they were just fooling around. So I just figured Matteo wanted to experiment. See what it’s like to be with a girl, you know.” She shrugged. “At least he didn’t experiment with me. I wouldn’t want to be that girl.”

“What girl?”

“The girl a guy like Matteo fools around with. When I date a boy I want him to be with me because he’s into me. Not just for fun, if that makes sense.”

“It does,” said Odelia, and shared a quick smile with Chase.

Carmel looked from Odelia to Chase, and said, a little breathlessly.“You’re a couple?”

“Yeah, Chase is my husband,” said Odelia, and showed the girl her wedding ring.