Sean’s first day back to work as a detective after suspension begins with a dream of his wife, Lauren. In the dream he holds her on his lap, kissing her; next, he is on the roof of his house holding a weather vane; finally, he is in bed naked with a stranger, sensing that Lauren is in the next room. He wakes to the alarm buzzing and wonders when everything in his life began to move so quickly. He realizes that it all began when Lauren left him.

Brendan begins to worry about Katie. She was meant to call him from her shift, before attending her sister’s First Communion, but she didn’t. He fights the urge to call her because Katie had expressly forbade him from ever trying to reach her at her family house; her father, for some unknown reason, hated the Harrises. Jimmy threatened to disown Katie if she ever brought home a Harris boy and even calls the whole family “scum” (78).

After a few kids report Katie’s car being found, Sean appears with the city and state department to investigate. From the amount of blood around, it’s clear to the cops that this is a homicide, but they’ve yet to find a body.