Al looked over at Lauren from time to time as he drove them back, then checked his rearview mirror to make sure Sunny was following them. All was quiet. Lauren had Joe's phone plugged into a USB charger where, if it had been a car from when they grew up, a cigarette lighter and ashtray would have been. She obviously knew the code to unlock Joe's phone, and at the moment she was scrolling, though through what he didn't know.

She was quiet for a long time, and it made Al nervous. He wished he could see what she was looking at. Her delicate fingers tapped, expanded, pinched, flicked, and he was in the dark about what that meant.

"You'll need to give me directions to your parents' house," he said. "I don't think I've ever been there."

She nodded absently. "It's not terribly far from where we live. It's funny how Joe's parents, my parents, and we live in roughly the same area of Burnaby. A blessing, and sometimes a curse."

He drove in silence a little longer, but he couldn't help it anymore. "Is there anything on--"

"Al," she interrupted, "I have to take my children home. It's going to be a very delicate situation, because the first thing they're going to ask is where their dad is."

Al cleared his throat and said, "Yeah."

"I think... I think it might be best if, when we get to my parents' house, you quietly take your leave before I get to the door. I don't want you there when they ask that question, because I don't know how I'm going to answer, and if you're there I might break down, and I need to be strong for them. The Brentwood Skytrain station isn't too far away from there, if you don't mind taking it back home."

Al blinked in surprise. It seemed a completely reasonable thing to ask, but it also sounded like a brush-off. "Oh. Okay. What about Sunny?"

"I'll call him and tell him we'll split from here and call each other later." She used her own phone to do it, making sure to lock Joe's phone before she did.

The highway took them all the way back to the Willingdon Avenue exit in Burnaby, which Al took on Lauren's direction. After taking a few more turns, they were at the Hasegawa house, a small post-war two-bedroom home with a big yard. As soon as Al stopped the car, he got out, handed her the keys, and was about to walk away when Lauren said, "Hey, aren't you going to say goodbye?"

He turned. "That depends. Are you going to eventually tell me what's on that?"

She hesitated before answering. "I will tell you anything that is relevant to finding our errant spouses."

He nodded as if that were a good enough answer. There was something she saw on Joe's phone, he just knew it, something she didn't want him to see. He also knew, though, that if it had to do with Rachel, she would have shown him.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked.

She nodded, but her chin was quivering, and he knew she was barely keeping it together. "You're not angry, are you? That I'm sending you away? I mean, there really isn't anything more we can do right now except talk around it over and over again."

He sighed in resignation. "You're right, and you have to be there for your kids now."

She nodded. "It's like that joke about being a mom: going sky-diving with your kids, and yours is the only parachute that doesn't open, and when you hit the ground, you don't die, you just get up and make dinner."

He burst out laughing, but then to his surprise he felt tears in his eyes. He felt so sorry for her, she must have felt so alone. "I'll stay if you need me," he said, voice heavy. "I could help with whatever you need, making meals, whatever."

She sniffed and quickly wiped her eyes. She strode forward and hugged him fiercely, and he was almost too surprised to hug back.

"No," she said. "It's okay. I need to be alone with them for now. But thanks for offering."

"Okay," he said, stroking her hair. He didn't tell her everything was going to be okay. That would have been a disservice to both of them.

She unlocked and said, "There's something you can do, though. Start calling hospitals. I know it's difficult to think about, but we have to see if they ended up there. I can't do that with my kids around, it will just alarm them unnecessarily."

"I will, as soon as I get home."

She nodded. "I'll call you very soon, whether I hear from them or not."

He nodded. "See you later."

She waved and went to the door. He turned and walked away.

As soon as he was out of sight, he called Sunny.

"Al, I'm not far from Lauren's place," Sunny said. "Want me to pick you up and give you a lift?"

"Yes, please. Why don't you meet me at Brentwood Station?"

"Will do. Is Lauren okay? She didn't sound right on the phone."

"I don't think she is, but I think there's a reason she doesn't want us around right now, and she's not telling me what it is."

He found Sunny waiting at the corner of Lougheed Highway and Willingdon Avenue a few minutes later. They were quiet until he climbed in and Sunny drove off, heading west back to Vancouver.

"Do you think," Sunny began, "Lauren actually didn't want me to come?"

"What?" Al was shocked at the question. He looked at Sunny. "No, why would you ask that?"

"Shame, maybe? If she knew I witnessed something inappropriate happening between you two last night, she might have been feeling a bit raw and resentful because she knew it wasn't her fault."

"Well, I'm feeling that now, but I'm still glad you're here, and having the extra body helped us cover more ground and let me find the phone."

"True. Still, it's different for women, isn't it?"

"I think she just really wanted to be alone with her kids right now; Joe's absence must feel like a missing leg right now, and having Naomi and Tosh there will help her feel whole."

"What about you? Don't you feel the same way about Rachel?"

"Of course I do, but at least we don't have kids asking about her absence. Going back to an empty apartment will come with its own challenges, though."

Sunny nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, you said on the phone there was a reason she didn't want us around that she wasn't telling you. Is that a different reason from the desire to be with her kids?"

"I think it has something to do with what she saw on Joe's phone. Maybe I'm just imagining things, but she looked through it a lot while I was driving, and she didn't tell me a thing about what was on there."

Sunny glanced over at him for a second before turning back to the road. "You don't think..." he murmured.

"What?"

"You don't think... she found something incriminating on Joe's phone that doesn't have anything to do with them being missing. Something not meant for her eyes?"

Al shrugged. "I don't know. What would Joe keep on his phone that he wouldn't want her to see? She obviously knew his passcode, so she could look at it at any time."

"Oh, yeah," Sunny said flatly. "Well, I'm at a loss."

They were quiet for a while. Then Al said, "I can't stop wondering what vehicle they used to do whatever they did. Joe left the van. We don't have a car."

"You use Modo sometimes, don't you?" Sunny asked.

"Yeah..." Al slapped his forehead in frustration that he hadn't thought of this before. "And I signed Rachel onto my account after we married! Jesus, she could have booked one!"

He opened his phone, turned on his data because they were on the road, but made sure he wasn't in his messaging app in case he accidentally sent that incriminating photo again. He opened his Modo app.

There it was, under his trips. A red Hyundai Elantra, booked at midnight. He and Rachel had used this one before, it was just a short walk away from her building in a designated stall in an open-air parking lot. That would have been her logical choice if she and Joe needed a car in a hurry.

"Here we go," he said. "Booking at midnight."

"That was about an hour after we left." Sunny glanced at him for a second. "A lot can happen in an hour, especially in the aftermath of your little show."

"Here's something odd," Al said, looking at the details of the booking. "She booked it for the entire day. So, it would expire at midnight tonight. Why in the world would she do that if they had been on their way back around four in the morning? Even allowing for some contingencies, maybe a six hour booking would have been more appropriate."

"That does seem excessive for a short trip. Unless..."

"Unless?"

"I'm just speculating here. What if, after they got back, she, or they, were planning on picking you up and heading somewhere else with you."

Al thought about that for a second. "You know what? You might be right. We sometimes go to my mom's for dinner on Sunday." Jesus, he was tearing up again. "She was just thinking ahead, right? She's so great with my mom, making sure we see her regularly; I'm not the best son that way."

"I won't judge you," Sunny said with that twinkle in his eye that Al knew so well. "Of course, my parents live with me, so I can't really avoid seeing them."

Al chuckled.

"So, we now know what they used to leave your place," Sunny said. "That doesn't necessarily mean they were in that car when Joe's phone landed in that patch of grass; you know, we're incredibly lucky it didn't break, if it flew out of a moving vehicle, or land in a puddle or something."

"Yeah, I hadn't thought of that."

"So, should we call Lauren about this?"

Al thought about it for a second. "You know what? Let's wait. Lauren is going to be busy managing her kids for the rest of the day. Anyway, it's not a whole lot of information. Just a car with a start and end time. We still have no idea where it is."

When Sunny pulled up to the building, Al said, "Thanks, buddy. You should be home with your own family now."

"Are you sure? I can help you clean up from last night or..."

"No, that's okay. Actually, maybe we shouldn't clean up. If something bad happened, anything in that room might be evidence."

"Oh, yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Something could be in one of those wineglasses, so you might want them tested. So, what are you going to do now?"

Al shrugged. "Lauren asked me to call hospitals. Maybe I'll send a screen shot of those texts to Lauren's friend, and find a way to share the voicemail with her. Otherwise... feed my cat, sit tight, wait to see if she returns the car. One benefit of her making a booking is that Modo will certainly let me know if my booking has run past expiry."

"What if you called them and asked them to locate the car?"

He blinked in surprise. "That's a very good idea. I think their system is in contact with all their cars. If I tell them the situation they might be able to help me."

"Why don't you do it now? I can't leave you like this knowing there could be a lead to track down. If it's far away, I can drive you."

"What about your family? They need you too."

"Tej wouldn't forgive me if she knew Rachel and Joe were in trouble and I didn't do everything in my power to track them down. If it's nearby it won't take very long anyway. If they won't tell you because of some kind of privacy concern, then I haven't lost any time and can go home knowing we did what we could."

Al fought back tears as he patted Sunny's arm. "You're a good friend, Sunny. Thank you."

He got himself together and called Modo from the app.

It rang a few times, then went to the automated switchboard. Being Sunday, they were probably short staffed, so he had a ten minute wait, Al shooting Sunny an apologetic grimace every so often, until finally someone picked up.

"Thank you for calling Modo, this is Parvati, how may I help you?" asked a pleasant sounding woman.

"Hi, Parvati, this is Al Mackenzie. I have a problem I hope you can help me with."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Is there an issue with your most recent booking?"

"The Elantra for today?"

"Yes... the other driver on your account... Rachel... booked it at midnight to bring back midnight tomorrow."

"That's right. Here is my problem. Rachel booked the car, and for all I know she's driving it, but I'm not in the car with her and I don't know where she is."

"You don't know where she is?" Parvati asked with a tinge of confusion.

"That's right. I was asleep at the time." He thought this was the most innocent lie he could tell, the truth being so much more complicated. "She left without telling me, and she's not answering her phone, so I don't know what's happened to her."

Silence on the other end. He'd explained it wrong, he thought. She was thinking of a simple explanation for this: there was a marital conflict, and he was stalking his wife. "I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, Mr. Mackenzie," she said.

"Well... I was hoping... your cars have GPS on them right? You're able to track them, in case they get stolen, maybe?"

"Yes, but we only do it in that kind of situation. We never track our drivers unless they're taking the vehicles off-road, or using it for another purpose that is against the terms of use. It would be an invasion of privacy. All that matters to us with tracking is the number of kilometres driven."

He was losing her, he knew it. "What if it has gone off-road?"

"A Hyundai Elantra? It wouldn't be able to go far."

"See, at around four in the morning, while I was sleeping, I received a few texts from her and a voicemail that led me to believe she'd gotten herself into some kind of trouble, and I fear for her safety. Maybe she got in a car accident?"

"There have been no reports of accidents involving our cars since the car was booked."

"Oh, okay, well, that's a good sign. But, I could hear in the voicemail that the car was being used at a relatively high speed, with screeching tires; maybe she was being chased?" Sunny nodded in approval at his ingenuity.

"That is concerning, but I still don't know if it is reason enough to breach a user's privacy, even if I was reporting the results to another user on the same account. Could I put you on hold while I speak with my supervisor?"

"Sure," he said.

Elevator music. "She's talking to a supervisor," he said to Sunny.

It only took a minute before she came back. "Mr. Mackenzie, have you contacted the police?"

"Not formally, but I did happen to run into an RCMP officer while I was looking myself."

"Were you able to file a missing persons report?"

"We haven't gone in to do it yet."

"Well, until the police get involved and get a warrant, I think we're going to have to respect the user's privacy in this matter. We've recorded this conversation and flagged the Elantra for a check back. In the meantime, there's always the possibility she will return it by midnight tonight, and if she extends the booking you will of course get a notification email. If she does not, we will call you back and then begin the process of tracking down the car. If it is an issue where the police will need to be involved, you will not be charged for late return."

He sighed in frustration. "Okay. So, if she's in a ditch somewhere I can't know about it until after midnight?"

"I understand your frustration, Mr. Mackenzie, but without proof that something criminal has occurred, we can't begin the process until the booking ends."

"Okay. All right. I'll await your call. You will call me, won't you?"

"I've put an alert on your account to call you at this number." She read off his cell number. "As soon as it ends, and it hasn't been returned, we'll call you."

"Thank you."

When he hung up, he turned to Sunny. "No dice. Go home, now. I'll call you when I find something out."

He nodded. "I'm not really surprised. They're covering their asses."

Al opened the door and stepped out. "Thanks again, man."

"Take it easy, and call if you need anything, day or night."

"Thank you."

Sunny waved and drove off. Al looked up at the building and realized he didn't want to go home yet, knowing the apartment would be empty. He decided to walk off his nervous energy and return only when it was time to feed Samson. Then he would have plenty of time to call hospitals and be on tenterhooks while waiting for Modo to call him with the bad news.

Finding Joe's phone has only raised more questions than answers, hasn't it? What is on the phone that Lauren won't show Al? You'll have to read on to find out by clicking on "Continue reading." If you liked what you just read, hit "Vote" and send this up the ranks. Leave a comment to let me know what you think!