Found and Lost by Amanda G. Stevens

visit. It doesn’t make you unfit parents or even below-average parents. We’ll be patrolling the neighborhood until Khloe’s whereabouts are determined, so if she does come home, we’d appreciate a call.”
    â€œSo you can lock her up somewhere?” He hadn’t meant to snap. Now everyone else in the room was staring at him. Natalia looked ready to interrupt. You’ve said enough, Nat. “When our daughter comes home, we’ll deal with her ourselves.”
    â€œRe-education for minors is mandatory.” Agent Dell stepped forward several more heel-clacks. Her hands closed over Natalia’s, over the bagged license. “I’m sorry, but I’ll need this back.”
    Natalia stared down at her. An invisible tug-of-war ensued for the next few seconds. Clay stepped between them, severed both their grips, and caught the plastic card as it fell toward the floor. He held it out to Agent Dell, and a knife twisted in his stomach.
    â€œThank you.” The license slid from view, into her uniform pocket. Evidence. His girl’s smiling face was evidence. “Were you two home last night?”
    So they were going to ask, after all. Clay nodded.
    â€œ I was home.” Natalia stared at the wall.
    â€œMr. Hansen?”
    â€œI was home for … most of the night.”
    â€œMost?” Natalia’s eyes shifted to him, and even though she was acting, the look in her eyes dismembered him, piece by piece.
    As if she weren’t acting.
    â€œAnything that might be helpful for us in constructing a timeline for Khloe?” Agent Naebers’s dark gaze skated between them.
    â€œNo.” Agree with me, Natalia. Let’s get them to leave.
    â€œProbably not. I’m not sure.”
    â€œJust briefly, then. Mr. Hansen, where did you go last night, and when did you arrive home?”
    â€œJust a ride. On my bike.” The script they’d agreed on. Surely she wouldn’t deviate from it.
    Agent Dell tapped a toe against the wood floor before seeming to catch herself. “Did you have a dispute? Did Khloe witness it?”
    â€œNatalia broke the blender. And no, Khloe didn’t know about it. We don’t fight in front of her.”
    â€œWe actually don’t get to fighting. You’re not here long enough.”
    Stop, Nat, stop. Heat washed upward from his neck to his hairline, bright as a sunburn against his sandy hair, he knew. All three of them could see it. “These agents don’t need to hear about our personal—”
    â€œSo I threw the keys at him and told him to go for a ride, as if he needed to be told. He was gone for a few hours, at least. I don’t know when he got home exactly. I’m a hard sleeper. And since it’s going to be your next question, no, I don’t know when Khloe had the opportunity to sneak out. I guess with her father gone, anything could have happened.”
    Clay barely heard the two agents offer Natalia their card and leave with a warning against the misconception that parents could deal with philosophical crimes. A bud of pain was slowly opening somewhere in his body, blooming outward in thorny tendrils.
    He stood at the door, not seeing its painted white surface inches from his face, until Natalia’s hand closed around his arm. He turned. She stood there, so close, so beautiful.
    He buried the bedrock topic and dug into a safe, shallow one instead. “They can just walk into people’s homes now, whenever they feel like it? I didn’t hear about that.”
    â€œThey recategorized philosophical crime. Terrorism.”
    â€œThat’s not new.”
    â€œI guess it wasn’t part of the legal definition before. But anyway, it means they can enter any privately owned structure at any time, if they suspect … well, what they have to suspect is pretty vague.”
    His mind was absorbing only a portion of her words, distracted by the howling of the other, unspoken