The police searched for weeks.
They interviewed Jesse’s date, his friends, teachers, classmates, chaperones, the photographer, and the janitor who locked the banquet hall after midnight. They reviewed the grainy security footage from the parking lot outside the venue where the dance had been held.
The last confirmed image of Jesse showed him at 11:41 p.m., near the far edge of the lot.
He was standing beside his car.
His jacket was over one arm.
His head was turned toward someone outside the camera’s view.
After that, nothing.
His car was found two days later in the parking lot of a strip mall forty minutes from the banquet hall. The keys were still in the ignition. His suit jacket was folded neatly on the passenger seat, as though he had placed it there for just a moment and expected to return.
