Gone for Good by Harlan Coben

fingerprints could be old."
    Squares frowned, kept his eyes on the road.
    "Maybe," I went on, "she went out to Albuquerque last month or hell, last year. How long do fingerprints last anyway?"
    "Awhile, I think."
    "So maybe that's what happened," I said. "Or maybe her prints were on, say, a piece of furniture a chair maybe and maybe the chair was in New York and then it was shipped out to New Mexico."
    Squares adjusted his sunglasses. "Reaching."
    "But possible."
    "Yeah, sure. And hey, maybe someone borrowed her fingers. You know. Took them to Albuquerque for the weekend."
    A taxi cut us off. We made a right turn, nearly clipping a group of people standing three feet off the curb. Man-hattanites always do that. No one ever waits for the light on the actual sidewalk. They step into the fold, risk their lives to gain yet another imaginary edge.
    "You know Sheila," I said.
    "I do."
    It was hard to utter the words, but there it was: "Do you really think she could be a killer?"
    Squares was quiet a moment. A light turned red. He pulled the van to a stop and looked at me. "Starting to sound like your brother all over again."
    "All I'm saying, Squares, is that there are other possibilities."
    "And all I'm saying, Will, is that your head is up your sphincter."
    "Meaning?"
    "A chair, for chrissake? Are you for real? Last night Sheila cried and told you she was sorry and in the morning, poof, she's gone. Now the feds tell us her fingerprints were found at a murder scene. And what do you come up with? Friggin' shipped chairs and old visits."
    "It doesn't mean she killed anyone."
    "It means," Squares said, "that she's involved."
    I let that one sink in. I sat back and looked out the window and saw nothing.
    "You have a thought, Squares?"
    "Not a one."
    We drove some more.
    "I love her, you know."
    "I know," Squares said.
    "Best-case scenario, she lied to me."
    He shrugged. "Worse things."
    I wondered. I remembered our first full night together, lying in bed, Sheila's head on my chest, her arm draped over me. There was such contentment there, such a feeling of peace, of the world being so right. We just stayed there. I don't know how long anymore. "No past," she said softly, almost to herself. I asked her what she meant. She kept her head on my chest, her eyes away from me. And she said nothing more.
    "I have to find her," I said.
    "Yeah, I know."
    "You want to help?"
    Squares shrugged. "You won't be able to do it without me."
    "There's that," I said. "So what should we do first?"
    "To quote an old proverb," Squares said, "before we go forward, we have to look back."
    "You just make that up?"
    "Yeah."
    "Guess it makes sense, though."
    "Will?"
    "Yeah?"
    "Not to state the obvious or anything, but if we look back, you may not like what we see."
    "Almost assuredly," I agreed.
    Squares dropped me by the door and drove back to Covenant House. I entered the apartment and tossed my keys on the table. I would have called out Sheila's name just to make sure she hadn't come home but the apartment felt so empty, so drained of energy, I didn't bother. The place I'd called home for the past four years seemed somehow different to me, foreign. There was a stale feel to it, as though it'd been empty for a long time.
    So now what?
    Search the place, I guess. Look for clues, whatever that meant. But what struck me immediately was how spartan Sheila had been. She took pleasure in the simple, even seemingly mundane, and taught me how to do the same. She had very few possessions. When she'd moved in, she'd only brought one suitcase. She wasn't poor I'd seen her bank statements and she'd paid for more than her share here but she'd always been one of those people who lived by that "possessions own you, not the other way around" philosophy. Now I wondered about that, about the fact that possessions don't so much own you as bind you down, give you roots.
    My XXL Amherst College sweatshirt lay over a chair in the bedroom. I picked it up, feeling a pang in my chest.