AS ONE DAY MERGED INTO the next, my patience wore thin. We hunted by road, we hunted on foot, and I hunted in my sleep. Every avenue had been a dead end, a cul-de-sac of hope—or hopelessness. Each time we hunted on foot or by car, we returned home despondent—not just me but all of us. Each time I hunted within my mind, I dozed off determined to succeed but awoke with an aura of pessimism—each time more than the last.
As a precaution, Nathan had locked every window in the house—apparently to prevent me leaping up out of slumber and taking off again—as well as ensuring the doors were secured, and he held the keys himself whenever we holed in for the night.
By three days after Poppy’s call, we’d searched as big an area as anybody could. We only returned to the house each day to eat, or for
