I move to Carmen at the door in a flash, instinctively going to her, and pull her into my arms, wiping her face and shooshing her as I cradle her in a hug. She doesn’t fight me, her body is trembling, her attention fully on the void of her mother’s presence as she lets me hold her up without any kind of resistance. Her body is cold, her posture is weak, and her eyes are fixed on Colton as though begging him for answers that she knows he doesn’t have.

“We’re going to find her…. Try and be calm. Let us get out there and look. She can’t have gotten...