Documents raised questions without answering them.

People who promised information sometimes had none.

There had been no solved murder, no recovered mother, and no established explanation I could substitute for the gaps.

I had not abandoned the inquiry.

I had refused to let an anonymous sentence turn the rest of Maya’s childhood into a waiting room.

That evening, after the photographs and the conversations, I took my daughter upstairs to sleep.

She carried her favorite toy by one arm and asked whether the hotel would bring pancakes in the morning.