Cemetery Girl

Chapter Seventeen

My father died when I was four. Pancreatic cancer. Most of my memories of him are in fragments-little, tattered pieces I carry around with me. They come back at odd moments. I remember the musky smell of his cologne and the rough way his stubbled face scraped against mine. Sometimes when I’m shaving my own face, I wonder how much he and I would have looked alike.

I remember that his hands were big, with thick fingers, and when he picked me up and held me under the armpits, his grip was so tight and strong it hurt a little. A good hurt that I didn’t mind. And I remember his voice, loud and strong, and the way it almost seemed to ring when he called my name or my mother’s name from across the house.

But the most coherent memory of him occurred on a spring day about a year before he died. It’s the only sustained narrative memory of him I have.

My mother wasn’t home. I can’t say where she was or what she was doing, but she wasn’t there, which meant my father was watching me. And I don’t know if he knew he was sick yet or not. If he knew, he would have just found out. More likely, he hadn’t been diagnosed yet, but the cancer was already there, growing inside him, extending its tendrils into his healthy cells and tissue, destroying his body from the inside out.

Our backyard sloped down to the houses behind us. Some kids a little older than me lived back there. Our mothers knew each other, and from time to time they’d let us all run around together under their watchful eyes. On this particular spring day I’m remembering, I was out with those other kids, a boy and girl named Amy and Kevin. The weather was newly warm, the trees and flowers were starting to bud and bloom, and the parents were probably glad to be able to let us all out of the house to burn off energy.

But at some point that day, the skies darkened.

Enormous clouds, thick and purple and looming, grew above us. The wind picked up, making branches and leaves fall to the ground around us. It buffeted our small bodies until we swayed and struggled to stay on our feet.

There’s a gap in my memory. It’s possible the parents of the other children called them in, or perhaps the other kids decided to run home in the face of the threatening storm. I just know that I ended up in our backyard alone as the storm continued to blow. And it seemed as though the entire world had been set in motion. The trees bucked and bent, the fence that bordered the yard shuddered, and everything that wasn’t anchored down-every leaf, every scrap of paper, every grass clipping-took to the air and swirled around me until I felt as though I were standing in one of those Christmas snow globes, the kind that when shaken produce the kinetic spinning of a blizzard.

I turned toward the house, moving my little legs a half step at a time. The wind pushed against me, holding me upright as though I were being restrained by invisible wires. Something flew into my eye, a quick stabbing pain. I pressed my hand against the eyelid and kept walking forward as best I could.

By the time I reached the side of our house and came around into the front yard, rain had started to fall. Thick, pelting drops splattered against my face and into my hair. My breath came in jerking huffs. My one open eye blurred and burned from the tears. And I finally reached a point, standing on the side of the house, where I decided I just couldn’t go on anymore. I let the wind push me back, let my body go slack and loose, and I sat down in the grass, my hand still pressed against my eye. I remember thinking, very clearly, that I was going to die right there, that my life was going to end in the storm, in the side yard of our house.

I don’t know how long I sat there. It couldn’t have been very long, because I don’t remember getting very wet. But at some point I looked up and there he was. My father, standing over me, his face creased with concern. I thought he was angry with me for being out in the rain, but he didn’t say or do anything to indicate anger. Instead, he bent down and gathered me in his arms and squeezed me tight against his chest. I went limp in his grip and buried my head against the side of his neck. I breathed in his familiar scent, and in that moment I knew what it meant to be home. To be protected. To be safe. And long after my father died and this became the only solid memory of him I carried with me, I used this moment as a measuring stick, a guide to remind me of what a father was supposed to be.

Chapter Eighteen

The business card with Susan Goff’s name sat on the kitchen table amid the crumbs and the morning paper.

I had picked up the phone twice and put it down twice, changing my mind, before I finally placed the call.

I was alone in the house. Really alone. Abby had been gone three weeks. Whenever I called Ryan for updates, he offered nothing new and told me to be patient. Liann e-mailed me a few times, just checking in, as she put it, but the lack of developments didn’t give us much to talk about. And my occasional trips to campus only reminded me of how little interest I had in writing a book about Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Susan Goff answered her phone with a bright, energetic voice that made it tough for me to estimate her age. She could have been in her twenties, or she could have been pushing sixty. But her enthusiastic greeting did have one effect-it disarmed me and made me more at ease than I’d expected to be.

“I was referred to you by a friend,” I said.

“Wonderful,” she said. “What can I help you with?”

“I don’t know. Do we set up an appointment or something?”

“Yes, of course. But just a casual chat. I hate the word ‘appointment.’ It sounds so businesslike. Don’t you agree?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Okay. Well, just so you know, my name is Tom Stuart, and I’m calling because of my daughter.” I started to tell her the details of Caitlin’s disappearance, thinking she would want to know them up front, but she gently interrupted me.

“Oh. Oh, yes. Oh, I know who you are. Yes, yes.”

“You’ve heard about it on the news.”

“Yes.” She paused. “From the news. And Tracy told me she’d be giving you my card. This is so very sad. I’m so very sorry for this.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It was Tracy who referred me to you.”

“And have you been seeing someone else? A professional therapist?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You need to know up front that I’m not a licensed therapist or a professional counselor. If you need that, I can’t help you.” She laughed a little, a self-deprecating sound. “I volunteer through the police department, but I don’t work strictly for them. I’m not any kind of police officer, and I don’t investigate crimes. In fact, I don’t just work with the victims of crime. I might work with someone who has a loved one who has committed suicide. Or families that have lost someone in an accident. That sort of thing.” She made it sound as casual as helping someone choose wallpaper.

“So you’re just a person who helps people?” I asked. “Couldn’t I just go out in the street and start talking to someone?”

“I’ve been trained,” she said. “They don’t just throw us out into the community and turn us loose on people in their most vulnerable moments. That wouldn’t make much sense, would it?”

“Do you hold a license or degree in something?” I asked.

“Everyone in Volunteer Victim Services goes through an eight-week training session. At least once a year we go back for a continuing ed course, and we all have criminal background checks. Hell, once a month I pee in a cup so the state of Ohio knows I’m not doing any illicit drugs. It’s all to give us a grounding in the basics of helping people in need.”

“And what do you do for them?” I asked. “What can you. .?”

“What can I do for you?” she asked. “I’m really just a support system, Mr. Stuart. Someone to listen to your problems. You know, the police officers are so busy with other aspects of the cases they work on. The investigating, the testifying, the prosecuting. That’s not what I do. Mostly I listen. I try not to judge or offer heavy opinions, but if you ask me for one, I’ll share it. That’s up to you. Does that sound like something you would be interested in?”

I didn’t feel like I could say no, even if I wanted to. She was so there, so in the moment for me. She was so ready to help. And the fact that she wasn’t a police officer or a minister or even a crusader on behalf of victims’ rights made me feel better. She did seem like someone who wanted to help me.

“Okay,” I said. “Yes. Do you want to make an appointment-a meeting time-for next week?”

“Let’s get together tomorrow at four,” she said. “Do you know the Courthouse Coffee Shop downtown?”

“I do.”

“Let’s meet there,” she said. “If you don’t like me, at least the coffee will be good.”

A year or so after Caitlin had disappeared, around the time Abby would have been having her miscarriage, she and I discussed what to do with Caitlin’s room. We had been keeping it just as it was the day Caitlin disappeared-the clothes in the closet, the personal items on the shelves. But Abby started to make a case for change. She went out of her way to tell me we wouldn’t throw away anything, but she wanted to pack up some things and move them to the attic, and then paint the walls and rearrange the furniture.

“The room is an obstacle, Tom,” she said, no doubt using language she’d heard from Pastor Chris in one of his “counseling” sessions. “We can’t move on with it there.”

I categorically told her no. I left no space for argument.

And the room stayed intact.

Just before I left the house to go meet Susan Goff for the first time, I stopped by Caitlin’s bedroom. I went in there several times a month. I liked to sit on the bed or run my hand over the desk and the bedclothes, picking up the stuffed animals and putting them back down exactly where Caitlin had left them. In the first hours after Caitlin’s disappearance, I combed through the room, digging into the drawers, opening school notebooks, looking for anything that might give us a clue. Then the police took over that job, and they discovered the Seattle and Amtrak information that conjured the possibility of Caitlin being a runaway.

When I went in there before seeing Susan, something felt different. The space seemed foreign to me, almost forbidden, as though I were about to enter a room belonging to a stranger, one who wouldn’t want me intruding upon her world.

And while I stood there, my mind ran through the what-ifs: What if Abby and I had had another child; what if she’d carried that baby to full term? Would it have taken over this space? Would Caitlin’s memory have been effaced from our lives?

I pushed open the door.

The blinds were closed and little light entered, giving the room a gray, wintery cast. It smelled musty, as I’d expected. I ran my hand across the top of the dresser to my left, acquiring a thick layer of dust on the tips of my fingers. The floor squeaked beneath me as I moved across the carpet. A cluster of young adult books sat on a shelf; a group of stuffed animals lay at the foot of the bed. On a small shelf above her desk, two trophies from the two years she’d played soccer through a local youth group. She didn’t want to play and insisted, even in the car on the way to the first practice, that she wasn’t going to do it or go along. But go along she did, and she ended up loving it, and even talked of playing in high school someday, all of which amounted to a rare display of interest on her part in a group activity.

The bed remained unmade. I went over and sat on it, felt the springs bounce beneath my weight, and remembered the nights when Caitlin was small and too scared to go to sleep alone. Either Abby or I would take turns coming in and lying next to her until she fell asleep-her soft, whistling breaths assuring us we could go-but we always made sure to leave the door cracked so she could see the faint light in the hallway.

I pushed myself off the bed and went to the closet. This time, before this door, I didn’t hesitate. I pulled it open, then reached up and yanked the light cord. I took a step back. The closet was packed full. Her clothes were crowded together so tight they could barely move from side to side. I recognized and remembered certain things. A pink sweater we gave Caitlin one Christmas. A Fields University football jersey, girl sized and bearing double zeroes. At the far end of the closet, I came across Caitlin’s winter coat, a puffy red parka. I touched it, squeezed the soft sleeves in my hand, and with a stabbing ache was taken back to a winter day six years earlier when Caitlin and I had built a snowman in our yard.

The pain I felt was literal and real. It went through my chest and into my back. I closed my eyes, clenched them shut, and heard Caitlin’s laughter in the yard, a giggling trill. I felt the sting of the cold wind on my cheeks and the wet burning from the snow she’d dumped down the back of my shirt. For that moment, that one painful, glorious moment, she was there, Caitlin, and then just as quickly it passed. The pain eased; the memory receded. I opened my eyes and it was just me, a middle-aged guy standing in a closet, clutching a child’s coat.

And the child was gone.

The thought popped into my head, just like the memory of playing in the snow. I never thought it so clearly and with such finality. She’s gone. Caitlin is gone. And I knew, as time passed, the memories would fade, and the haunting, stabbing moments would come back to me with less frequency until, someday, they might be gone forever, and with them all tangible sense of my daughter.

I pulled the coat tight to me, pressed my face deep into its fabrics and folds. I inhaled. It smelled musty like the closet, but I didn’t care. I breathed deeply again and again, letting the musty smell fill me.

I took the coat and placed it back on its hanger, then started working it back in among the other clothes on the rod. I stepped back, my hand on the closet door, when I saw the flash of red. I thought it was a hat or glove. The weather had been cold in the days leading up to Caitlin’s disappearance, but on the day she disappeared, we’d experienced a brief late-winter warm-up, so Caitlin had left the house that day in a lighter jacket instead. I noticed that the red object looked fragile, almost papery, and parts of it fell to the ground.

I reached for it, and it crumpled more. It was a flower, a red carnation. It felt brittle in my hand, a handful of dust. A single stem, with no note or adornment. No ribbon or lace. I didn’t know where it came from, except that Caitlin must have gotten it in the days before her disappearance. Where she’d come across that red carnation, I couldn’t guess.

Chapter Nineteen

I saw them together in the parking lot. I’d gone to the grocery store looking for better food. My bachelor diet was making me feel sluggish and drained, a corpulent lump on the living room couch. I forced myself out into the world, out to where living people ate things that were green or yellow or red and not in a box or a can.

I was leaving the store when I saw Abby and Pastor Chris getting out of a car together. He waited for her, even went so far as to place his hand on the small of her back as she walked by. I stopped where I was and watched them. I held my plastic bag in one hand, the car keys in the other. It took them a moment to see me. They walked close together, leaning in toward each other as though sharing secrets.

Chris saw me first. Something crossed his face-momentary guilt? — but just as quickly his happy mask snapped into place. His smile grew wider than normal and he called out to me like we were old friends.

“Tom!”

His hands fell to his sides, stiff and straight as tent stakes.

I didn’t say anything. I watched Abby. She looked away, first at the ground, then at the sky; then, when left with no choice, she looked at me.

“Hello, Tom,” she said.

“Hello.”

They stopped, and for a long moment the three of us stood there, Mexican standoff style, while shoppers pushed their carts past us and minivans full of kids and groceries navigated the lanes.

I tried to keep my voice level.

“You two look awfully domestic together, don’t you?”

Chris kept smiling. “Just buying groceries,” he said. “We have a youth group meeting tonight at the-”

“Shut up.”

He blinked his eyes a few times, a hurt puppy.

“Come on, Chris,” Abby said.

“Yeah, go on,” I said. “Go on with another man’s wife. Isn’t there a commandment about that? Or does your church not do the commandments anymore? Is that why people like it so much?”

“Now, Tom,” Chris said, bringing the smile back. “I don’t think there’s any need to say these things to me.”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

Abby took Chris’s arm and pulled him toward the store.

“Go home, Tom,” she said. “Think about what I said about getting help.”

I managed to switch my keys from my right hand to the left, leaving me free to reach into my pocket. I pulled out a plastic sandwich bag, the kind with a zipped top. It held the remains of the flower I’d found in Caitlin’s closet.

“Do you know what this is, Abby?” She stopped and squinted at the bag, confused. “I found this in Caitlin’s closet. It was in her coat pocket.”

She shook her head but didn’t say anything.

“It’s not over, Abby. I know you want it to be over. I know you want to move on. Apparently, you have moved on. But it’s not time yet.”

Abby stared at me for a moment. I thought she was going to say something-anything-but she just turned and started for the store, leaving Chris behind her.

“She had a miscarriage,” I said to him. “Our baby, about a year after Caitlin disappeared. And she didn’t tell me.”

Chris pursed his lips. “It was a difficult decision for Abby,” he said. “I counseled her about it. We prayed about it. She decided it was the best thing to do, to keep it from you.”

“You knew?”

But he was already gone. Having given me a little wave good-bye, he hustled to catch up with Abby, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the parking lot.

Courthouse Coffee sat on the opposite side of the square from the police station and served a very different clientele. During the day lawyers and businesspeople stopped there for lattes and cappuccinos, and at night college students congregated there with their books and laptops. At least once a month, Courthouse Coffee hosted a poetry reading, and a rotation of local artists hung their work on the walls. Because I considered it a student hangout, I didn’t spend much time there, and my awkwardness at entering the coffee shop was exaggerated by the fact that I had no idea how to identify Susan Goff. I had hung up with her without asking how we’d know each other. But as soon as I walked in, I heard my name.

“Dr. Stuart? Tom Stuart?”

I looked around. Most of the tables were occupied, but only one was occupied by a woman who was halfway out of her chair, waving at me. She called my name again and continued to wave, and it felt as though everyone in the room had turned to look at me.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s me.”

I crossed to her table and took her in. She wore her gray hair short and a little mannish, and a pair of half-moon glasses sat perched on her nose. She took the glasses off when she stood to shake my hand, and I saw that she was wearing beige cotton pants, white sneakers, and a loose, baggy shirt. Her grip was firm, and her no-nonsense appearance seemed in opposition to the cheeriness of her voice.

“I recognize you from TV,” she said loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Lucky me.”

“Do you want a coffee?” she asked. “I love the coffee here.”

“I’m okay,” I said.

We sat on opposite sides of the small table. She maintained a wide yet sympathetic smile, and her gray eyes studied me as though I were the most fascinating person she’d ever met. I placed her age in the midfifties.

“Well,” she said. “You’re on quite a journey.”

“Like I said, Tracy Fairlawn sent me your way.”

“She’s on quite a journey, too.”

“Have you been able to help her?” I asked.

“I listen to Tracy a lot,” Susan said. “I think she needs that.”

“And you think that helps her?” I asked.

“Why don’t I tell you a little more about what I do, and then you’ll understand where I’m coming from,” she said. “Like I told you on the phone, I’m not a professional. I’m a volunteer. I’m not a therapist or a licensed counselor. About ten years back, the state realized there were people falling through the cracks. They may have suffered a personal tragedy of some kind, and they may have been reluctant to seek remedies through traditional mental health venues like a therapist or counselor. Volunteer Victim Services was created to fill that gap. It’s just people like me helping people like you. The police or other social service agencies dispatch us if they think there’s a need. We know how to spot larger troubles if they’re there, and we know where to refer people whose problems go beyond the scope of what a volunteer can do. Believe me, we know our limits, and we’re overseen by social workers who know them too. Otherwise, we’re here to listen and help people cope with the transitions tragedy brings to their lives. Does that make sense to you?”

“How did you get involved with this?” I asked.

“My children are grown, and my husband and I split up about five years ago,” she said. “I retired from the school system around the time of the divorce.”

“You were a teacher?” I asked.

“No, a secretary. Sorry, an administrative aide. I worked in the superintendent’s office. When I retired and got divorced, I was looking for something to do, some way I could help people. I didn’t want to just sit around living off my pension and gardening. It sounds really corny and noble, doesn’t it?”

I had to laugh. “It does. It really does.”

“Guilty as charged,” she said. “Are you sure you don’t want anything? I was just about to go up for a refill.”

“Okay. Coffee.”

While Susan went up to the counter, I studied the crowd. Normal people having a normal day. I recognized a former student who didn’t look over at me, and a colleague from another department who waved and went back to his laptop. And there I was talking to a complete stranger about the most important thing in my life.

Susan returned and placed a mug before me. “So,” she said, “what’s it been like since you were on TV?”

“Not what I was hoping for,” I said.

She didn’t say anything. She just held that steady, considering gaze on me, the one that said she was ready to hear anything and everything I might have to say. Before I knew it, I was saying more.

“The sketch and the press conference led to a lot of crank calls and not very helpful information. People claiming to see Caitlin’s ghost, or perverts saying they had Caitlin with them right there. I know it’s not unusual for that to happen.”

“No, it’s not,” Susan said. “It makes people feel important, even the pranksters.”

“Has anyone in your family ever been the victim of a violent crime?” I asked.

“We’ve been lucky.” She sipped from her mug. “We don’t have to talk about your daughter,” she said. “We can talk about other things. We can talk about your job, for example. I saw in the paper you teach at the university. What’s that like?”

“Oh, God,” I said. “No one wants to hear about that. I’m writing a book on Nathaniel Hawthorne. That should tell you all you need to know.”

“I love to read,” she said. “I was a literature minor-”

“I don’t want to waste your time,” I said. Despite Susan’s openness, a discomfort gnawed at my insides, a raw rubbing I couldn’t shake. Being there and talking felt unnatural to me. “Maybe this isn’t the best thing for me. It’s unusual-” I stopped and turned away from Susan, letting my gaze wander out the window to the traffic circling the square. I felt muddled and unfocused. “You’re a complete stranger, and I’m somewhat of a private person.”

“I understand that this is difficult,” she said. “We can talk about the weather if you’d like.”

“I don’t know. It’s just. . this sketch, the drawing of this man. It’s the best lead we’ve had, you know? But in some ways it’s making things worse for me.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

Susan Goff didn’t say anything. She just sat there, coffee mug before her, waiting.

“I’m afraid,” I said finally.

“Of what?”

I paused. “I’m afraid if I admit my doubts, they’ll become reality.”

She kept her steady gaze on me. “What are you afraid of?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t say it. I refused to say it.

“Are you afraid she’s dead?” Susan asked.

“Jesus Christ. You can’t just say that to somebody. You can’t just be so cavalier about it.”

Susan straightened a little in her chair. “You’re right,” she said. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Jesus.”

“Maybe I’m overstepping too soon.”

“Maybe.”

“But I was just trying to give voice to what you were already thinking.” She cleared her throat. “You’re here because you want to know something about yourself. You feel guilty. And you want to know if it makes you a bad father to allow yourself to think the worst. It’s not an unusual response. I worked with a woman a few years back. Her sixteen-year-old son had been killed in a car accident. Sixteen. About a year after the accident she decided to give his clothes to Goodwill. She felt so guilty and like such a bad mother, she practically collapsed. She went to bed for a week. I had to go and talk to her in her bedroom. Do you see how this can affect people?”

“I guess you’re right.” My voice sounded thin and distant even to my own ears.

“Why would you think she’s dead?”

I felt small in the chair, like a child. “It’s been four years. With no real advances in the case. Even the recent events, this man-”

“This is the man from the strip club? The one in the sketch in the paper?”

“Yes.”

“The man who Tracy saw.”

“Has she talked to you about him?” I asked. “Has she said anything about this man?”

She didn’t answer.

“You can’t say,” I said. “Or you won’t say. Which is it?”

“If one of your students came to you and asked about another student’s grade, what would you say?”

“I get it,” I said.

“Let me ask you this-why would it be such a problem to admit that your daughter is in all likelihood dead?”

“I’m not supposed to. I have to believe she’s not gone.”

“Why?”

“I’m her father.” It was the best and simplest answer I could summon.

“But you don’t really seem to believe this. I can tell. You’re full of doubt. And that’s why you’re here, right? That’s why you’re talking to a complete stranger after all this time, when I know you’ve had plenty of opportunities to talk to shrinks and social workers. You’re here because you’ve been playing the big, strong man all this time, and now the doubts are starting to win. Right?”

“I thought you didn’t offer opinions or judgment unless asked?”

“You seem like you can handle it,” she said. “So, am I right?”

My throat felt constricted and phlegmy. “When I look around, I see that everyone else is moving on, has moved on, and maybe I should do the same.”

“Maybe?”

“I should move on,” I said.

“But why? Why now? What’s changed?”

I reached into my own coat pocket and brought out a ziplock bag. I handed it across the table. Susan took it, examined it, and then looked at me.

“A wilted flower,” she said.

“Before I came over here today, I went into Caitlin’s room. I do that from time to time.”

“Is it still her room?” Susan asked. “Have you changed it?”

I shook my head. “It’s exactly the same.”

“Ah,” she said as though my answer meant something. But she didn’t explain.

“She wore that coat to the park in the days before she disappeared. Then the day she disappeared she wore a different coat. I think the man who took her-the man in that drawing-gave her the flower. It was right before Valentine’s Day.”

“Hmm.” Susan held the bag in her hands, turned it over, and looked at it from all sides. Her nails were short and unpainted. She seemed to be taking the flower very seriously. “Maybe she picked it up off the ground. Or took it from the cemetery, off of a grave. Or a school friend gave it to her. There are other possibilities.”

“Why would she keep it in her coat if that was the case? It’s like she was hiding it.”

Susan shrugged. “I think you should share this with the police. It’s over my head, to be honest. But if it’s evidence, if it’s important, they should see it.” She handed the bag back.

I took it and held it in my hand for a long moment. I couldn’t imagine giving it away to the police. It was foolish, I knew, but it seemed like a strong link to Caitlin, and I couldn’t just give it away.

“It’s like an artifact, isn’t it?” Susan asked.

“You read my mind.”

“I don’t do that. But I will tell you that when my husband moved out of our house he left some of his things behind. Some old clothes, some books. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them.”

“When did you finally do it?” I asked.

“Never,” she said. “They’re still right there and probably always will be. That’s why I understand how that woman I mentioned felt about her son. And how you feel about this.”

“I don’t know if that’s encouraging or disturbing,” I said.

“Neither do I.”

I slipped the plastic bag into my coat pocket. “Well, since we’re telling each other all our dirty little secrets, I thought I could ask you one more thing.”

“Shoot.”

“You read the paper, right? And saw the story about the press conference where the police released the sketch? You know that I mentioned seeing something-someone-in the park where Caitlin disappeared.”

“The ghost,” she said, holding her hands up and making air quotes.

“What do you make of that?” I asked. “Is it possible? Did I see something. .?”

“You saw something,” she said. “I’m an open-minded person by nature. I tend to think it’s possible there are things we just don’t understand in this world. People and things we don’t understand. Maybe you just saw what you wanted to see.” She paused and studied my face. “We all have ghosts, Tom. We trail them along behind us like banners.”

“Or like weights,” I said.

“What are you going to do with your weight?” she asked.

I didn’t know. I really didn’t know.

But I didn’t get up to leave. I stayed in my seat.

“The police. .” I said.

“What about them?”

“The police think Tracy might know the man she saw in the strip club. And she came by my office at the university and hinted at the same thing.”

“I told you I shouldn’t-”

“And then she asked me for money.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Did you give it to her?”

“Am I being played here?” I asked. “Is she up to something?”

“Tracy is not fully healed. You need to keep that in mind when you have dealings with her. If she asks you for money again, I suggest you don’t give it to her. I’ve made that mistake with her before.”

“I guess it’s hard to resist the urge to help,” I said. “It’s hard to forget she’s somebody’s daughter. Somebody somewhere.”

“We all are, aren’t we? We all are.”

Chapter Twenty

The cell phone woke me the next morning. My eyes fixed not on the buzzing, vibrating phone, but on Caitlin’s red coat, which I’d tossed across a chair the night before. The coat that had held that red flower.

I looked at the clock: 6:15. Early. It was still dark beyond the curtains. Predawn.

I didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID. I thought about letting it go to voice mail, but I looked at the coat again. Something wasn’t right. The phone shouldn’t be ringing so early. .

“Hello?”

“Tom? This is Detective Ryan.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Tom, I need you to come down here right away.”

I kept my eyes fixed on the coat. I felt cold, the blood in my body icy.

“What is it? What happened?”

“We may have found Caitlin, and we need you to come down here and see this girl for yourself.”

I tried to work my mouth, but no sound came out. My jaw moved up and down like a broken hinge.

“Tom? Can you come down here, or should I send a car to get you?”

“You found her,” I said. “And you need me to identify. .”

I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t refer to my daughter as simply a body, a pile of remains or dust scattered by the wind and wild animals.

“No,” Ryan said. “She’s alive. This girl is alive, and we need you to come down to the station right away. Now, can you drive yourself or do you need me to send that car?”

“Alive. . Caitlin? Are you serious?”

“No joke, Tom. This girl is alive.”

I closed the phone and spoke at the same time.

“I’m on my way.”

My hands shook. I gripped the wheel tight to steady them, and the pressure I exerted made my knuckles ache. I thought they might crack open and bleed. My speed crept too high, so I overcompensated and drove so slow other drivers came within inches of my bumper. My heart thumped at twice its normal pace, and my extremities felt numb, as though they’d been severed from the rest of my body.

When I reached the station, I parked my car at a crazy angle and barely managed to shut the door before running inside.

She’s here. She’s here. This is it. She’s here.

I was two steps inside when Ryan intercepted me.

“Where is she? Where?”

“Come with me.”

He clamped his big hand on my biceps and led me down a short hallway to the familiar conference room. He guided me inside. My eyes darted around the room. It was empty.

Ryan closed the door behind us.

“Where is she?” I asked. “Are you bringing her in here?”

“Sit down.”

“I want to see her.”

“You will. But sit down first.”

“I don’t want to sit down. I want to see my daughter.”

I started past him, my right arm brushing against his left. Ryan took hold of me again, but this time I shook loose and reached for the door. Ryan grabbed me from behind like a wrestler and pressed his mouth close to my ear. I felt his hot breath as he spoke.

“Not yet,” he said. “You need to sit down.”

His voice was steady but laced with steel. His arms encircled me, dug into my rib cage. I couldn’t get loose. He was too big, too strong. Surprisingly so. I struggled a little more, but we both knew it was futile.

“Are you going to sit?” he asked, his voice practically inside my head.

I nodded, went limp. “Sure, sure.”

He didn’t really let go, but with less force turned me away from the door and back toward the conference table.

“Sit here,” he said.

I sat, straightening the collar of my jacket, which had shoved up under my chin during our struggle.

“We need to talk about a few things before this goes any further,” Ryan said.

“Is it her?” I asked. “Is it really her?”

Ryan nodded. “We think it is. Caitlin wrecked her bike when she was little, right? It left a pretty distinctive round scar.”

“Yes, of course. She got eight stitches.”

“This young woman allowed a female police officer to look at her knee. She rolled her pant leg up. The scar is there. We’ve gone ahead and fingerprinted her in order to make a comparison with the prints that were taken when she was little. That will take a few hours, but I don’t have any doubt, looking at her and comparing her to the pictures of your child. This is your daughter. It’s Caitlin.”

I felt the sharp pain in my chest, the same one I’d felt in Caitlin’s closet. My heart swelled like a balloon, expanding until it reached my throat and choked off the passage of air. I put my head in my hands, closed my eyes. I squeezed them tight until I saw firework patterns on my eyelids, great starbursts of red and green. Caitlin. Here.

Alive.

Ryan’s hand landed on my shoulder. I let go of everything-the runaway theories, the unreturned calls, the suspicions. I stood up and wrapped my arms around him.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.” I squeezed him tighter, a reversal of our little struggle from a few minutes earlier. He smelled like shaving cream, and I felt his own gentle but awkwardly delivered man-pats against my back.

“It’s okay. We have some things to talk about, Tom. Just sit down. Go ahead there. It’s okay.”

I ended up back in the chair, my vision blurred by tears. I wiped them away with the backs of my hands. Ryan handed me a box of tissues. I don’t know where he found them, but I took one and continued wiping at my eyes.

“Do you want some water?” Ryan asked.

“No, I’m fine. What happened?” I asked. “What the fuck happened?”

Before Ryan could tell me, someone knocked on the conference room door. I looked up.

“Is that her?” I asked.

Ryan went to the door, but it opened before he reached it. Abby stepped into the room, the whites of her eyes prominent, the corners of her mouth turned down. She took short, tentative steps across the carpet and didn’t look up or make eye contact with anyone.

“Who invited her?”

Ryan’s head turned toward me. “I called her, Tom. She’s Caitlin’s mother.”

“She hasn’t acted like it. A mother wouldn’t give up on her child.” I stood up. “You were wrong, Abby. You and Pastor Chris. She’s alive. She’s right here, alive, and you were dead fucking wrong about it.”

Ryan held his hand out toward me. “Please, Tom. Not now.”

Abby didn’t look toward me. She sat in a chair across the room. She dropped her hands into her lap and twisted them around and over the top of each other.

“Are you okay, Abby?” Ryan asked.

She finally spoke in a low church whisper. “It took me a while to get here. I was so. . surprised when you called.”

Ryan grabbed one of the rolling chairs and moved it out into the center of the room so he was between us. He sat down, feet splayed, his knees far apart.

“I’d like to tell both of you what’s going on and how we got to this point,” he said.

“Yes, please. I’d like to know,” I said.

“Abby,” he said, “do you want to hear this?”

For a moment, it looked like she wasn’t listening. Then she nodded.

“This morning, at approximately three-thirty, officers on a routine patrol saw a young woman walking along the side of Williamstown Road, out near the mall. She looked too young to be out at that time of night, so the officers questioned her. She appeared to be in good health. A little dirty, but with no obvious signs of injury. She didn’t appear to be drunk or under the influence of drugs. She didn’t have any identification, and the officers on the scene were going to take her to juvenile detention for processing-that’s routine when a kid turns up like that with no ID-when one of them, a female officer, thought she recognized the girl from somewhere. She remembered the coverage of Caitlin’s burial and the sketch of the suspect. She asked the girl, pointedly, who she was.

“The girl got nervous and agitated. She told the officers, ‘I know you think I’m that Caitlin Stuart girl, but I’m not.’ That seemed to confirm things for the officers, so they brought her here for further inquiry, and they decided to call me.”

“Jesus,” I said. “Was she brainwashed? What was wrong with her?”

Ryan held up his finger, indicating there was more to tell.

“When I arrived at the station, I questioned her about her identity and where she lived. She wouldn’t tell me anything else except to repeat that line. ‘I know you think I’m that Caitlin Stuart girl.’ When I asked her why she was out walking so late at night, who her parents were, where she went to school, she just stared at me like she was deaf or didn’t understand English. I offered her something to eat, and she asked for a cup of coffee.”

“Caitlin doesn’t drink coffee,” Abby said, her voice just above a whisper.

“Did she ask about us?” I asked.

Ryan shook his head. “She kept asking us to let her go.”

“Are you sure it’s her?” Abby asked. “It might not be her.”

Ryan nodded. “It’s her. She looks smaller and younger perhaps than the average sixteen-year-old. Maybe she hasn’t been eating as well. I don’t know. But that means she looks more like the pictures taken before Caitlin disappeared than we would have suspected. Then I told her we were going to fingerprint her, which she went along with. It’s going to take a few hours to find out if they match, but-I told Tom already-this girl has the same scar on her leg from a bike accident.”

“She was eight,” Abby said. “She needed stitches.” Abby finally looked up and faced Ryan. “But that’s not proof. Lots of people have scars. Until you have DNA or the fingerprints or an X-ray. .”

“Jesus, Abby,” I said. “You really don’t want her back, do you?”

She looked at me. “I don’t want to get crushed,” she said. “I don’t want that for either of us.”

“I understand that. I do, Abby,” Ryan said. “And, ordinarily, I would try to wait for something more conclusive. I don’t want to wind you both up for nothing. But in a town this size, people are going to know that girl’s here, and before things get too far away from us, I want you to be able to see her. I wouldn’t have brought you both here if I weren’t certain. My gut tells me this is it.”

“Let’s go see her then,” I said.

Ryan held up his finger again. “We have some things to take care of once you’ve seen her. We have to get her to the hospital to be examined by a doctor. You won’t get a lot of time, and the time you spend with her here, today, might be the last quiet moments you have for a while. This is going to be a hell of an adjustment for you two, and since we don’t know where she’s been or who she was with, we all need to be prepared for anything.”

“We know who she was with,” I said. “That man in the sketch. Did you ask her about him?”

Ryan shook his head. “It’s best in a case like this not to press too hard at the outset. Not to ask too many questions too soon, even if we want to.”

“A case like this?” Abby asked. “Are there other cases like this?”

“I just mean when a child has been kidnapped or run away.”

“No, no, no, no. Not a runaway,” I said. “That man, the sketch-that proves it. She didn’t run away. Someone took her-they took her from us.”

Ryan nodded along, placating me. But then he said, “I know this has been a long road for the two of you, but I can promise you what we already know and see is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s much more to the story here, and we’re going to have to get to it.”

“What are they going to do at the hospital?” Abby asked.

I knew. I knew I knew I knew. I didn’t want to hear it, but I knew.

Ryan confirmed it.

“They’ll do a complete exam. Gynecological included. They’ll be looking for evidence of sexual assault and pregnancy.”

Abby made a small noise in the back of her throat.

“Someone who needs to be checked for those things didn’t run away,” I said.

Ryan stood up. “Wait here, and I’ll go see if things are ready. I thought I’d give the two of you a moment together before we bring you back. I think maybe you have some things to get straight before you see Caitlin.”

“Ryan?” I asked. “Is this going to be all right?”

He offered me a small smile. “Your daughter’s back. Doesn’t that mean this is a good day?”

When he was gone, I turned to Abby.

She didn’t look at me.

“Abby?”

She remained rigid as a block of wood.

“Abby? Are you okay?”

“I was at the church, working, and then Ryan called me.” She was looking at the floor. “I knew something bad was happening, something about Caitlin. I wasn’t expecting this today, Tom. This just comes out of nowhere.”

“It’s not a bad thing, Abby.”

“Why did you say such awful things about me?” she asked, raising her head.

“Are you looking for an apology? Because I’m not offering one.”

“Do you really think I don’t deserve to be here?”

“It’s not about you, Abby. Your feelings have nothing to do with this day.” I stood up. “But I can tolerate the idea of you being along for this. I’m willing to put up with that. . for Caitlin. But I’m also not going to wait for you. They should be ready for us now, so get up and let’s go.”

Her upper body tilted forward, then back, and she slowly rose to her feet. She stood there for a second, looking like an unsteady drunk, one who didn’t trust that the world wasn’t about to tip over and throw her to the floor.

“Tom?”

“What?”

“I can’t do it.”

“You can’t-?”

“I can’t do it. I can’t go see her.”

“Oh, Abby. Come on.”

“Don’t push me, Tom.” She held her hand out. “Don’t give me some guilt trip about how I’m some kind of bad mother because I don’t want to. . can’t. . go see Caitlin right now.”

I looked to the door, my anxiety rising. She was here. Caitlin.

“Why don’t you want to go back there? Tell me.”

“I’m scared, Tom. Okay? I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of what I might see. Of what Caitlin is going to be like now. Of what she’s been through. We’ve talked about a lot of things since she’s been gone. Is she still alive? Who took her? We never talked about what we’d do, what it would be like, if she did come back. I never really thought about it. Not in detail. And now. .”

I went to her and crouched down, so we were at eye level.

“Abby, this is what we wanted. This is what we’ve been waiting for. You should go back there.”

She didn’t move.

“Abby?”

“I just need more time.” She looked away. “Give me more time.”

Ryan stuck his head in the door, looking like a giant turtle emerging from its shell.

“We’re ready,” Ryan said.

I straightened back up.

“Abby’s going to take another minute while I go back.”

Ryan’s eyes shifted from me to her and back to me again. He looked uncertain, but went ahead.

“Whatever works,” he said, holding the door open for me. “Let’s do this, Tom.”

I took one last look back at Abby, expecting her to change her mind. But her head was down, and she didn’t look at me.

Chapter Twenty-one

Even though I’d spent a lot of time in the police station, it still felt like an incomprehensible maze of hallways. We passed small rooms with closed doors, the brass finish on their knobs rubbed off to reveal the darker metal underneath. Two uniformed cops sat in a small office, one that overflowed with paper. They laughed as we approached and then, seeing us, lowered their voices. They continued laughing after we’d passed. Ryan didn’t speak. He walked in front of me, his head bobbing with his movements, his broad shoulders and thick middle nearly filling the entire hallway.

Something like adrenaline burned through me. Every pore and hair follicle in my body tingled with anticipation. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry. And I resisted the urge to reach out, shove Ryan to the side, and charge ahead to the room where they were keeping Caitlin.

Finally, Ryan stopped in front of a metal door.

“Okay,” he said. “Take your time. But remember, she does have to go to the hospital at some point.”

I nodded.

“Did you work things out with Abby?” he asked.

“Don’t worry. I’ll cover for her.”

Ryan opened the door and made a gesture into the room. I couldn’t see who was in there, even as I stood on my toes and craned my neck to see around Ryan’s big body. A female police officer came out. She nodded at me as she passed, and Ryan pushed the door open wider.

He turned to me. It was time.

“You can close the door behind you for privacy,” he said.

How many times does a life turn in a moment? For me, twice in four years. Once when Caitlin disappeared, and then again, right there, when she came back.

I moved through the doorway. It was a small, cramped room, a kind of lounge or break area for the employees of the station. A round table with four chairs sat on the left, the morning’s newspaper scattered across it. Along the back wall, there was a percolating coffeemaker and a refrigerator covered with handwritten notes and newspaper articles. And then on the right, a long, low couch, where a teenage girl sat holding a mug of coffee.

I pushed the door shut behind me.

I’d imagined this moment many times, but I could never allow my brain to work through the scenario completely. I could picture a young girl, that twelve-year-old who’d vanished while walking Frosty, squealing and jumping into my arms. As time passed, I couldn’t update it, couldn’t conceive of what she might look or act like. So I left it blank. But now, here I was, being considered by the cautious eyes of a teenage girl who was supposed to be my daughter.

Was she? Really?

Ryan’s words and observations had promised it. But a lot of people bore scars. The fingerprint evidence wasn’t back yet. .

“Caitlin? Honey?”

Her eyes looked large, as always-just like Abby’s-but this was accentuated by how thin she was. She looked sickly, like someone recently recovered from a long illness. Her skin was pale, her cheeks almost without color. Caitlin always wore her hair long, but this girl’s hair was cut short, almost chopped, as though someone who wasn’t a professional had used a pair of household scissors to whack it off. She wore a loose, baggy NCPD sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up, and her shoes were scuffed and dirty.

She didn’t say anything. She watched me with those big eyes, white and blue orbs that tracked me from across the room.

I watched her, too. Studied her. The facial features, the shape of her nose, the set of her jaw. I saw Abby in that face, as always. My mother, too. And, yes, a touch of me somewhere.

It was her.

It was Caitlin.

“Caitlin?”

She didn’t answer.

“Do you remember me?”

“Of course I remember you.”

Her voice was flat, emotionless, as though I were a passing acquaintance. And the voice was huskier, more raw. Not the voice of a little girl but that of a postpubescent young woman.

I approached the couch and sat down next to her. She eyed me a little suspiciously, but didn’t pull away or get up.

I couldn’t hold back.

I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close to me, crushing her against my body. I kissed her head, her cheeks.

“Oh, Caitlin, my Caitlin, my sweet baby girl. I missed you. I missed you so much. My baby. .”

She let me hold her and hug her, but she didn’t return the gesture. She remained stiff under my touch, and I only let go when my fingers and hands began to ache.

I leaned back, taking in a full view of Caitlin’s face. The changes only accentuated her resemblance to Abby, and, in fact, the Caitlin who sat before me looked remarkably like the high school photos of Abby-slender, big eyed, not entirely confident under the gaze of the camera.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Really? Fine? Are you sure, honey? They’re going to take you to the doctor in a minute.”

“Why?”

“To check you over, to make sure you’re not hurt.”

She squirmed a little, looking uncomfortable. “They won’t find anything. I’m not hurt.”

I brought my hand up to her cheek, then cupped her chin like when she was a baby. There were some blemishes, teenage acne. I soaked her in until my vision blurred and grew watery.

Caitlin either didn’t notice or chose not to comment.

“You were gone for so long. We thought you. . I started to think. .”

I noticed how greasy her hair looked, a few days unwashed. Caitlin was a neat child, almost fastidious, yet she smelled a little, the rough scent of an unwashed body and stale cigarettes. I remembered the admonition to not ask questions, not to press, but my mind spun like a wheel.

“Who did this to you?” I asked. “Where were you?”

She looked away. “It’s over, I guess.”

“What’s over? No-” I said. “Where were you? Who took you?”

“Where’s my mom? Is she here?”

“She’s here.” I hesitated. Was Caitlin trying to change the subject? “She’s in the other room.”

“I’d like to see her. Can I see her, please?”

“Of course, honey. Of course.” I held her hand. “She’s upset by all of this, your mom. It’s hard on her. It’s been hard on both of us. I know it’s been harder on you-don’t get me wrong-but we’ve been so worried.”

“Did you get divorced or some shit like that?”

Shit?

“No. Why would you ask me that?”

She stared straight ahead and spoke in a monotone, almost programmed voice, like she was repeating something she’d heard somewhere.

“I just know that relationships can be strained, they can be put under a lot of pressure when things change. Sometimes relationships don’t survive the changes. That’s part of life.”

She nodded when she finished speaking, a kind of exclamation mark to the statement. For the first time, I saw real emotion in her eyes. She looked upset, as though she didn’t really believe or understand what was just said. I wondered where those words had come from, if she’d been coached to say them.

“Who told you that, Caitlin? Where did you hear all that?”

“I’d like to see Mom now, I guess.”

I didn’t want to leave her, even for a minute, but her little speech unnerved me in a way I couldn’t explain. I stood up and looked out the door to where the female officer waited. I told her Caitlin wanted to see her mother.

“Tell my wife, Abby, I think she needs to come back here, please.”

When I went back in, Caitlin stared at me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I need to ask you to do something, something pretty important.”

I went across and resumed my place on the couch. I started to reach for her hand but saw she was keeping them both in her lap, intertwined with each other. I settled for resting my hand on her shoulder.

“Of course. What do you need?”

“I need a favor from you, a big one.”

Her voice took on a slight tremor. It picked up a hint of the emotion I saw-and which still remained-in her eyes.

“After four years, I owe you a few favors, I guess.”

She looked down at her hands, bit her bottom lip. “I don’t want you to ever again ask me where I was or what happened while I was gone. Please.”

I let my hand slide off her back. “We don’t have to talk about it today. I shouldn’t have asked.”

She shook her head. “Not just today. I don’t ever want you to ask me about it. Ever. You have to promise me that. Please.”

“But, honey, they-People are going to want to know. They have to know. If a child disappears for four years, they have to know-”

“I’m not a fucking child.”

I leaned back. “Who taught you to talk that way?”

“Come on. Promise.”

“If something happened to you, something that embarrassed you or made you feel ashamed, it might be better to talk about it.”

“I’m not ashamed.”

Now she looked up, locked her eyes onto mine. If I’d been offered this deal the day before-have your daughter back, but you can’t ask her where she’s been-I’d have taken it faster than the speed of light.

“Okay, I promise,” I said. “No more questions.”

She nodded and looked at her hands again, her face displaying no real sense of satisfaction or relief.

The door clicked open, and Abby entered. She held her head up and displayed a genuine smile. Her eyes were full of tears.

“Oh,” she said, her hand to her chest. “Oh. Oh.”

She didn’t come across the room toward us. She stood by the closed door, staring at us, her hand still to her chest, like a patron struck speechless by a beautiful work of art.

Then Abby dropped her purse and rushed across the room. She fell onto the couch next to Caitlin, wrapping her in her arms. I looked away but heard the sound of Abby crying and sniffling.

Caitlin stood up suddenly. Without warning, she left the couch, slipping out of Abby’s grip and taking a few steps toward the center of the room. I thought Abby might have overwhelmed her, piled too much affection and attention onto her too quickly, but Caitlin didn’t look bothered or distressed. She still wore the same preternaturally calm expression on her face, her features as smooth and undisturbed as the unbroken surface of a quiet lake. She didn’t say anything. She simply moved away, the coffee mug still in her hand, and stood there in silence, her gestures suggesting she was tired of hugging her long-lost parents and now she wanted to be left alone.

Abby and I looked at each other, as puzzled as we were when a newborn Caitlin cried and cried for hours for no apparent reason. But we could always guess then. Colic. Gas. Hunger. Fear. My mind scrambled, and I concluded it was all too much, too soon. I needed to remember not to push too hard.

I tried to think of something to say, but we were saved by another knock on the door. Abby and I said, “Come in,” at the same time, and Ryan appeared.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but we really need to get Caitlin to the hospital to get checked over.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Did you hear that, honey?” Abby asked. “They need you to go to the hospital for some tests.”

Caitlin didn’t look at us. I wasn’t sure she’d heard, but then she said, “What if I don’t want to go?”

“They just want to make sure you’re not hurt,” I said.

“Do I look hurt?”

“Well. .” I could tell Abby was scrambling. She looked at Ryan. “Maybe she doesn’t have to go right now.”

Ryan shook his head. “She has to go,” he said. “It’s standard procedure in these cases. It won’t take long.”

I looked at Caitlin, met her eye. “They might find evidence.” “Evidence?” she asked. Her voice didn’t rise. She sounded truly puzzled. “Evidence? What evidence?” She turned and looked at all three of us. “I don’t understand what you all are talking about.”

Ryan stepped forward. “Like your dad said, we need to make sure you’re not hurt.”

“And then I can leave?”

I heard it. Leave. Not go home. Leave.

“One step at a time,” Ryan said, and placed his hand on Caitlin’s arm.

She looked down at it as though it were a giant fly. But she didn’t resist. Abby stood up and took the coffee mug from her, and the four of us left for the hospital.

Chapter Twenty-two

Abby and I waited together in a small family area while they took Caitlin back for a series of tests. Ryan paused and told us what the tests would entail: a general physical and psychological exam, routine blood work, and, of course, tests for rape, pregnancy, the DNA of the perpetrator, as well as STDs.

After ten minutes of Abby and me not speaking to each other, and right when I was considering picking up a magazine to distract myself, Abby spoke.

“We should be back there with her,” she said. “She’s never even been to the gynecologist before. One of us should be back there.”

“You didn’t want to go back with her before, at the police station.”

“Don’t be bitter, Tom. This is hard for both of us.”

“Besides, we don’t know if she’s never been to a gynecologist, do we? We don’t know what she’s been doing.”

“I doubt she’s been to the gynecologist.” Abby shuddered a little. “What did she tell you before I got back there, Tom? What did she say?”

“She didn’t say anything really.” I looked around at the sterile walls, the cold tile. “She did ask for you.”

“She did? What did you tell her?”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I covered for you. I told her you were with the police.”

“Did you tell her anything else about us? Our situation?”

I shook my head. “She cursed like a truck driver, though.”

“She did?”

“And she wouldn’t call me Dad.”

After a long pause, Abby said, “Tom? What are we going to tell Caitlin about us? They’re probably going to let us take her home today. My room at the church is small, but Chris wouldn’t mind if she stayed there with me.”

“No,” I said. “No and no.” I made a quick, cutting gesture with my right hand. “You left. I stayed in our home. That’s Caitlin’s home, too. That’s where her room is. She’s not going to live with Pastor Chris and his traveling sideshow.”

“What are we going to do then, Tom? Pretend?”

“You can tell her you left,” I said. “That’s fair. Hell, Abby, you didn’t even believe she was still alive. You let her go. You gave up. Why don’t you tell her that while you’re at it?”

For a long while, we were quiet. I heard voices in the hallway, the rumbling of something on wheels.

“If you want me to tell her the truth, I will.” Her voice was calm, almost detached. “I can accept responsibility for this.”

“Why didn’t you want to go back and see her earlier? Ryan practically held me back. He grabbed me and put me in a chair. That’s our daughter, and she came back to us after four years. Why wouldn’t you want to see her?”

“Why are you so focused on me and my reactions?”

“Because I’m trying to understand you. I’ve been trying to understand you for a few years now. The religion. The lack of hope for Caitlin’s return. Moving out. Now I want to understand this, but I’m not sure I can. I’m not sure you could say anything that would make sense.”

Abby brought her hands up to her face and covered her mouth with them. She looked like she was cold, like she needed to blow on her hands for warmth, but I knew she was thinking and choosing her words carefully. She lowered her hands and spoke. “I was afraid, Tom. I was afraid to see Caitlin. Right before you went back there, it went through my mind that she’s been gone for four years. She’s changed. And who knows what has happened to her. And I got scared just thinking of that.” She reached up and moved her hair out of her face. “I probably felt guilty, too, for thinking she wouldn’t come back. But the longer I sat out there, thinking about Caitlin being just a few rooms away, the harder it was for me not to go back there. I needed to see her. I guess it had been a long time since I really felt like a mother, and that instinct finally kicked back in for me.”

“Then you should go with that feeling,” I said. “It’s a good one.”

“She seems so cold, so cut off from us.”

“You should come home with us, Abby. The three of us, back in our house. The way it’s meant to be.”

Abby started shaking her head before I even finished the sentence. “Oh, Tom. .” She kept shaking her head. “She doesn’t need two unhappy parents.”

When Ryan returned two hours later, Abby and I both asked how she was doing before he could even sit down.

“They’re finishing up. She’s getting dressed,” Ryan said. He settled into a chair. “The physical exam shows no real problems. She has a bruise on her abdomen that could have come from a fist, but it’s not a serious injury. She wouldn’t say what caused it. No broken bones or evidence of past broken bones. Her teeth are in good shape, although it doesn’t look like she’s been to a dentist in a while. She’s a little on the thin side for a girl her age and height. But her vital signs are normal. The lab will process the blood work over the next few days. It’s possible she’s anemic, but other than that, I don’t think they’ll find anything. Bottom line-wherever she’s been and whatever she’s been doing, she’s been pretty well taken care of.”

“That’s a relief,” I said.

“What about. . the other things you tested for?” Abby asked.

“The doctor did a rape kit to check for any evidence that might be left behind after a sexual assault. We won’t know those test results right away, but based on the exam, she doesn’t think it will reveal anything. There’s no obvious evidence of sexual assault. No vaginal bruising or bleeding. No defensive wounds on her hands, no scrapes or scratches. Just the one bruise I mentioned. And the pregnancy test was negative.”

“Thank God,” I said.

“That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a sexual assault at some time in the past. It just means that there hasn’t been a recent one. Now, the exam did reveal something that I feel I must share with you. It could be difficult to hear, especially considering all you’ve already been through.” He paused. “The examination revealed that Caitlin’s hymen is no longer intact. That would most likely indicate some type of sexual activity. Again, we can’t say if it was consensual or not, but it’s a fact we’re all going to have to deal with.”

I started to feel sick. The room, which to that point seemed perfectly comfortable, started to feel hot and close. My clothes clung to my body as though they were shrinking.

“What did she say about it?” Abby asked.

“Nothing,” Ryan said. “The doctor didn’t press, considering the situation. In fact, Caitlin didn’t respond to any of their questions about her health. She acted like she couldn’t hear them. She’s been like that ever since we brought her in. She’s barely spoken. I was wondering if she said anything to either of you when you were with her.”

Abby shook her head. “Nothing of substance. Right, Tom?”

I felt sweat beading on my upper lip. “Nothing.”

“Are you okay, Tom?” Ryan asked.

“I’m fine. Just a little overwhelmed.”

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes, trying for just a moment to escape. But I heard another voice speaking to Ryan, and when I opened my eyes again a man was standing there. He wore a polo shirt, khaki pants, and loafers, and looked like he was on his way to a golf game. His thinning hair was cut close to his head and his face was round and his cheeks smooth and rosy, giving him the appearance of an oversized baby. He must have been in his thirties, but he could have passed for much younger.

“Tom, Abby, this is Dr. Rosenbaum,” Ryan said. “He works with the police department as a psychiatrist, and he specializes in adolescent cases like Caitlin’s. He’s going to help you with the transition as you take Caitlin home.”

Dr. Rosenbaum took a seat next to Ryan and offered us a small smile intended to convey both sympathy and support. It looked forced, and it didn’t make me feel any better.

“Mr. and Mrs. Stuart,” Rosenbaum said, “today is really just the beginning of a long journey to reacclimate your daughter to a normal life. I know that seeing her again is cause for celebration and high emotion-as it should be-but the real work begins now, both for you and for the police. I’m here to assist you with the work that transition entails.”

“How long will she be in the hospital?” Abby asked.

Rosenbaum looked at Ryan, and Ryan nodded.

“We’re going to release Caitlin to you today,” Ryan said. “We see no reason to have her stay here overnight or for any further observation. Medically, she’s cleared and okay. We’ve asked her the questions we wanted to ask her. We’ll do more soon, though-don’t worry. Our investigation will continue.”

Rosenbaum cleared his throat. “I know you’re going to have questions about even the most basic things in Caitlin’s life. Does she go back to school at some point? Does she resume the life of a typical teenager?”

“Exactly,” Abby said. “I was wondering about school. Has she even been in school? What has she been doing?”

Rosenbaum offered the same forced smile. “We don’t have to tackle them all today. Like I said, this is a long road.”

“The press has no doubt gotten wind of this story,” Ryan said, “so we have to go put that fire out. I guess you can expect them to be knocking on your door soon enough. We’ll put out a statement asking for privacy. It will help some.”

“What are we supposed to do with her?” Abby asked. “I mean. . what do we do?”

Rosenbaum nodded. “You have to understand something about taking Caitlin back to your home. It’s not going to feel like her home to her, at least not right away. Wherever she’s been or whoever she’s been with. . that was home to her. Even if she was sleeping on the streets. She may not feel immediately safe in her old environment, the way we would expect her to be.”

“But it is her home,” Abby said. “It’s the only house she’s known. Her room is just the way it was when she disappeared.”

“The best thing you can do is make her feel safe,” Rosenbaum said. “That’s the biggest concern for victims of crimes like this. Keep her safe and secure. Expect some nightmares. But follow her lead and don’t rush her. You’re still parents, even after all this time. Trust yourselves. And she’s still your daughter. But she’s not going to be the same kid who walked out that door four years ago.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Four years have passed,” he said. “And who knows what trauma. The passage of time and events have shaped her just like they have shaped you. She’s not going to be the same person.”

Ryan cleared his throat. He had something to say.

“I wanted to check in with the two of you concerning your marriage. I’m merely trying to think of the best situation for Caitlin to come home to.”

“She’ll come home with both of us,” Abby said.

Ryan cocked his head, a little confused. “How’s that?”

“We’ll all go home together,” she said. “As a family.” I didn’t speak up, but Abby looked at me and spoke in my direction. “Caitlin needs me. She needs both of us. I don’t want her to think that her disappearance brought down her parents’ marriage.”

“It’s okay to tell the child whatever-”

She cut Ryan off. “No. We’re going home together. All of us.”

Ryan nodded. “Fair enough. Well”-he pushed himself to his feet-“I still have a lot of work to wrap up.”

“Doctor?” I said. “When we were at the police station, Caitlin said she wanted to leave. She didn’t act like she wanted to go home with us.”

“I explained the situation to her,” Ryan said, fielding the question. “She knows she’s leaving with you.”

“How did she respond to that?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, and I almost couldn’t look him in the eye while I waited for the answer.

“Caitlin has a lot of things to get used to,” Rosenbaum said. “And being home with you is one of them. If you’d like, I can come to your house with you now, when you take Caitlin home. I could just observe her there and answer any questions you might have. I’ve done it before in similar situations.”

Abby turned to me. “What do you think, Tom? It sounds like a good idea.”

I considered it, but more than anything else, I wanted Caitlin home. With us, in our house. No strangers. No impediments or barriers between my daughter and me. “No, thanks,” I said. “I think we should just be there for Caitlin ourselves.”

Rosenbaum looked a little disappointed, but he stood up. He reached into his pocket and brought out a business card. “Do call me if you need anything tonight,” he said. “My cell number is on there. Otherwise, we’d like you to come to my office in the morning, and we can start working through the things we need to get through.”

“I’ve already been talking to someone,” I said.

“You’ve what?” Abby asked.

I looked around. Rosenbaum and Ryan were both studying me, waiting for an answer.

“I took your advice, Ryan,” I said. “I called one of those people from Volunteer Victim Services. We met once and talked about Caitlin and the case.”

“Who did you talk to?” Ryan asked.

“Susan Goff.”

Rosenbaum spoke up. “I think it’s best if we talk to Caitlin in a formalized, professional setting. My experience tells me that’s most effective.” He still held the business card in the air between us. “Is that okay with you?”

I took the card and handed it over to Abby.

“Ryan,” I said, “you referred to her as a victim of a crime. Does that mean everyone’s certain she didn’t run away?”

“It’s obvious a crime was committed somewhere along the line. Now it’s up to me to find out what it was.” Ryan jiggled the loose change in his pockets. “And for what it’s worth, I know Susan Goff. She does excellent work for us through Volunteer Victim Services. She’s good people.”

“But still,” Rosenbaum said. “I’d like to see Caitlin.”

“Of course, of course,” Ryan said. “See Dr. Rosenbaum first thing tomorrow.”

Ryan turned to go, and Rosenbaum followed him, leaving Abby and me to sit there and wait for Caitlin to be released to us.

Chapter Twenty-three

We drove home in awkward silence. Caitlin rode in the back, just like in her childhood, except now she stared out the window, her face blank and indifferent. She didn’t ask questions or comment on the passing scenery. She didn’t try to convince us to change the radio or CD to something she liked, so I asked her if she wanted to listen to something.

“I’m fine,” she said.

I didn’t know what else to say, and apparently neither did Abby.

Caitlin broke the silence for us.

“Where are you going to drop me off?” she asked.

“Drop you off?”

“You can do that anywhere,” she said.

I tried to talk to her with one eye on the road and one eye on her profile in the rearview mirror.

“We talked about this at the hospital, remember?”

She ignored me.

“We’re going home,” I said. “To the house you used to live in.”

Nothing.

“Your room is just the way you left it,” Abby said.

But that was it. Caitlin didn’t speak again the rest of the way home, not even when we turned down our street and saw the news van from the local TV station parked at the end of our driveway. A police department spokesperson had met with us at the hospital, and we gave our approval toa fairly standard statement, one that said we were happy to be home, thankful to have our daughter back, and eager for privacy. When I hit the turn signal and angled toward our driveway, the cameraman moved out of our way but kept his lens trained on the car. I took a quick look at Caitlin in the rearview. She seemed not to notice.

The reporter and cameraman didn’t follow us farther onto the property, so we were able to pull to the end of the driveway and the back of the house.

Abby and I climbed out, but Caitlin stayed in the car. Abby shrugged and pulled open Caitlin’s door.

“Are you ready to go in?” Abby asked. “Do you need a minute?”

Caitlin looked up, her lips slightly puckered. “This is where you’re taking me?”

“This is home,” Abby said. “Remember it? Here’s the yard and the back door. We left the front porch light on every night since you were gone. Every night. And the key was right there so you could come in if you wanted.”

“Really?” Caitlin said.

“Really,” Abby said. “We were waiting for you.”

Caitlin nodded a little, then stepped out of the car. I hustled with the keys and undid the back lock, opening the door ahead of them and stepping aside.

“It’s all pretty much the same as when you were last here,” I said.

Inside, Abby and I followed behind Caitlin as she went from room to room on the first floor, looking around and taking in the sights with the passivity of an unmotivated home buyer. She took a quick glance out the front window where the news van was still parked. The cameraman appeared to be putting his gear away, and the reporter, a young blond woman who I recognized from the news but whose name I couldn’t remember, was talking on a cell phone as she smoked a cigarette.

“Where’s Frosty?” Caitlin asked.

“Oh,” Abby said. “Oh, honey. .”

“Is he dead?” Caitlin asked.

“Honey, when you. . went away, we thought. . We put him to sleep. He was old. .”

“He’d only be nine,” Caitlin said.

“He wasn’t put to sleep,” I said.

They both turned to look at me.

“I took him to the pound, and someone else adopted him.” I looked at Abby. “I checked. In fact, if you want, I can try to find out who adopted him and we can try to get him back. Under the circumstances, I would think-”

Caitlin turned away, but I went on.

“We know you loved Frosty. And he was crazy about you. When you left, he used to sit by the door and cry. Didn’t he, Abby?”

“He did,” she said. “He was so sad not to see you.”

“You didn’t like Frosty, did you?” Caitlin asked. She turned and directed the question at Abby.

“I liked him,” Abby said.

“You didn’t like me to walk him. You thought I was getting away from you.”

“No, honey. I worried about you, of course. That’s what moms do.”

“We can get another dog,” I said. “Or we can try to get Frosty back.”

Caitlin turned away and shrugged a little. “Whatever,” she said. “Just don’t say everything’s the same, because it isn’t. That’s bullshit.”

Abby jumped a little but kept her cool.

“Your room is the same,” Abby said, staying on message. “Maybe we need to update it a little. And clothes. The clothes you have here wouldn’t fit anymore, I guess. Do you have any clothes from. . where you were staying?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Whenever you’re ready, we can go out and buy some things,” Abby said.

When Caitlin remained silent, Abby looked at me, helpless.

“Would you like to go up to your room? Maybe you’d like to take a nap?”

It took a long time, but finally Caitlin nodded.

We trudged upstairs, the three of us. Caitlin went and sat on her bed, while I remembered standing in that closet and feeling the piercing pain of her loss go through me like a lance.

“I bet the sheets aren’t clean,” Abby said.

“I got used to dirty sheets,” Caitlin said.

Abby sat next to Caitlin and leaned in close.

“Where was that, honey? Where were you sleeping without clean sheets?”

Caitlin didn’t answer. She stared at me.

Abby pressed on.

“If you tell us, the police can help find the man responsible. It was a man, right? An older man who did this to you?”

Caitlin’s eyes widened, expressing an urgency to me, so I spoke up.

“Why don’t we let the kid sleep, okay, Abby?”

Abby looked a little wounded, a little betrayed by my comment. But it was just a flash.

“Honey,” she said, “I know this is tough, but you can talk to your dad or me about whatever you want, whenever you want. You know that, don’t you?”

“Who’s been sleeping in the guest room?” Caitlin asked.

“Why do you ask that?” Abby asked.

“I saw the door open when we came up here, and the sheets were messed up. Did you have company?”

“Buster was here visiting,” I said.

“Really?” Caitlin perked up a little.

“Have you seen your uncle Buster?” Abby asked. “You know, since you’ve been gone.”

“Why would you want to know that?” Caitlin asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s nothing.”

“We do have to be honest with you about something,” Abby said. “Dad and I. . we’ve been having some tough times in our marriage. It happens when people have been married for a long time. We’re trying to sort it out.”

“You mean with counseling or something?” Caitlin said.

“Yes,” Abby said. “Some of that. But we’re both here for you now. We’re both going to be in the house with you and helping you any way we can. Together. Right, Tom?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re taking me to a shrink tomorrow, aren’t you?” Caitlin said.

“The police think it would be best,” Abby said. “They have things they want to talk to you about.”

Caitlin looked at me when she next spoke, her eyes locked on mine, a reminder of the promise I’d made to her at the police station. “I don’t want to go somewhere and answer a bunch of fucking questions. I’m not interested.”

“Caitlin. .” Abby looked shocked, even hurt. “When the police ask you to do something, you have to do it. And I think it will be good for you. Don’t you, Tom?”

Caitlin held her gaze on mine, waiting for my help. But I’d promised only that I wouldn’t ask, not that I wouldn’t let a professional do it. “Right,” I said. “You should go tomorrow.”

“And I don’t think you should talk to us that way,” Abby said. “I know it’s been a long time. .” She stood up, gathered her composure. “Do you need something to sleep in? Clean clothes or anything?”

“This is fine,” Caitlin said. She kicked her shoes off, revealing gray, dirty socks, and flipped back the covers on her bed.

“Just call us if you need anything,” Abby said on her way out.

I lingered in the doorway, watching my daughter settle into bed.

“It must be weird being back,” I said.

She didn’t respond. She turned over on her side, showing me her back, and as far as I knew, closed her eyes and went to sleep.

An hour later, I slipped upstairs, moving carefully, stealthily, trying not to make any noise that might wake Caitlin. The door to her room was still cracked. I slipped up to the door and pressed my ear close, listening. It took me a minute to separate the sound of Caitlin’s breathing from the fuzzy background noise of our house. The hum of the refrigerator, the soft whoosh of the heat, the traffic noise outside, the wind. But I managed to hone in on Caitlin’s breath, and each exhalation and inhalation brought me a greater sense of ease. She was here. She was really here. She lived, she existed under our roof again.

Before I turned away, I heard a new sound, one that broke through the rhythmic breathing. At first, I thought she might be coughing, but as I listened, the sound crystallized and became recognizable as human speech. Caitlin’s voice, murmuring.

I leaned closer, bent down so my ear was level with the doorknob. She was saying the same thing over and over, almost like a chant or a mantra, but I couldn’t make it out. She stopped and, again, I thought of backing off, but then the words resumed, a little louder this time, a little clearer. I understood.

“Don’t send me away,” she said. “Don’t send me away.”

I reached out and peeled the door open a little. A narrow band of light leaked into Caitlin’s room from the hallway, crawling across the floor and stopping just short of her bed. She lay in the same position I left her in-facing the wall, back to the door. She was asleep. Dreaming. But her voice kept repeating the words in the dark.

“Don’t send me away. Don’t send me away. Don’t send me away.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Abby dug through the refrigerator. One of the neighbors had brought us a dish of lasagna, and the oven ticked as it preheated.

“You don’t have any vegetables in here,” she said.

“I guess not.”

“Were you just upstairs?” she asked, closing the refrigerator door. “Is she okay?”

“Still sleeping.”

“Should we wake her to eat something?”

Don’t send me away. .

“No,” I said, still distracted by the words she’d spoken in her sleep. “Let’s just let her be.”

Abby frowned. “If you’re sure. .”

I went over to the lasagna pan and lifted the foil. Lots of cheese, just the way I liked it. I actually felt hungry for a change.

“Tom? Where do you think she was?”

I let the foil drop. “She was with that man.”

“You think I pushed her too hard upstairs.”

The oven beeped, indicating it had reached the right temperature. I opened the door and slid in the heavy pan of food. “I guess we can eat in thirty minutes or so,” I said.

Abby wore a distant look, her eyes fixed on a point somewhere near the ceiling.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Do you ever think you don’t want to know what happened to her?” she asked. “What if it’s too awful to hear? Those things they told us at the hospital, about the sex. . What if she’s been raped or abused? The way she’s been acting. . it’s like she’s been through something awful, something that stunned her. I would have been happy to have that psychiatrist come home with us.”

“We’re fine without that,” I said. Caitlin’s whispered sleep talk cycled through my brain, like a taunt. Don’t send me away. Don’t send me away. “The police are going to push her to tell. If there’s an arrest, she’ll have to talk about it.”

The back doorbell rang.

“Who is that?” Abby asked. “Could it be Ryan?”

I pressed my face against the glass.

“It’s Buster.”

“Oh.”

“Could he have heard?” I asked.

I opened the door, and he answered the question for me.

“What the fuck is going on up here?” His voice was loud, almost crazed. “What the fuck? Are you fucking kidding me? I mean, Jesus Christ. Are you kidding me?”

His voice rose and squealed with excitement, like a prepubescent boy.

“Yes, it’s amazing,” I said.

“Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you call?”

I led him into the other room, away from Abby, who didn’t even look up or greet him. “It’s been kind of crazy here, you know? It’s been a long day.”

“I wanted to come visit. I want to see the girl. Shit.”

He was almost hysterical. Bizarrely so.

“We’re trying to get our bearings.”

“Oh,” he said. “I see. You need some family time and all that, try to put the pieces back together again.” He stood in the middle of the living room, rubbing his hands together and nodding. “I guess that makes sense. I’m family, too. I thought I could help.”

“You can. In a couple of days. In fact, I mentioned you to Caitlin, and her eyes lit up.”

“Really?”

“Really. She’ll want to see you.” I looked up at the ceiling, listening. Wondering. “But she’s asleep now. Really zonked out. It’s been a hell of a day.”

“Goddamn.” Buster looked up at the ceiling too, his face curious. Then he cleared his throat. “I love that kid,” he said.

“Yeah. . Abby asked Caitlin about something, just before.”

“Did she ask about that guy? Did they arrest him?”

“No, there’s been no arrest.”

“I want to tell you, Tom, I want to go out and find this guy.” His voice sounded heavy, heated. He leaned in close to me with a caninelike ferocity. “I want to get in my car and go looking for him. What are the fucking cops doing? Sitting on their asses?”

“I don’t know. They’re taking it slow.”

“Fuck them.”

“Look, like I started to tell you. . Abby asked Caitlin something upstairs, something about you.”

“She did?”

“Yeah.” I moved slow. Cautious. “She asked Caitlin if she saw you during the four years she was gone.”

He fell quiet. I hesitated, wondering if I’d pushed too hard.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me. .”

I kept my voice even lower. “It’s just that Caitlin didn’t answer the question exactly. She didn’t say no, so I wanted to ask you.”

“You’re asking me if I saw Caitlin during the last four years, right? Right? Is that what you’re saying, just so we’re clear on this?”

“Buster, just answer the question.”

“You’re a real motherfucker, Tom-you know that? You’re as bad as the fucking cops. Worse. I’m your brother. To ask me a question like that. .”

“Did you see her, Buster?” My voice rose. “Do you know what happened? Answer me.”

“Why don’t you ask Caitlin again? Oh, wait.” He thumped his hand against his forehead, an exaggerated gesture. “She probably can’t stand to talk to her fucked-up and crazy parents, can she?”

“Buster-”

He stormed to the front door and tugged against the lock until it came open.

“Go to hell, Tom. Go straight to hell.”

Abby was waiting for me in the kitchen, her hands knitted together. “What were you two arguing about?” she asked.

“We weren’t arguing.” I distracted myself by picking at the salad she was making.

“I heard you raise your voice.”

“I asked him if he saw Caitlin during the last four years.”

“And?”

“What do you expect? He got pissed off and yelled at me. He acted like it hurt him.”

“What was his answer?”

“He didn’t really give me one.”

“Don’t you see?” She pointed at me. “That’s how Caitlin acted. I know he’s your stepbrother, but-”

“Half brother.”

“I think we need to talk to the police about all of this, don’t you?”

“It’s not that simple, Abby. He is my brother. We grew up together. He was always there for me when we were kids. No matter how bad our home life got, Buster was with me. He stood by me.”

I opened the oven door and looked in. The cheese on the lasagna was bubbling.

“This food is ready,” I said. “Have you heard anything from upstairs?”

“She was pretty sound asleep when I was up there, but I thought I just heard some footsteps.”

I closed the oven door, then looked up. “Probably going to the bathroom.”

“Tom, I need to know you’re taking this seriously. I’ve always been nervous about Buster, with the way he seemed so. . fascinated by Caitlin, you know? Like they were two kids with crushes on each other instead of uncle and niece.”

“Abby. .”

“You’ve seen it, too. You’ve commented on it. Don’t make this all about me, Tom. You can’t.”

She was right. I’d noticed Buster’s interest in Caitlin. I’d always managed to chalk up the closeness between them to the fact that she was his only niece, so he showered her with attention whenever he was around. But still. . an older man, a younger girl. Buster’s checkered past. His absences from our lives over the past four years.

Abby jerked up her head.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“She’s moving around up there again.”

“Okay, I’ll go tell her we’re ready to eat.”

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, Abby said my name. I stopped.

“This isn’t going to go away,” she said. “This Buster stuff.”

I nodded. I knew it wasn’t.

At the top of the stairs, I could see the bathroom light under the closed door. Caitlin’s bedroom door stood open. I didn’t want to stand around, hovering outside the bathroom door while she was inside, so I stuck my head in the bedroom. The covers were thrown back, the lights off. A thick, musty odor hung in the small space. I remembered Caitlin’s greasy hair at the police station, her dirty clothes. I listened for but didn’t hear water running in the bathroom. She needed to shower. She needed new things to wear. I looked at the floor. It was empty. No discarded clothes, no shoes or socks.

I went back to the bathroom door. I rapped lightly with my knuckles.

“Caitlin? Honey?”

Nothing. My heart started to thump. I knocked again, using more force.

I raised my hand to try the knob, but didn’t. I couldn’t just barge in on her, in whatever delicate state she might be in.

“Caitlin? If you don’t say anything, I’m going to open the door and check on you.”

Still nothing.

I tried the knob, expecting it to be locked, but it gave right away. I pushed in. The lights were on, gleaming off the polished surface of the vanity and mirror. The window was open too, wide open, the curtains swelling in the cold breeze. Caitlin wasn’t there. She was gone, out the window and into the night.

Abby stood at the bottom of the stairs.

“Tom?”

“Call the police. She went out the window.” I didn’t break stride. I went out the back door and into the yard, calling her name. “Caitlin! Caitlin!”

Nothing. No sign of her. The cars still sat at the end of the driveway. I looked in the windows, cupping my hands against the glass. Empty. An unbidden thought popped into my head-I didn’t know if Caitlin knew how to drive.

I turned away from the car. “Caitlin!”

I looked back at the house. She’d gone out the window and onto the porch overhang. From there, it was about a ten-foot drop to the ground. Hardly a challenge for someone young and in any kind of decent shape.

Abby came to the back door. “Tom? The police are coming.” “We should call Ryan.”

“They said they’d tell him.”

“I’m going to take the car and look,” I said, already moving. “She can’t have gone far. Jesus Christ, Abby. I should have seen this coming. The way she acted in the car. .”

“I think you should stay.”

“I’m going,” I said. “Around the neighborhood.”

“Tom, I want you to stay. Please. I don’t want to be here alone.”

I held my keys in my hand and moved toward the car. I looked back at Abby under the glow of the back porch light. Her face was full of pleading and fear.

Last time, I sat in the house, waiting. A fool. Not again, I thought. Not again. I couldn’t let Caitlin disappear this time without doing something. Immediately.

“I have the cell,” I said. “Call me if anything changes.”

“Tom.”

I didn’t look back. I got into the car and sped off.

Chapter Twenty-five

He took her.

As I made my way through the streets around our house, up one and down the other, peering into front yards and up driveways, trying my best to see through the darkness, one thought circled through my brain: He took her. Buster took her.

Televisions glowed blue behind drawn curtains, and regular people washed dishes or put out trash cans. They lived their lives, ignorant of and unaffected by my drama.

I didn’t see Caitlin anywhere.

The cell phone buzzed in my pocket. Abby. I answered.

“Tom, the police are here.”

My heart raced even more. “Did they find her?”

“No. They want to talk to you.”

“Tell them I’m looking.”

“They don’t want you to look,” Abby said. “They want you back here.”

“You want me back there,” I said. “The cops don’t care.”

“Tom-”

“Tell them to call Buster.”

“Do you really think-?”

“Tell them.”

Once I drove through our neighborhood, I headed toward campus and looked along the streets there. Students filled the sidewalks, shuffling to evening classes. I quickly felt like a man adrift, without hope. Engaging in a fool’s errand. Even in a town this size, what were the odds of finding one person, especially one person who apparently didn’t want to be found?

The phone buzzed again.

“Shit.” I checked the display, expecting to see Abby’s name. I was relieved to see it was Ryan. “Hello? Did you find her?”

“Tom, you should come back here. We have men looking.”

“Where? I’m over by campus, and I don’t see them.”

“Your wife needs you at home. If Caitlin comes back, you need to be here.”

“If, if, if, Ryan. I’m not going to be passive this time,” I said. “I should have seen this. I should have stopped it. I’m not going to sit at home while my daughter is lost, God knows where.”

“Listen to me, Tom-”

I hung up. I decided to head out toward the mall, to Williamstown Road, where they’d found Caitlin walking just that morning. It seemed like the next logical step. I backtracked through our neighborhood to get to Williamstown Road, but I avoided our street, figuring that if there was news, someone would call. And if there wasn’t, I didn’t want to get sidetracked. I took a longer way around and ended up abreast of the cemetery. I hit the turn signal and pulled in through the gate, heading toward the back to Caitlin’s headstone. I wasn’t supposed to be there. It closed at dark, but they didn’t always shut the entry gates. This was one such night.

The road through the cemetery was narrow and closely lined by trees. My headlights illuminated the gnarled trunks and bounced off the headstones, showing the names and dates in brief flashes. I took a fork in the road, one that bent to the left, and I knew I was getting close to the headstone.

Then I saw the girl.

First she was a white blur in the headlights, held in relief against the darkness. I hit a bump in the road, and the headlights jostled up and down. I lost sight of her for a moment, then picked her up again. She stood in front of Caitlin’s headstone, her hands resting on the top, as though she needed it for support. It was the same girl from the park that day, the one who ran off into the trees when I approached her.

Caitlin?

I hit the brakes, skidding to a stop. I pushed open the door.

“Hey!”

The girl turned and ran off, dashing into the darkness like a frightened animal. I went after her, dodging around the tombstones. But there was next to no light. As I ran, I saw the girl ahead of me, her light clothes showing up in the darkness, but in a short while she faded from my view, swallowed up by the night.

“Hey!”

I stopped running, my breath coming in short, huffing bursts. She was gone. I listened but didn’t hear the sound of twigs snapping or grass being trampled. If she was still out there, she was being stealthy and quiet, moving in the night like a guerrilla.

Beyond the edge of the cemetery were tracts of new and fairly expensive subdivisions. She could easily be from one of those homes, I reasoned, a kid who wandered out of her yard to play.

But what did she want from me? What did she have to do with Caitlin?

When my wind came back, I turned for the car. The headlights were angled toward Caitlin’s headstone and held it in a cone of light that carved through the darkness.

A fresh bouquet lay at the base of the stone, below Caitlin’s name and dates. It looked like the kind from the grocery store, fresh-cut flowers wrapped in cheap and crinkly cellophane.

I hadn’t been back to the cemetery since the first day I saw the girl, a few weeks earlier. I didn’t know if Abby was visiting the plot. I imagined she would-Abby on her knees at the headstone, her hand reaching out to brush away a stray leaf or spiderweb, then bowing her head in prayer or reflection. She might even bring Pastor Chris with her, a spiritual companion to share her journey of grief. I shook my head, allowed myself a little moment of I-told-you-so triumph. I’d been right. Caitlin was still alive. She’d come back. No need to turn the page or move on.

There was a piece of scrap paper affixed to the cellophane with a paper clip, a note written in pen, a scrawled, scratchy handwriting. Not a child’s writing, and not a woman’s either. I could read the note without bending over.

Good-bye, it said. Don’t come back.

My knees felt jittery, like they were full of sand.

I grabbed the bouquet and brought it with me to the car.

I returned home just before nine o’clock. Ryan and Abby were in the kitchen. They sat at the table, sipping coffee. I carried the bouquet.

“I found these,” I said. “At the cemetery.”

They didn’t say anything, but I could tell they didn’t get it.

“At Caitlin’s headstone,” I said. “There’s a note. Somebody left a note for her.”

Ryan came out of his chair.

“Put it down,” he said. “Put it down.”

I laid it on the counter.

“Did you touch the note?” he asked.

“No. It’s still there.”

He put his glasses on and read the note. “Do you know the handwriting?” he asked.

“No.”

“Abby,” Ryan said, “will you get me a ziplock bag, one of the large ones for the freezer?”

Ryan carefully picked the note up by its corners, his fat, sau-sagey fingers looking almost delicate, and dropped it into the bag Abby was holding open. He sealed it with a quick motion of his thumb. “It’s unlikely there will be any prints, but we can try.”

“Who is that note for?” Abby asked “Is it for her? Or us?”

“It might be a joke,” Ryan said. “Some sort of hoax.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Earlier, when Caitlin was asleep, I looked in on her. She was saying something in her sleep. She said, ‘Don’t send me back. Don’t send me back.’ At first I thought she was talking about us, that she thought we were going to send her back to wherever she came from. But the way she said it. . I don’t know.”

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Ryan said. “I’m going to take this with me. And I’ll call as soon as I hear anything. Just hang in there.”

“I guess we know all about that,” Abby said.

“Ryan,” I said. “My brother, Buster.”

“Abby mentioned-”

“He was here, right before. I think. .”

I didn’t know what I thought. Not really.

“We’re looking into everything,” he said. “But no promises, no guarantees.”

And that’s the way he left us, waiting for our daughter again.

Chapter Twenty-six

I fell asleep in a living room chair. Someone knocked on the front door and it took a moment for the cobwebs to clear, for the events of the day to reappear in my mind. Caitlin at the police station, the hospital, back home. Then Caitlin out the window, into the night, the cemetery, the note. .

They knocked again.

“Tom?”

Abby’s voice reached me from upstairs.

“Tom, it’s the police. I’m getting dressed.”

I went to the door and opened it. Ryan stood there in the porch light. He looked haggard, unshaven. I feared the worst. They found her, but she was dead, and Ryan was here to bring me the bad news.

“Is she. .?”

“She’s in the car,” he said. “We got her.”

Abby appeared beside me, and then we both moved out of the way, letting Ryan in. I gestured toward a chair, but he shook his head.

“I have to get home,” he said. “This won’t take long.”

“Is she in trouble?” Abby asked. “Did she do something?”

“No, we found her north of downtown, not far from the police station actually. She was walking, but we’re not sure where. There isn’t much out there really.”

“Thank you for bringing her back,” Abby said.

“Is there something we need to sign?” I asked. “A report or something?”

Ryan shook his head. “No need.” He didn’t make a move to leave or sit down. “I know how difficult this is, and that the two of you have been kind of thrown into the deep end here,” he finally said. “This is a huge adjustment for both of you. I’ll help in any way I can, but. .”

“What are you saying?” Abby asked.

“It can start to get dicey when man power is being diverted in this way. If the media finds out, it becomes a spectacle. And you and Caitlin don’t need that right now. Let’s just utilize the resources we have at our disposal. We’re in a critical stage with Caitlin, and we all have to be on alert. Especially the two of you. You’re on the front line here.”

“Of course,” Abby said.

“Who was she with?” I asked.

“No one,” Ryan said. “She was alone.” He looked me in the eye. “We never got ahold of your brother.”

Someone knocked lightly on the screen door, so we turned. In the faint porch light, Caitlin looked calm, unaffected. Two uniformed cops walked behind her, but they didn’t appear to be forcing her to move along or into the house. She came in on her own, as though it were perfectly natural to be brought to our door by the police at sunrise.

I took a quick look up and down the street. The neighbors had received quite a show. News vans and cops and now this.

Neither one of us touched Caitlin when she came in. She stopped in the living room and stood with her hands jammed into the pockets of her hooded sweatshirt. She looked like any slightly grubby teenager waiting for a bus.

Ryan nodded at us. “I’d like to see you keep that appointment in the morning” he said.

Rosenbaum. I understood what he was saying.

“We’ll be there,” I said.

“You could even call him now,” Ryan said. “He might have some ideas-”

“We’re okay,” I said. “We’ve got it.”

When Ryan was gone, Abby broke the silence.

“Do you want something to eat, honey?”

Before Caitlin could form a response, I cut her off.

“No,” I said. “She needs to sit down. We have some things to talk about.”

“Tom-”

“Sit down,” I said. “All of us.”

Caitlin didn’t move. She stayed rooted in place, her eyes a little vacant, her mouth a narrow line.

“Caitlin?” I said.

“I don’t want to sit,” she said.

My voice rose and I pointed at a chair. “I’m telling you to.” “I want to go to bed.”

“And run off again?” I said.

She didn’t say anything else. She stared past me toward a point somewhere in the air.

“Where were you going tonight?” I asked.

When she didn’t move or respond or even change the expression on her face, I felt anger welling up within me. I wanted to reach out and take her by the shoulders and shake.

“Tom, why don’t we just get her something to eat?” Abby said.

I stormed off toward the kitchen. I wasn’t going to eat. I took a piece of paper from the counter and returned to the living room. Caitlin and Abby started to follow me, but when they saw me coming back, they stopped in the dining room. My dirty dish was still there, the tomato sauce hardening like dried blood.

I held up the sketch.

“Who is this man?” I asked Caitlin. “Is this the man you were going to see tonight? Is it?”

She blinked a few times and leaned closer. She studied the sketch like it was a rare bird that fascinated her.

“Is this the man who took you?” I asked.

“Tom.”

I moved the paper closer. “Is this the man who took you to strip clubs and made you watch him?”

She blinked again, surprise showing on her face.

“Did he give you flowers in the park? For Valentine’s Day? What’s his name, Caitlin?” I asked.

Her chin puckered. “You. . said. . you weren’t going to ask me those things.”

And then she crumpled. She fell into Abby’s arms, sobbing, her face pressed against Abby’s neck, her body shuddering so much that Abby had to hold her up. Abby rubbed her back and held her tight and looked over Caitlin’s shoulder at me, her face sending me a clear message.

I hope you’re happy now. I hope you got what you wanted.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Abby woke me by knocking lightly, then coming in the guest room before I could say anything. Light spilled in from the hall.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“She’s in the shower. She needed to take one.”

I sat up quickly. “You left her-”

“It’s fine. The door’s open, and the water’s running. I helped her get undressed. She doesn’t have anything else to wear.”

“Where did she sleep?”

“In the bed. She slept a couple of hours at least.”

“Did she say anything?” I asked.

“She apologized for leaving and for scaring us.”

“Did she say where she went?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Did she say anything in her sleep?”

“I want to tell you something else. Something important.”

I was more insistent. “So she didn’t?”

“I was asleep, too, Tom.” Abby looked behind her, checking on the bathroom. When she turned back around, I took note of the fact that she looked calmer, more relaxed than the day before. Even with a lack of sleep, she looked refreshed. “I want to tell you that I feel good about the way things are going.”

“You do? Our daughter goes out the window, and you feel good?”

“I had a dream last night, while I was sleeping next to Caitlin. In my dream, there was this woman, and she came to our door here, the front door of this house. She was maybe twenty-five years old, and she was pregnant. She didn’t look like Caitlin, not at all. She didn’t even resemble her. But when I opened the door and saw her, I knew it was Caitlin. She was coming here to tell us she was pregnant. You see?”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“It means she’s going to be okay,” Abby said. “She has a future, one that’s going to turn out fine. We just have to accept that this is the path we’ve been set on, and know that eventually we’ll get to the place we want to be. Like Dr. Rosenbaum said last night, this is a long road.”

Abby smiled down at me, with a forced smile I recognized. As Abby became increasingly involved with the church, I saw that smile more and more. The church believed in the power of positive thinking, and its members were encouraged to present a happy face to the world. I wasn’t sure if Pastor Chris actually taught his followers that they could change the world through smiling, but I wouldn’t have doubted it.

“And this dream made you feel better?” I asked.

“The dream and the way things worked out last night. Caitlin came back.”

“You know they told us the pregnancy test was negative? I don’t think I want a grandchild out of this deal.”

Abby’s facade melted. “Why would you say a thing like that, Tom?”

“I’m helping you interpret your dream.”

“Why do you always have to see the negative side of things?” She looked behind her again. “I was thinking of it metaphorically, that it was saying Caitlin could be happy again.”

“It just seems silly to place that much stock in a dream, doesn’t it?” I settled back against the pillows. “It’s wish fulfillment. Did you used to have dreams about Caitlin coming back?”

“Sometimes.”

“I did, too. And in those dreams, she would come home and she’d be happy to see us and we’d be happy to see her. And when she came in the door, we’d know where she’d been and how she’d been taken, and it always, always made sense, just like your dream made sense to you.”

Abby looked at the floor. I could tell she wasn’t showered yet, and I was reminded of the first nights we’d spent together, the mornings when Abby wouldn’t believe me that I thought she looked beautiful even then, just after waking up.

“We almost had another baby together,” I said.

“Oh, Tom.”

“Where was I when it happened? How did you hide it from me?”

She shook her head. “Tom. .”

“I want to know. I have a right to know.”

“You were at school. It was early in the day. The cramps were terrible, then bleeding. I knew what was happening.” She looked up. “I almost called you. I did.”

“But?”

“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell you.”

The water shut off in the bathroom. Abby turned away and said, “Are you okay, honey? I’m right here.”

Caitlin said something I couldn’t make out. Abby started to leave, but I said her name, stopping her.

“You called Pastor Chris, right?” I said. “He took you to the doctor.”

Abby nodded slowly. “When you came home that day, I was in bed. I said I had a stomach thing. You slept in here so you wouldn’t catch it.”

Before Abby could go again, I spoke up. “I just wanted to ask you one other thing, about this dream of yours. Something about it doesn’t make sense.”

“What, Tom?”

“Why-if Caitlin is coming to this house in the dream and in the future-why are you the one who’s here and opening the door for her? I thought you wanted to go.”

“It’s a dream, Tom. .”

“So it doesn’t mean anything? Or does it?”

Abby turned away.

“I’m going to help her get ready,” she said.

We went to a bland brick and glass office building downtown where Dr. Rosenbaum kept an office for his private practice. He met us in the reception area, and I expected him to have something to say about the night before and Caitlin’s attempted escape. But he didn’t. Maybe it was because she was there, or maybe he was simply in a hurry, but he told us he wanted to talk to Caitlin alone first. We let him lead her behind a closed door into his office, while we sat in uncomfortable chairs filling out the insurance forms the receptionist gave us.

No other patients came or went. There was no TV, no piped-in Muzak, and few magazines. I wished I’d brought a book, anything to distract me. Abby picked up a women’s magazine, something with the promise of diet tips plastered across the front, and started paging through. She turned the pages quickly, snapping them from the right to the left. Things hung in the air between us, heavy as lead. Her dream. The miscarriage. Pastor Chris.

We didn’t talk about them.

My phone rang. Liann.

I took the call out in the hallway.

“I was going to call you last night, as soon as I heard the news,” Liann said. “I wanted to scream when I saw it and come right over. But I figured you were occupied. How does it feel? How is she? Tell me.”

“We’re at the shrink’s office right now.”

“What’s wrong? You sound awful.”

I told her about the night before, about Caitlin coming home and almost immediately running away again.

“Now don’t even worry about that. That’s just a bump in the road. And there are going to be bumps along the way, I promise. That girl’s been through a lot. She’s confused. Very confused. You just have to hang in there.”

“Right.”

“I just wish. .”

“What?” I waited for an important insight.

“Shit. I wish we could have followed her,” Liann said. “She would have led us right back to that snake who took her. It would have been so easy, like a trail of bread crumbs. The cops are so dumb. They just want to run right out and grab her and bring her back. They don’t even want to stop and think.”

My face flushed a little. “I think they were concerned with her safety and getting her home again.”

“Did she say anything about the guy? Has she offered anything?”

“Pretty much the silent treatment,” I said. “She made me promise not to ask her any questions about where she’d been.”

“You didn’t agree to that, did you?”

“Of course I did.”

“Oh, Tom. You can’t make deals with her. She’s a child, and she has to tell us things.”

Us?

“Who’s the therapist you’re seeing?” Liann asked.

“Rosenbaum.”

Liann made a little humming noise.

“What?” The hallway was empty, and my voice echoed.

“He’s okay. He’s fine, really. He works with the police a lot. He’s very experienced.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“Can I come over and see her later?”

Before I could answer, Abby opened the office door and made an impatient, hurry-the-hell-up gesture at me. I held up my index finger, and she pulled her head back inside.

“I have to go, Liann. Look, I’ll call you. Things with Abby. . and Caitlin-it’s weird.”

“Of course, of course. Just call me tonight. We have a lot to talk about now.”

“Okay. I will.”

“Tom, this is a major break. We’ll find this guy. This is good.”

“And Caitlin-”

But she was already off the phone.

Rosenbaum came out with Caitlin. He asked us to come into his office and directed Caitlin to a waiting room chair. I hesitated.

“Caitlin will be fine right here. Won’t she?” Rosenbaum said. Caitlin sat down in the chair without looking up at us. “Mary?” He nodded at his receptionist, who nodded back, as though she understood the drill without anything being said. “Shall we?” Rosenbaum said to us.

Abby took a hesitant step forward but kept her eyes on Caitlin.

I felt torn.

I didn’t want to let her out of my sight, fearing a repeat of the night before.

But something else entered my mind, a sudden, darting thought I hadn’t anticipated:

Might it be better if we let her go?

Would everyone be happier if Caitlin wasn’t here?

I chased the thought away, pushed it down below the surface of my mind. I pointed to the door Rosenbaum had emerged from. “It’s okay,” I said to Abby. “They’ll keep an eye on her.”

We settled into chairs in Rosenbaum’s inner office. It held a small, uncluttered desk, several comfortable chairs, and even a chaise longue a patient could recline on. A pitcher of water and several glasses sat on a side table, and next to every chair-except the one Rosenbaum landed in-was a box of Kleenex.

“I received a call from Detective Ryan this morning, and he told me about your adventurous night last night. Remember, you could have called me if you needed to.”

“It was late,” I said. “Very late.”

“You’d be amazed at how many late-night calls I get,” he said. “Keep it in mind for the future. But I guess she did settle down and sleep a little?”

“She did,” Abby said.

“Good,” he said. “Her attempt to run away isn’t completely surprising. Although going out a second-floor window is pretty bold. That’s a first for me. Like I said, home is the unfamiliar environment right now.”

“What about-?” I pointed toward the waiting room.

“I don’t really think Caitlin’s going anywhere right now.”

“How can you be sure?” Abby asked.

“I can’t be,” he said, offering that same kind of forced smile. “But I think I am. Right now, none of us can really know anything for certain.” He crossed his legs, ankle on knee, and looked at us, his face pleasant. “I just wanted to touch base with you both about Caitlin and share my initial impressions of our first session.”

“What did she tell you?” I asked.

“Nothing. She didn’t open her mouth. That’s not unusual for someone who’s been through what she’s been through.”

“What has she been through?” I asked. “We really don’t know.”

“If I can be candid with you, the medical and police reports already tell some of the story. Based on that and other cases like this one, I suspect she has been the victim of some sort of sexual assault, most likely at the hands of whoever took her out of that park that day. And most likely this assault was repeated over the last four years.”

The same piercing pain hit me, but this time it came on like someone punctured my lungs, letting the air evacuate from my body. I looked at the floor while my mind raced, trying to find a glimmer of hope.

“So you don’t think she ran away?” I asked.

“She doesn’t fit the profile of a runaway. And whether she ran away originally or not, if a twelve-year-old girl has sexual relations with an adult man, it’s sexual assault.”

Abby remained silent, so I looked over at her. She looked dreamy, distant. While I stared she spoke up.

“Why did she leave again? You said she didn’t feel safe at home.”

“We don’t really know where she was going, but it’s possible she was trying to get back to whomever she was with. As for why she would go back, that too is fairly common in these cases. Quite a lot has been written about this phenomenon. A lot of case studies and research. You see, the victim identifies with the attacker as a defense mechanism. She becomes more attached to him than anything else. After four years, those attachments to this man run deep, much deeper than what she now feels for either of you.” Rosenbaum’s voice was calm, almost soothing, and somehow that made the impact of his words even more terrible. “I won’t kid you-this is a long, uphill climb here. Some of these victims never testify against the people who’ve harmed them. They never see it as a crime.”

“Jesus,” I said. I still didn’t feel like I could get enough air. Rosenbaum’s eyes wandered over both of us. There was more to say, and it looked like he was gauging whether or not we could handle it.

“Caitlin may think of this man as her husband. She may have been told this for the last four years. Adolescence is a profoundly important time in someone’s development. To have such trauma intrude upon that time can have catastrophic psychological consequences. I remember a case in Columbus during my residency. The young woman corresponded with the man who took her for many, many years, even while he was in prison.”

“Oh, God,” Abby said.

“We’re talking years of therapy here, not days or months. And we may never know exactly what happened while she was gone.”

He paused, but neither one of us said anything.

“It’s not just trauma for her, you know,” he said. “It’s trauma for you. How are the two of you handling the adjustment so far?”

“It’s only one day,” I said, grasping to put a positive spin on things.

“And an eventful one at that,” he said.

He smiled again. It seemed less forced and more natural. But I sensed his question for us was probing at something.

“I think-” Abby said, then hesitated before she began again. “I think Tom has some unrealistic expectations for Caitlin.”

“Oh?” Rosenbaum said.

“He wants to push, and like you said, it’s going to take time. A lot of time.”

“Tom?” Rosenbaum said.

“I came down hard on her last night.”

“This is before she ran away?” Rosenbaum asked.

“No, after.” I told him about it: grabbing the sketch and sticking it in Caitlin’s face, bringing her to tears. “Aren’t fathers supposed to ask those questions?”

“Yesterday, at the police station, Caitlin told Tom not to ever ask her any questions about where she’d been or what she’d been doing while she was gone,” Abby said.

“Very interesting,” Rosenbaum said. “And you said you’d honor that wish?”

“I did. At the time. Yes.” I tried to sound reasonable, to get them both to understand where I was coming from with the promise. “I was so thrilled to have her back, I would have said anything.”

Rosenbaum nodded, the wise sage. “I think it’s best if you honor that promise for now. If you make promises and don’t keep them, you’ll only widen the gap between the two of you.”

“But you’re going to get her to talk, right?” I asked.

“I’m going to try,” he said. “But she’s a teenager now, one with a lot of trust issues. At some point, I can’t force another person to say or do things they don’t want to say or do. Building trust with her will be a big key for both of you right now. It’s the best way to start to work against the events of the last four years. It’s like you’re starting from scratch in a way.”

“Don’t you think we should try to focus on the positive aspects of Caitlin being at home?” Abby asked. “We should welcome her and support her.”

“What do you think of that, Tom?”

I looked at Abby. “Abby and I are separated. Abby left me and moved out of our house. It’s tough for us to be supportive and put up a united front if I don’t know whether we’re united or not.”

Abby glared at me. “I’ve moved home for Caitlin’s sake,” she said. She turned back to Rosenbaum. “And we’ve already told Caitlin about our separation. She understands about our rough times, but we’re trying.”

“You know,” Rosenbaum said, “this process of recovery will be twice as difficult if there are unresolved issues between the two of you. We’re here for Caitlin, remember?”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess none of the other stuff is as important.”

“Abby?” Rosenbaum said.

“It’s not going to be a problem with me,” she said. “I’m focusing on the positive.”

Rosenbaum didn’t look entirely convinced, but he kept his concerns to himself. “Then I think we should go with that,” he said. “In the meantime. .” He leaned over to his desk and picked up a prescription pad and pen. “I’d like to put Caitlin on an antianxiety drug, something to help her feel less defensive and more at ease in your home. It might even help her sleep.” He scribbled, then extended the paper toward us. Abby took it and put it in her purse. “And remember,” he said, “I’m also here to help the two of you. If either of you find yourselves struggling with this adjustment, you can give me a call. Or I can recommend someone.”

“Doctor?” I said. “One more thing. When Caitlin came home last night, she fell asleep in her old room. I heard her talking in her sleep. She said, ‘Don’t send me back.’ She said it over and over. What do you think of that?”

“You mean do I know who she was talking to?”

I nodded.

“I’m sorry, but experience tells me she probably wasn’t talking to you.” He asked if there was anything else. I couldn’t imagine there could be, so I let him walk us to the door.

Chapter Twenty-eight

We stopped at a department store on the way home to buy Caitlin clothes. Abby led the way. She took Caitlin into the young women’s section and picked out several pairs of jeans, shirts, and sweatshirts, as well as underwear, bras, and socks. They disappeared into a dressing room while I sat outside, watching older women with oversized purses hanging from their arms poke around on the sale racks.

How had this become my life?

How really, truly far gone was my daughter?

They came out with a stack of clothes, and Abby paid for them all with a credit card. I didn’t pay attention to the price. We then stopped in the shoe section, and we bought two pairs for Caitlin. I watched my daughter, hoping to see some glimpse of the child I once knew. A sign of joy or contentment, even vulnerability. It wasn’t there. At least not to my eyes. I remembered taking her to buy her first pair of soccer cleats. I remembered her excitement over getting a Happy Meal at McDonald’s. I remembered her squeals and her energy. None of that was there. No life, no happiness.

In the car, on the way home, Abby tried to converse. “We have plenty of food at home,” she said. “The neighbors have been bringing it by.”

A long pause. Abby started to turn around, but Caitlin’s voice stopped her.

“Like someone died,” she said.

Her voice sounded distant and small from the backseat. I looked in the rearview mirror, but she was still staring out the window. Abby turned back toward her.

“People bring food at happy times, too,” she said. “Like when a baby is born.”

I watched in the rearview mirror when I could. Caitlin didn’t move her head or make any effort to look at Abby.

“You know,” Abby said, “this is kind of like you were born again, though. Isn’t it?”

“Kind of like the Prodigal Son, right?” Caitlin said. “You used to tell me about that.”

“Right,” Abby said, brightening. “You remember that story from when you were little, don’t you?”

Caitlin didn’t answer. Abby didn’t get discouraged.

“Honey?” she asked. “Have you been going to school? Or church?”

I alternated my eyes from the road to the rearview mirror and back again.

“No,” Caitlin said. “And I didn’t miss it either.”

“Well,” Abby said, trying to remain cheerful and not succeeding very well. “We can certainly take care of that one of these days.” She turned back around, and I kept my eyes on the road as well.

When we reached the house, I asked Abby to give me a moment alone in the car with Caitlin.

“Sure,” Abby said, but she didn’t leave right away. She moved her eyes between the two of us, considering us. Then she went to the trunk, gathered the bags, and headed inside, leaving me alone with Caitlin.

“Caitlin?” I said. She didn’t move. “I know you can hear me, right?” Nothing. “Okay. I’ll assume you can.” I took a breath. “I’m sorry if I upset you last night when I showed you that sketch and asked you those questions. I just want to make sure you’re okay, and if someone hurt you or did something to you, I want to know-I want you to know-that, whoever he is, that person is going to be punished and held accountable. We taught you that when you were little, and it hasn’t changed. People are accountable for what they do, and they suffer the consequences for their actions.” My awkward position brought a crick to my neck. “Are you hearing me? Do you understand what I’m saying?” My voice started to rise, but I brought it under control. “Well?”

“You’re not going to ask me anymore?” she said, her voice low and steady. “Those bullshit questions?”

I took a deep breath.

“I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”

She pushed open the car door and stepped out, slamming it shut behind her.

Chapter Twenty-nine

As I came through the back door, I heard Abby gasp. I rushed in and found Abby and Caitlin standing at the entrance to the dining room-and Buster sitting at the head of the table, a mug of coffee steaming in front of him.

“How did you get in?” I asked.

“You need to find a new place for the Hide-A-Key,” he said. “I would think a family that-you know-you might be more careful. Besides,” he said, standing up, “I wanted to come by when she’s awake. Right?”

Caitlin stood close to Abby, uncertain. Abby rested her arm on Caitlin’s shoulder, a protective gesture. But Buster didn’t relent. He opened his arms wide.

“You remember me, don’t you?” he said.

And Caitlin nodded, almost spasmodically. “Buster!” She went to him quickly, allowing herself to be folded up in his arms. He squeezed her tight. I watched them, saw the real emotion on Buster’s face as he held on to my daughter. He eased his grip and held her back at arm’s length, looking her over.

“Goddamn,” he said. “Look at you. You’re all grown up.”

Abby cringed at his language, but Buster didn’t notice.

“I never thought I’d see you again, girl. I really didn’t. This is like some sort of dream come true. You’re back from the dead.”

A blush rose on Caitlin’s cheeks, but she didn’t say anything.

“You’re going to have to tell me all about it,” he said. “Where you were, what you were doing. All about your adventures.”

“Maybe Caitlin needs to come upstairs and change her clothes,” Abby said. “We got her a bunch of new clothes just now.”

“Yeah?” Buster looked Caitlin over again. “You’re right. It looks like you’re wearing your mom’s clothes. No sixteen-year-old should have to do that.” He let her go. “Okay, but we’ll talk after that.”

Before Abby and Caitlin left the room to go upstairs, Abby looked back at me. “Maybe you can fill William in on all that’s been happening,” she said.

When they were gone, Buster sipped his coffee.

“What is your deal?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You were talking to her like she’d been on a cruise or something. After you came by last night, she ran off. Or did you know that already?”

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “What happened?”

“Do you know?”

“Jesus, Tom.” He shook his head. “Can you for once-for five fucking minutes-just forget about your own bullshit? And Abby’s? Will you?”

“What are you doing here?” I remained standing, watching him.

“I came to see my niece. I’m family, too. Remember? I know sometimes you want to act like we’re not, but we are, even if you want to deny it.”

My hand was on his shoulder. I hadn’t realized I’d reached out to hold him, but my grip was tight. I let go.

“No more interrogating, okay?”

“Okay. Jesus.” He stared into his mug. “She looks different.”

“She’s older.”

“She’s skinny. Worn. Like she’s been through it. And she has that awful, dykey haircut. What are the cops saying?”

I went over to the table and sat at the opposite end from him. “I don’t know. All we do is hurry up and wait.”

“We’ll never know what happened to her,” he said. “The cops, they’re never going to get anywhere.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked, studying his face.

“Do they think she ran away?”

“Maybe.”

“Or they think I did it, right? They’re chasing their tails.”

“She’s back,” I said. “That’s what’s important.”

But the words felt put on, like I was speaking lines from a script.

I heard Caitlin and Abby on the stairs, then in the kitchen. Before they entered the dining room, Buster said, “You keep telling yourself that, Tom. Just go ahead and keep telling yourself that.”

I knew it would bother Abby, so I asked Buster to stay and eat with us. The four of us sat down at the table together, facing a meal of ham, scalloped potatoes, and green beans left by someone from Abby’s church. Between the church and some neighbors, we had enough food to last for weeks. We were all ready to eat, even Caitlin, but Abby bowed her head and closed her eyes. She reached out for Caitlin’s hand, and I was happy to see that Caitlin made no effort to return the gesture. Instead, she grabbed her fork and started eating while Abby murmured a prayer, her eyes shut so tight it looked like it hurt. When Abby opened her eyes again and saw Caitlin eating already, she pursed her lips a little but didn’t say anything.

Caitlin’s eating made me cringe, but for a different reason. She ate quickly, shoveling the food from the plate to her mouth with the rapidity of an automated machine. She didn’t pause long enough to take a breath or use a napkin to wipe her face. And when she chewed, she kept her mouth open wide, the food on display for all to see, her teeth and lips making smacking sounds that would have put Frosty to shame. Abby and I had ridden Caitlin hard when she was little, making sure she knew good table manners, but it was all out the window now. She conducted herself like she’d been living in a zoo for four years. Abby and I didn’t even bother to look at each other during the meal. We each knew what the other was thinking.

All that effort wasted. .

But Buster spoke up.

“Settle down there, girl. You’re eating like the Iraqis are coming up I-75.”

Caitlin ignored him and kept going.

She did look better in her new clothes-a long-sleeved T-shirt, jeans, and new sneakers. She didn’t say anything, didn’t acknowledge any of the mindless conversation the three of us made, and when her plate was clean, she laid her fork aside and belched. She began fidgeting with a necklace. It was a simple gold chain with a small amber stone. Topaz maybe? She took the stone between her thumb and forefinger and pulled it back and forth on the chain.

“That’s pretty,” Abby said, her teeth gritted just a little.

Caitlin just nodded.

I watched Caitlin swing it back and forth, a nervous tic. I wanted to know what made her touch it that way and who she thought of when she held it.

“That’s your birthstone,” Abby said. She kept eating, but the skin around her mouth drew tight. She looked like she was chewing broken glass. “Very pretty, very pretty.”

Detective Ryan called as we were finishing our meal. He said he was on his way over to talk to us, the sooner the better. I shared this with everyone when I hung up the phone. Buster poured himself another cup of coffee, but he squirmed in his seat and checked the clock on his cell phone repeatedly. Finally, he stood up and said he was leaving.

“Really?” I asked. “Don’t you want to stay and find out what’s going on?”

“I don’t want to stay and get hassled by the cops. Besides, I have the drive back. . ”

“Makes sense,” Abby said.

Buster bent down and gave Caitlin a hug.

“We’ll talk soon,” he said.

She nodded, almost smiling.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

I walked with him to the front door. “We took her to a psychiatrist today, and she didn’t say a word.”

“A shrink? Really? Jesus, Tom. That’s worse than that fruity pastor at Abby’s church. What’s he going to do for you?”

“He can tell us what’s wrong, or get her to tell us what happened.”

“You need a shrink for that?”

The doorbell rang.

“Shit,” Buster said. “I should slip out the back.”

“Yeah, that would look good.”

I opened the door for Ryan. Momentary surprise passed across his face; then he held out his hand to Buster and they shook. Buster’s posture stiffened. He pulled back his shoulders and lifted his chin.

“Are you living here, William?” Ryan asked. “In New Cambridge?”

“Over in Columbus.”

“Nice,” Ryan said. “Actually, it’s a good thing you’re here. I need to talk to Tom and Abby, and if you don’t mind. .”

Buster nodded. “Sure. I’ll sit with Caitlin and watch TV or something while the grown-ups talk.”

“Don’t you have to go?” I asked, trying to move things along.

“It’s fine. I’ll make sure I only speak to her in declarative sentences.”

“I’ll get Abby,” I said. “The three of us can talk on the porch.”

The late afternoon was warm, unseasonably so, and a light breeze rustled through the trees. It felt good on the porch, like we were doing something normal.

“Is she doing better?” he asked.

“We bought her some new clothes today,” Abby said. “We’re adjusting.”

“What did you think of Dr. Rosenbaum?”

“It was fine-”

“What are you here for?” I asked. “Did you make an arrest?”

“No, we didn’t. Can you tell me how things went with Rosenbaum?”

“We learned that our daughter doesn’t like to talk to shrinks,” I said. “And we learned that she doesn’t like being with us as much as she liked being gone.”

“Tom. .” Abby said.

“Okay, he told us a lot of things, things a parent wouldn’t really want to hear.” I kept my eyes on Ryan. “What did you learn today? There must be something.”

He reached into his inside jacket pocket and brought out a small spiral notebook. He wet his index finger and started flipping through the pages while he talked. “One of the benefits of Caitlin’s recovery is that it puts her story back in the public eye in a big way, even more than the composite sketch of the suspect.” He licked his finger again, turned a few more pages, and stopped. “In the last twenty-four hours, we’ve been getting a lot of calls about Caitlin’s case, and we’ve only just begun to wade through them. But a picture has started to emerge.”

“A picture of what?” Abby asked.

“A number of people have called and told us that they saw Caitlin during the four years she was missing.”

“You mean people who thought they saw Caitlin and were mistaken?” I asked.

Ryan shook his head. “No, they saw her. Not all of them, of course. Some of them are crackpots, but there’s a consistency to the sightings that makes us believe them.” Ryan looked down at his notes again, and I sensed a reluctance on his part, a hesitation about what he was about to tell us. “People saw Caitlin out in public in the company of the man from the sketch. The stories are similar to the one you heard from the young woman at the Fantasy Club. Caitlin and this man were seen in out-of-the-way places. Strip clubs or diners. Always in rural or isolated areas. Never here in New Cambridge. Never in town or near the campus.”

I felt a sickness churning in my lower gut, a slow roiling, as though I might at any moment have to run to the bathroom to relieve it.

“I don’t understand,” Abby said. “What does it mean that Caitlin was out with this man? She must have tried to get away or asked for help.”

“No, she didn’t. At least not that any of our witnesses saw.”

I leaned forward in my chair, hoping to ease the pain in my gut. I didn’t think I could say anything.

“How can that be?” Abby asked. “Some strange man takes her, and she doesn’t run away. He must have held a gun to her or something, right? Tom? What are you doing, Tom? Are you okay? Are you hearing this?”

“We don’t know if there was a weapon involved or not,” Ryan said. “We’re looking into that. But in cases like this, it’s not unusual to hear that the victim was intimidated into not running away.”

“She has that bruise,” Abby said.

“We don’t know what that’s from,” Ryan said, “but it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that she was physically assaulted by whoever took her.”

“Why are you telling us all of this?” I asked. I shifted my position on the chair.

“I’m really just trying to keep you informed. This is going to somewhat change our approach to this investigation,” Ryan said. “Caitlin was a child when she disappeared. She’s still a child in the eyes of the law. We need to remember that. But this information could suggest a different and potentially more complicated relationship with whoever took her.”

“Let’s not use the word ‘relationship,’” Abby said.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “That was a poor choice of words. But Caitlin may very well be seeing it as a relationship.”

“Who is this guy, Ryan?” I asked. “If he showed up in public places, he must have left a trail. Credit card statements, signatures. He must have talked to people, given someone his name or something.”

“We’re going to do everything we can,” Ryan said.

His words were just nonsense syllables, though, meaningless mutterings that made no impact on me. I felt myself tuning out, fading away from a conversation that should have held so much importance for me. When Abby spoke again, her voice came to me from a great distance, as though she were speaking through a long tube.

“Are you going to ask Caitlin about this?” she asked.

Ryan nodded. “That’s the other reason I’m here. I have to see if she’ll talk to me. We gave her a break yesterday, but the sooner we can get some answers out of her, the better for the investigation. I was hoping. .” Ryan hesitated. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I was a little more aggressive with my questions. I’m going to press her a little bit now just to see if anything shakes loose. We’ll know pretty quickly if she’s going to respond to my approach.”

Abby looked over at me, her face uncertain. I got the feeling she wanted me to object or tell Ryan he couldn’t talk to Caitlin, that it was too soon, give us time. But I didn’t. The pain in my gut was starting up again, and I liked the idea of someone trying to provide me with answers.

“Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll tell her.”

Chapter Thirty

Buster and Caitlin sat on the couch in the living room, the TV tuned to some kind of talk show. The volume blared, and Buster was leaning over to Caitlin, saying something into her ear. He straightened up when I entered the room.

“What’s all this?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just hanging out and doing a little uncle and niece bonding.”

“What are you saying to her?” I asked.

“I’m telling her a stupid joke, Tom. Easy.”

“Caitlin, Detective Ryan needs to ask you a few questions.”

I felt Ryan behind me, his bulk looming there like an eclipsing planetary body.

Caitlin kept her eyes on the television.

“Maybe now isn’t the best time there, Sipowicz,” Buster said. “Maybe another couple of days to settle in.”

The left corner of Ryan’s mouth went up in a half smile, but there was no humor in it. “Maybe you could give us some privacy, William,” Ryan said. “But don’t leave. I’d like to ask you some questions as well.”

Buster smirked. He leaned over to Caitlin and gave her arm a squeeze. “I’ll be out there if you need me,” he said, loud enough for all of us to hear. “And don’t take any shit.”

Ryan walked across the room and took a seat on the opposite end of the couch from Caitlin. He reached out, picked up the remote, and clicked off the TV.

Abby slipped in the front door as Buster went out to the porch. She closed the storm door, blocking out the sounds of the outside world. “Is it okay if we’re here with her?” she asked. “I’d like to be here.”

“Sure,” Ryan said. “We’re just going to have a friendly chat.” Ryan adjusted his bulk on the couch, settling into the cushions a little like a bear choosing a spot to hibernate. It took long seconds, and when things were just right, he let out a long sigh. “Okay, Caitlin, do you want to tell me anything? Do you feel like talking about where you’ve been?”

Caitlin stiffened visibly and gave Ryan a quick glance out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t respond.

“I know this might be difficult, but we’ve got to get to the bottom of some things here, and the sooner we do that, the better. A crime’s been committed, and it’s my job to figure out who did what. Can you help me with that?”

Ryan reached into his inside coat pocket again. He brought out a piece of white paper, folded into thirds. He unfolded it and held it in front of Caitlin.

“Do you know this man? Do you know who he is?”

Nothing.

“You know his name, don’t you? He took you when you were little.”

“Maybe-” Abby began to say.

Ryan held up his hand without turning around, cutting Abby off.

“Caitlin, did this man hurt you in any way? Do you know the kind of ways I might mean?”

Abby gasped, but Caitlin turned and faced Ryan for the first time. She spoke to him through gritted teeth. “You think you know so much, but you don’t. You don’t know anything.”

“I want you to tell me those things, Caitlin,” Ryan said, his voice softer. “I want you to tell me what I need to know to find this man and convict him.”

Caitlin’s eyes darted back and forth ever so slightly, and she used her tongue to moisten her lips.

“Did this man threaten you? Did he say he’d hurt you if you talked to the police? Did he threaten your family? Your parents? You don’t have to worry about all of that. You’re safe here. Your parents are safe. We can protect you and your family.”

“Yes, Caitlin,” I said. “Listen to him.”

Ryan paused, letting his words sink in. I’m sure he was hoping the fatherly, protective approach might break Caitlin down, but when it didn’t, he pressed ahead.

“You know, people saw you out with this man,” Ryan said. “They saw you in public places, acting as though you were a couple. Let’s see, you were at the Fantasy Club with him, Pat’s Diner over in Leesburg, the Country Inn and Buffet in Russellville. You weren’t in handcuffs when these people saw you. You weren’t tied up or shackled or anything like that. In fact, some people saw you go off and use the restroom, which means you could have run away if you wanted to. Why didn’t you, Caitlin? Were you scared? Did he say he would hurt you if you ran?”

The sick feeling in my gut, the one that had started on the porch, came back even stronger. I bent down into a squatting position, resting my back against the wall. Abby was looking away, off toward the blank TV screen. Her right hand was raised to her chest and clutched a handful of fabric from her shirt.

Ryan sat back a little. He refolded the paper with the sketch on it and placed it back in his pocket. “I think I know what’s going on here,” he said. “I think you were trying to go back to this man last night. That’s why you went out the window and ran away. Do you love him, Caitlin? Is that what you think? Do you think you love him?”

“I do love him,” she said. “And he loves me. He does. Still. He loves me.”

I stood up, my mouth dry. I felt on the edge of panic. “Who does, Caitlin?” I asked. “Who is this man who’s been telling you these things?”

Ryan held up his silencing finger again, and when he did, Caitlin turned away from him and folded her arms across her chest. She looked younger than her years, like a small child throwing a tantrum, and to complete the effect some tears ran down her cheeks. It wasn’t full-fledged sobbing like the night before, but it was enough to signal the end of the conversation.

Ryan pushed himself up from the couch, the springs groaning with relief.

“Okay, Caitlin,” he said. “I’ll leave off there. But I do hope we’ll talk about this again. And I’ll be sure to tell Dr. Rosenbaum about our conversation. Maybe you’d rather talk to him about it at some point. Would you prefer that? Would you prefer to talk to Dr. Rosenbaum?”

Caitlin didn’t answer.

“Okay,” he said. “That’s fine. Well, I’m glad you’re home with your parents and getting settled in.”

Ryan left the room, and as he passed, he placed his hand on my arm and nodded, indicating he wanted us to follow him. We did, but before we left the living room, I looked back at Caitlin. She still sat on the couch in the same position-arms folded, jaw set. She looked stubborn and determined. Not only did I wonder about the secrets she held inside her, but also about the nature of the effort it would take to pry them loose. Before I left the room, Caitlin reached up and took hold of the topaz necklace. She rubbed the stone between her thumb and forefinger as if it were some kind of charm.

The three of us gathered in the kitchen, presumably out of Caitlin’s earshot, although a part of me suspected Ryan wanted her to hear our conversation.

“Continue to keep a close eye on her tonight,” Ryan said. “She may bolt again.”

“Oh, God,” Abby said. “Those things you said to her. . Why. .?”

“I’m sorry if it seemed too harsh. She has a strong wall up, and she’s strong willed. I had to try to get through it. The sooner we answer these questions, the sooner we can catch the person who did this to Caitlin. This guy’s out there, and I think he’s close.”

“Close?” Abby asked.

“In town. Or at least he was. Where did your brother go?”

“The porch, I guess,” I said.

“I’ll catch him on my way out.”

“Why do you want to talk to him?” Abby asked. “Frankly, given some of his past behavior, I thought maybe you should. . examine him more closely.”

“This is just routine,” Ryan said. “Really, keep a close eye on her tonight. She’s still attached to this guy.” He gave Abby a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Stay strong. We’re getting there.”

Abby and I walked with Ryan to the front of the house, back to the room where Caitlin was sitting. She’d turned the TV back on. Through the large picture window, I saw Buster sitting on the porch, smoking a cigarette. I thought he’d quit, but there he was, the long tendrils of smoke leaving his mouth and nostrils and being carried away on the wind.

“I’ll just have a word with William and be on my way.”

“Tom?”

I followed Abby’s gaze. She stared out the window to the porch, where Ryan stood over Buster. Ryan’s face displayed the same unfriendly grin, and Buster was shaking his head back and forth, back and forth.

She said my name again.

“Tom?”

I looked over at her. She jerked her head toward the kitchen, so I followed her back there. She leaned against the one counter and I leaned against the other, facing her.

“It’s true, isn’t it? All that stuff Ryan was saying to her? It’s true. She lived with some man, and she. . lived with him or whatever.”

“She was taken.”

“Are you sure? What if she ran away? What if she wanted to be away from us? Someone else seemed more appealing. Better.”

“Stop it.”

“It’s possible, Tom. Admit it’s possible. Don’t all kids wish they could be away from their parents? Maybe Caitlin. .”

I went back to the living room and looked out the window. Buster wore a large smirk, and for a moment, he looked as childish and pouty as Caitlin under the heat of Ryan’s questions. He flicked his cigarette butt out into our yard and kept smirking.

Chapter Thirty-one

I turned back to Caitlin. It was getting late in the afternoon, and the light was going. I sat in a chair across from her and didn’t bother to see if she would move her eyes from the TV screen to me. I knew she wouldn’t.

“I know Detective Ryan was kind of hard on you,” I said. “He’s just doing his job, trying to find out what’s going on.”

Silence.

“He left you a note.”

“Fuck him.”

“I don’t mean Detective Ryan.”

She cut her eyes toward me. I waited while the realization showed on her face.

“He left it in the cemetery, with a bouquet of flowers. Ryan took it, but I’m sure he’ll show it to you at some point. I think they’re looking for fingerprints.” I paused, letting that hang in the air a moment. “The note said not to come back. It told you to go away and not come back.”

“Why would anyone leave a note in the cemetery?” she asked.

“Maybe because that’s where he took you.”

She started to turn back to the TV, but stopped. She looked at me again, still processing. “Was my name on it? The note. Was my name on it?”

“No.” I didn’t know where she was going with this.

“Then how do you know it was for me?”

“He left it someplace special,” I said. “Someplace just for you.”

She had never been a stupid kid. She was always two steps ahead of Abby and me, even when she was little.

“What could be just for me in a cemetery?”

I didn’t say anything, but Caitlin stared, her eyes a little wider.

“No,” she said. “You fuckers.”

I was trapped. “You were gone a long time, Caitlin. We wanted to celebrate your life somehow.”

She started shaking her head.

“You buried me,” she said.

“No.”

Her mouth hung open, her face disbelieving.

“He was right,” she said.

“Who?” I asked. But I knew. The man.

“He said you’d forget about me. You’d move on.”

“He lied to you, Caitlin. We never forgot.”

“It’s bullshit.”

“It’s a headstone, Caitlin. It’s just a memorial, a tribute.”

She turned back to the TV, her jaw set like granite.

“I’ll show you the note when I can. He’s done with you. Stop protecting him.”

“You’ll never know what happened,” she said. “Never.”

“I will.” I raised my hand, index finger extended. “I promise.”

She shook her head, speaking one word.

“Never,” she said. “Never.”

I looked outside, where Buster paced back and forth on the porch, a new cigarette burning in his mouth. It looked like Ryan was gone, so I went outside.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“Breaking my balls, I guess.”

He kept pacing.

“What did he ask you?”

He stopped pacing and came up to me. The cigarette smoke curled up into his face, and he squinted.

“He showed me that sketch and asked if I knew who the guy was. Then he asked if any of my associates might know the guy. Associates. Can you believe he used that word? Associates.”

“What did you say?”

He took the cigarette out of his mouth, still squinting. “What do you think I said? I told him I didn’t know the guy. I told him the same stuff today I told him four years ago. Did you put him up to this?”

“I need to know.”

He broke off eye contact with me and walked away, turning his back. I was surprised to see his hair was thinning at the crown of his head, allowing pale skin to show through. He was younger than me, so much younger than me, I always thought. He took a last drag on his cigarette and dropped it on the porch, grinding it beneath his shoe.

“Your brother?” he said. “You’d really question your brother?”

“I don’t know. .” I paced a little, back and forth on the porch.

“You’ve got all this anger, Tom. All this anger toward me. Toward the family. We were close as kids. We looked out for each other. I looked out for you. Always.”

“I know,” I said. “But you should have heard the things Ryan was saying back there. .”

“What kinds of things?”

I sat down, taking the same seat I was in when we talked to Ryan. Buster sat down, too, using Ryan’s chair. He waited for me to talk, leaning forward expectantly. I wasn’t sure where to start.

“Ryan came by today to tell us that people saw Caitlin out in public with this guy.”

“You’re kidding,” he said.

I shook my head. “Restaurants, strip clubs. Hell, maybe they went to church together for all I know. She was with this guy, in public, and she could’ve gotten away from him-several times-and she didn’t. She stayed with him. I don’t know what I’m supposed to think of that.”

Buster leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. He looked like a wise sage, absorbing my story. But I noticed that his fingers were intertwined and squeezed so his knuckles turned white. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s fucked-up.”

“At the hospital,” I said, “they did a bunch of tests. They wanted to make sure Caitlin was in good shape and everything.”

“Sure.”

“They did a gynecological exam.” I felt deflated. “She’s not a virgin anymore.”

Buster lowered his hands and gripped the armrests of his chair. He looked like he’d been slapped. “He raped her,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “It figures, the fucking pig.”

I made a helpless, hopeless gesture with my hands, somewhere between a shrug and a surrender.

“What are we going to do?” Buster asked.

“I need to get back inside.”

“You didn’t answer my question. What are we going to do?”

I couldn’t look at him. “I need time to think about all of this.”

“Sure.” Buster stood up. “The thoughtful, scholarly man. Consider all the angles. Mull it over. We’ve got time, right?”

“You want to go beat the guy up? Find him and kill him?”

“It’s a start.”

He didn’t sound like he was kidding.

“I thought you didn’t know who he was,” I said.

“That’s just it, professor. You find out. You’ve got the sketch. You’ve got two good legs. Can you do any worse than the cops?”

“Did Caitlin tell you anything when you were alone with her?” I asked, jerking my thumb toward the house. “Did she talk to you?”

“Not really. We talked about TV. She said she’s watched the last few seasons of American Idol. It’s her favorite show.”

“So she could watch TV, wherever she was.”

“I guess so.” He seemed to be thinking about something. “Hey?” he said.

“What?”

“Is she-? I mean-did they do a pregnancy test at the hospital?”

“They did. At the time, I thought it was ridiculous.”

He nodded. “So then, it was cool, right? I mean, there’s nothing else to know about that, is there?”

“That’s one thing off my list.”

I stood up. Buster reached for the door and pulled it open.

“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I think we need to be alone now. Abby’s upset. . and Caitlin. .”

Buster gave me the same smirk I saw him give Ryan.

“I was just getting the door for you, chief. I thought you could use a hand.”

He held it open while I went in, then let it slam shut behind me.

Chapter Thirty-two

I wasn’t sure what brought me awake.

It was a few days after Ryan’s visit. Abby and Caitlin were sleeping in the master bedroom, and I was deep asleep in the guest room when something woke me up.

I wondered if Caitlin was stirring, trying to get out. I had suggested to Abby that we call a locksmith, that we have the windows and doors secured better than they were. Abby vetoed that idea. She said we had to resume normal life as much as possible, that we couldn’t all live like prisoners in our own home.

Did something make a noise?

Rain?

I swung my feet to the floor, listening.

The house was quiet, deathly so. The evening was clear, the stars bright.

I’d imagined it. Maybe it was a dream, the subconscious emergence of some unremarkable phantom.

I needed to roll back under the covers and close my eyes, but a part of me couldn’t let go. I wanted to-needed to? — look outside, into the yard and the street.

I stood up in my drawstring pants and T-shirt. I parted the curtains.

The streetlights glowed. The shadows beneath the trees were thick and black. Nothing moved. No cars.

Then I saw the girl.

She stepped into the bright circle created by the streetlight, looking like a stage actor. She stopped there, seemingly without destination or intent. She looked the same as in the cemetery, like Caitlin.

I pressed my hands against the glass, almost shouted.

She looked up and darted out of the light.

I ran.

I hit the stairs going full speed, trusting to the fates that I wouldn’t fall and break my neck. I knew I’d wake Abby and Caitlin, but I didn’t care.

She looked so much like Caitlin.

I scrambled to open the door.

She’s gone. Too late-she’s long gone.

I got the door open and ran in the direction I’d seen the girl go.

I was still barefoot. I slipped on the dewy grass, almost went down. Then I ran into the street, the small bits of dirt and road grime pricking my soles.

Except for where the streetlights glowed, everything was inky black. I ran down the center of the street, heading toward the park. My neighbors’ houses were dark, the world closed up and in bed.

Why was the girl out there?

I finally stopped halfway up the street. She was gone. Disappeared.

And I was out of breath and feeling foolish.

But she’d been at the house. She’d wanted something from us.

From me? From Caitlin?

Huffing and puffing, I turned and went home.

Lights were on upstairs and downstairs. Abby and Caitlin were awake.

I limped up the front steps, my feet aching and bruised, and was greeted by Abby, who held the door open for me.

“What the hell’s going on?” she asked.

I came in and sat down in the living room. I was sweating. My T-shirt clung to my body. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand.

“The girl,” I said.

“Caitlin?”

I shook my head. “The girl I saw in the cemetery. She was outside tonight, in the street. She was looking at our house.”

Abby didn’t say anything. She just stared.

I knew what she was thinking:

Poor man. Poor, poor man, driven crazy by stress.

I looked past Abby. Caitlin stood at the top of the stairs. She wore the Fields University nightgown Abby had bought her, and she looked down at us, her feet on different steps like she’d been frozen in midstride.

“You know that girl, don’t you?” I asked.

“Tom-”

“You know who she is and what she wants.”

Caitlin turned to go, back up the stairs and to the bedroom.

“That girl knows that man, doesn’t she?” I asked. “She looks just like you, Caitlin, like when you were a little girl. I’m going to get ahold of her.”

She was gone. Abby placed her hand on my shoulder.

“Easy, Tom. Take it easy.”

I didn’t realize I’d been shouting. I tried to calm down, but it took a long time for me to catch my breath.

We returned to Dr. Rosenbaum’s office a few days later. He asked to see Abby and me first, leaving Caitlin again under the watchful eye of Mary the receptionist. Rosenbaum sat without notes or pen, just the coffee mug in his right hand and the same casually expectant look on his face.

“Anything different at home?” Rosenbaum asked.

Abby and I looked at each other. Before she could say anything about my adventure from a few nights earlier, I said, “Nothing unusual.”

“Things are better then?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say better,” Abby said. “Do you think it’s a good idea for Detective Ryan to press Caitlin about what happened already?”

“How do you mean?”

“He came over the other day, and he really pushed her hard about what happened to her. He was almost aggressive. I didn’t think it was best for her to hear that already.”

Rosenbaum pursed his lips. He set the coffee mug down. “Right. Detective Ryan mentioned to me that he had talked to Caitlin at your house. Sometimes the police press like that because they think the case is time sensitive. Say, for instance, the man who did this is thinking of leaving the area, or even committing another, similar crime. Detective Ryan would like to get to him before that happens.”

“So you think it’s okay for her to hear these things so soon?” Abby asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Rosenbaum said. “I’ve worked with the police a lot, and we don’t always agree on how to approach these things. We have different priorities sometimes. But Detective Ryan is a good man. Give him a chance.”

Abby didn’t seem placated. Neither was I, but we didn’t say anything.

Rosenbaum apparently decided to move forward. “I wanted to try to get a picture of what your home was like before Caitlin disappeared,” he said. “Just some background information for me.”

“I guess we were normal,” Abby said.

“Whatever that means,” I said.

Rosenbaum smiled a little. “But you two are separated now, so something must have been going on.”

“I think those issues arose in the wake of Caitlin’s disappearance,” I said. “I don’t think either one of us dealt with it all that well.”

“Abby?” Rosenbaum said.

“I guess I feel as though the problems were beginning back then,” she said. “I felt that over the years Tom and I grew apart. Our lives were kind of going in different directions. It’s not that we didn’t love each other. It’s just that we were becoming different people. He was pursuing his academic life and work, and I was developing in other ways. I wanted to work on my spiritual life. Caitlin may have been aware of all that. She was a smart kid.”

“Is,” I said. “She is a smart kid.”

“Tom, do you share Abby’s assessment that problems might have been brewing that far back?”

“Abby would know about her unhappiness better than I would. Maybe there were issues brewing back then that came to the forefront when Caitlin disappeared. Sometimes it did feel like we were traveling on parallel tracks.”

“What about Caitlin at that time?” he asked. “Had she shown an interest in boys yet?”

“Not really,” Abby said. “I’m sure she liked some boys at school. Some names came up from time to time.”

“She didn’t have a large number of friends,” I said. “She’s kind of a loner. It’s no surprise really that she’s being so tightlipped now. She could be like that sometimes.”

“But she had friends,” Abby said. “She was a well-liked girl.”

“Had she reached puberty yet?”

Abby nodded. “About six months before,” she said.

Abby had taken Caitlin out to dinner about a year and a half before she disappeared, just the two of them. Abby explained the changes that were going to be coming over her body and the ways women coped with them.

“Were there emotional changes associated with puberty?” he asked. “Mood swings? Anger?”

“She was turning into a teenager,” Abby said. “There was more eye rolling, more snippy answers. Caitlin always played things close to the vest.”

“Did it bother you that she played things ‘close to the vest’?”

“It’s just the way she was.” I caught myself. “Is.”

“Did it force you to be more strict with her?”

“Not at all,” I said. “We didn’t have a lot of rules.”

“Who was the disciplinarian?”

“Abby probably was more than me.”

“Were you around a lot, Tom?”

“I worked.” I look down and picked a piece of lint off my pants. “But my job at the university allowed for a flexible schedule. I was home more than a lot of dads.”

“Were you a factor in Caitlin’s life?”

“A factor?” I asked. “I’m her dad.”

“He was very involved with her life those first twelve years,” Abby said.

“Why do you ask that?” I said.

“Sometimes young women who are in restrictive homes or who aren’t getting significant attention from their male parent seek that attention through other avenues. They engage in reckless drinking or sexual behavior. Drugs even. Or they seek that attention they think they’re being deprived of in other people. Substitute male authority figures.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“I’m speaking in generalities, of course,” Rosenbaum said. “Caitlin hasn’t offered us much, so I’m working through some possibilities that might explain what happened.”

“I don’t think she ran away, if that’s what you’re saying,” I said.

“I’m not suggesting that,” Rosenbaum said. “In fact, I’m glad to hear your certainty about the issue. Abby, do you share that certainty?”

“No, she didn’t run away,” Abby said. “I know my daughter. She wouldn’t have done that.”

“Do you still know her?” Rosenbaum asked.

Abby tapped her chest three times. “In here, I do. In here, always.”

I admired her in that moment, her certainty, her bedrock belief that things made sense. I didn’t have it, and I wasn’t sure Rosenbaum did either.

“Fair enough,” he said. “If you’ll step outside now, I’m going to chat with Caitlin.”

Chapter Thirty-three

Sunday morning, a few days later, and Abby came into my bedroom. I didn’t hear her knock. She was just there, wearing her robe, her hair still disheveled and her eyes puffy from sleep.

She sat down on the side of the bed.

“Is something happening?” I asked.

“Shh. It’s fine.”

“What?”

“Caitlin’s fine.”

I sat up, rubbed my eyes. The clock read 8:45, later than I would have thought.

Abby looked distracted. I couldn’t read her mood.

“It’s weird, sleeping in the same room with her,” she said. “It makes me think of when she was little and she’d crawl into bed with us. Or if she was sick and she’d come to our room and watch TV. It’s hard to believe sometimes. .”

“What?”

“She’s the same girl. She’s so different in so many ways.”

“I understand. I think about the fingerprints and the scar on her knee. Those seem to ground me a little, remind me it’s really her.”

And deep down, I knew. She possessed the same qualities. The stubbornness. The willfulness. The obstinacy that could burn like hate.

The secrecy.

“Will we get her back, Tom? All the way?”

It hurt for me to say it, but I began to formulate an answer to that question. “She’ll never be the same as if she’d spent those four years here. With us.”

Abby nodded. “We won’t be the same either, will we? I think about everything that might have been different. If I’d continued to work. If you’d worked less. If we’d had another baby. .”

I reached out, placed my hand on her upper arm. I felt her beneath the fluffy robe, our first real contact since the hand-holding in church. “We still could,” I said.

“Tom. .”

I applied some gentle pressure, drawing her toward me. She gave in, leaned her head down close to mine. I brushed my lips against her cheek, then moved to her mouth.

She pulled back. “No, Tom,” she said, her voice gentle but firm.

“Why?”

She stood up and pulled her robe tighter around her. “We can’t.”

“We’re married,” I said. “We’re here. Our child is here.”

“Our energy needs to be on helping her,” she said. She fussed with her hair. “That’s why I came in here. I want to go to church today. It’s been a while.”

“So go then,” I said, leaning back.

“I want Caitlin to go with me.”

“No.”

She ran her tongue over her teeth. “I could take her with me. It would be good for her to get out of here, to see some other people again.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Not there.”

“You can say no to this now, as I figured you would. But at some point, she has to leave the house. She’s going to have to go to school and have friends and have a life. We can’t keep her here at home forever.”

“We should start small and get her to speak again.”

“She speaks to me.”

“About what?”

“Little things, Tom. Little things. Is the bed comfortable, or do her clothes fit? It’s a start.”

Abby left the room on that note, so I got out of bed and looked in on Caitlin. The blinds were drawn, making the room gloomy, so it took me a moment to see that Caitlin’s eyes were open. She was lying on her back, the covers pulled up to her chin. She was looking at me but not saying anything. “Mom’s going to church,” I said. “Looks like it’s just you and me, kiddo.”

She rolled over, turning her back to me.

Once Abby was gone, I made toast and coffee in the kitchen, then ate a bowl of cereal. I went outside and brought in the Sunday paper and found a story on Caitlin’s return in the local news section. The reporter had called for a week straight, and we’d stuck to the script of no comments and making requests for privacy, but someone with the police must have spilled the beans, because the story mentioned all the sightings of Caitlin with the man in the sketch. Ryan was quoted-at the end of the article-and simply said the investigation was continuing and that they still considered it a case of abduction and kidnapping.

I heard stirrings upstairs. Footsteps in the hall, the toilet flushing. Caitlin didn’t seem eager to shower on a regular basis. Most parents of teenagers saw their water bills shoot up. Abby reminded Caitlin to shower every few days. But I heard the water running upstairs, which I took as a good sign.

I resisted the urge to go check. I poured another cup of coffee and started the crossword puzzle, listening with one ear for the water to stop. I waited as long as I could and was about to throw my pencil down and check when it did stop. I breathed a sigh of relief. I heard more footsteps above me and managed to drink my coffee in a little bit of peace. That lasted a few minutes, until the cup was empty; then I couldn’t wait and decided to go upstairs and check in on her.

She wasn’t in the bathroom-the door was wide open, the mirror still steamed over from her shower. And then, with some alarm, I saw she wasn’t in the master bedroom. The windows were all still closed.

“Caitlin?” Calling out for someone who wasn’t speaking to me anymore seemed odd, but at least she’d know I was looking. I checked Caitlin’s bedroom. Nothing. “Caitlin?” I stuck my head in the guest room door. She was there, sitting on the bed. At first, I didn’t know what she was doing. Then I saw the phone-my cell phone-in her hand. She was entering a number. “What are you doing?” I asked.

She slammed it shut and tossed it onto the bed.

“Who are you calling?”

I grabbed the phone and opened it, but whatever number she’d been entering was gone. I checked the called numbers. The last one was a call I’d made, so she hadn’t actually placed it, meaning there was no record of the number.

If only I’d waited. .

“Were you calling that man?” I asked.

She started to stand up. I held my hand out, a silent request that she stay seated and listen to me. She didn’t like it. She stared at me through slitted eyes.

“You don’t get to make calls or do anything else until you talk to us. And I mean for real. Not just bullshit.” I jabbed at the air with my index finger, but my hand shook. “Who was it?”

Her glare slowly turned into a smile. A smirk, really. I saw some of Buster in her. It made me even angrier.

“Stop it,” I said.

“Someday I hope you do find out where I was and everything that happened to me,” she said. Her voice sounded deeper, huskier. She sounded more like a woman, more like Abby. “I can tell the truth will hurt you more than not knowing.”

I slapped her across the cheek.

She looked shocked more than hurt. She raised her hand to her cheek, her mouth wide open.

“Fuck you, asshole.”

She was up and past me, storming out of the room. I thought about reaching out for her again, or following her, but I couldn’t find the will to do it. I let her go.

Caitlin closed herself in the master bedroom. I didn’t bother knocking on the door or apologizing. I went back downstairs but didn’t eat or drink. I tried to look at the paper, but my eyes couldn’t focus. No way I could do the crossword puzzle. Rather than helping my daughter, I’d failed her once again. I didn’t seem able to understand what she needed from me as a father.

I replayed the scene with Caitlin. I wished I couldn’t remember it. I wished it were gone. Erased. But it played in my head on a loop. Every word. Every gesture.

The slap.

About the tenth time through, something stuck out. A phrase. It caught in my brain like a fishhook. Something Caitlin had said:

Everything that happened to me, she’d said.

Not everything I did or everything we did.

Everything that happened to me.

Abby’s car turned into the driveway.

Then I heard two voices coming in the door. Abby’s and a man’s.

Pastor Chris.

He was there, the smile plastered across his face. He held out his hand. “Tom, I haven’t seen you since Caitlin’s return to us.” Us? “I want you to know I’m here in a strictly pastoral capacity,” he said. “I want to help Caitlin.”

“How is she?” Abby asked.

“She took a shower. I took that to be a good sign.”

Abby smiled. She looked pretty.

I tilted my head toward the dining room. “Can I. .?”

She hesitated and looked at Chris, then back at me. “I think if you have something to say, you can say it in front of Chris.”

I hesitated. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Is this something about Caitlin? You said she was okay.”

“I can go-” Chris said.

Abby cut him off. “No. Tom? Is it Caitlin?”

“She’s fine,” I said.

“Then what is it?”

I shook my head. “She said. . she tried to talk to me. .”

Abby came closer. “That’s good, Tom. It’s good she tried to talk to you. What did she say?”

The doorbell rang.

I looked at both of them. “You didn’t invite more church freaks, did you?”

“Tom. .”

“I’ll see who it is,” Chris said.

“Tell them to go to hell,” I said.

Abby stayed close, still watching me. “What did she say, Tom? Is it important?”

I shook my head. “She said. . something happened to her. . while she was gone. .”

“What? What happened to her?”

“We didn’t get that far. I. . we didn’t. .”

Chris came back, a tentative smile on his face.

“Someone’s at the door for you, Tom.”

“Who?” I asked.

“It’s a woman,” he said. “She says she’s a friend of yours, and she knows something about Caitlin. Her name is Suzanne or Susan.”

I found Susan on the porch, where she stood smoking a cigarette. She wore the same kind of clothes as the first time we’d met, except her sneakers had been replaced by muddy hiking boots. When I came outside, she turned to face me.

“Ah, Tom.”

“I didn’t know you made house calls.”

“We go wherever we’re needed.” She pointed to the two empty porch chairs, so we sat. “I apologize for the intrusion on your family life, but I’ve been thinking about you.”

“You were?”

“I saw your good news in the newspapers,” she said. “Your daughter is back. You must be a happy man.”

“It’s a complicated adjustment in a lot of ways.”

“Right.” She dropped the cigarette on the porch and ground it under her boot. “I’m sorry about this. It’s a bad habit I picked up in college and then returned to a few years ago. I do it when I’m anxious.”

“What are you anxious about today?” I asked.

She rubbed her hands together as though keeping them warm. It was a cool day, and I wished I’d worn a jacket.

“What has your daughter said about where she was?”

“Nothing.” I looked down. “She won’t talk about it. She told us not to ask her about it. Why do you want to know?”

“And so you haven’t asked her?”

“The therapist told us not to.”

“It’s best to follow the lead of the experts in these cases,” she said. “At least that’s been my experience. They know what’s best.”

“I take it you didn’t just come to talk to me about the merits of therapy,” I said.

“Like I said, I’ve been thinking about you. This story. It’s been in the papers, so it’s been in my mind. Do you still have that flower, or did you give it to the police?”

“I still have it. I should have given it to the police-”

“You probably should-”

“You know, I’m sort of in the middle of a larger crisis here. I appreciated talking to you the other day, but I don’t think I have time for whatever you’re thinking about. Just get to the point or go.”

“You’re right. Of course.” She dug into the pocket of her shirt and brought out a pack of cigarettes. Her fingers shook as she dug one out and struck the lighter. “Sorry,” she said, blowing the smoke plume in the opposite direction of where I sat. Around us, normal life went on. A few doors up, our neighbors raked their leaves onto a large blue tarp. A child laughed somewhere, a bright, distant trilling. “This man,” she finally said, “the man from the sketch, you believe he’s the one who took your daughter from you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I think you’re right, Tom. I think he did.”

“What are you saying? Because of the flower? What?”

She shook her head. “Not because of the flower.”

“Then what?”

“Tracy,” she said. “Tracy Fairlawn.”

“What about her? Did you talk to her?”

“Not for a while,” she said. “But I’ve spent a lot of time talking with her in the past. She’s a very troubled young woman. When you and I met the other day, I was trying to protect her, to value her privacy, the confidentiality of the things she has told me over the last year.”

“Drugs?”

“Among other things.”

“Are you saying she’s not reliable? Or believable?”

“I think she’s believable, Tom. Especially about this matter.” She looked down at the burning tip of the cigarette as though she didn’t know how it had ended up in her hand. “Tracy knows this man, the one she saw in the club. She knows who he is.”

I held tight to the armrests of the chair. My neighbor dragged his tarp full of leaves out to the curb.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know it,” she said, her voice acquiring an edge. “I don’t.”

“Tracy sent me to you.” My words came out sharp, ringing through the afternoon air. A picture formed. “You two are doing this together, aren’t you? She sends me to you, and you lead me around by my nose-”

“I can only guess at Tracy’s motives, but the thought crossed my mind that she wanted me to communicate something to you on this account. She was right. I knew about this when you came to see me the other day. Then I saw the news in the paper. I couldn’t keep it to myself. I looked your address up in the phone book and came over here.”

“You’re quite a saint,” I said.

“I thought long and hard about whether I should get involved further,” she said. “About whether I should tell you. But if I had to guess, I think Tracy wanted me to tell you about this. I think that’s why she gave you my card and name. She has a difficult time talking about this issue, and she probably wanted to use me as a kind of proxy. I have incomplete information as it is, and it feels like-it is-a violation of the trust Tracy and I built.”

“Don’t make yourself out to be more important than you are,” I said. “You’re not a priest or a therapist. Now where is Tracy?”

“I told you-I haven’t been able to get ahold of her.”

“I’m calling the police.” I started to stand. “They’ll find her. They’ll come down on you, too.”

“That’s not the solution, Tom. And neither is this anger.”

I was still on the edge of my seat. “What else do you know? There’s much more to this story, and you know it. Spill it.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Goddamn it, spill it!”

“Have you seen that ghost girl lately, Tom?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Have you?”

I paused. “Yes, she was outside our house one night.”

“Did she say anything?”

I slid back in the chair. “I went after her, but she ran away.”

“Remember what I told you about that?”

“That sometimes we see what we want to see. That it’s a form of wish fulfillment to see that girl.”

“Right.” She dropped the cigarette and ground it out. “And it’s the same for Tracy.”

“Why would Tracy want to see what she saw in that strip club?” I asked.

“Not why she would want to see that man, but why would she want to tell her story. To you. Why would she care about that man being captured or revealed?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“You’ve met Tracy. Do you think that’s a primary motivation for her?”

I stood up. I fumbled in my pocket for my phone. “Get out of here,” I said to her. “If you’re not here to help-if you’re just here to talk in riddles-then get lost. I’m calling the police.”

“Tom?” she said.

“Fuck off.”

She reached out and put her hand on the phone. “Tom? Are you sure you want to know what Tracy knows?” She nodded her head toward the house. “Your daughter is home. She’s alive. When we talked, you were worried about her being dead. That was your fear. Well, you have your answer.”

“I’m calling,” I said.

She kept her hand on mine. I waited.

“Put the phone away,” she said.

I held on to the phone, but I sat down.

“Tracy Fairlawn,” Susan said. “She was taken.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tracy told me about this as I got to know her. It took a long time for her to confide in me, which is why I struggled with telling you this.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “I’m listening.”

“About six years ago, when she was fourteen. She was walking home one night, alone, and a man stopped and offered her a ride. She took it. The man took Tracy to his house. She doesn’t know where he lived. He drove around a lot, in the dark, and she didn’t know the streets very well because she wasn’t driving yet. When she got to the man’s house, he fed her and gave her something to drink. They talked and listened to music, and when Tracy wanted to leave the house and go home, he wouldn’t let her. He held her there against her will, in his basement. He locked her in. He raped her repeatedly.”

For a long moment, I couldn’t say anything. I felt cold again, even though the wind was calm and the trees still.

“How did she get out?” I asked finally.

“He let her out,” Susan said. “After about six months-six months of rape and terror in a locked basement room-he put her in his car again, blindfolded, and drove her around and around. Eventually he let her out on a country road in Simms County, twenty miles away from here. She made it to a gas station and called her mother.”

“What did the police do?” I asked, fearing I already knew the answer.

“What do you think they did?” she asked.

“A girl was kidnapped and raped.”

Susan shrugged. “A girl with a drug problem, a girl already in trouble with the police. A girl who couldn’t say where this man was who’d held her. She couldn’t identify the house, the car, even the neighborhood. All she did was tell this wild story of being taken against her will and held in a basement, and then miraculously being let go.” She shrugged again. “They didn’t pay much attention to her. I only got involved through my volunteer work.”

“The police sent her to you?” I asked.

“Not directly. The police didn’t see her as the victim of anything. But we had a mutual friend, a woman who taught at Tracy’s high school. This teacher knew about my work for the police, so she put us in touch. I just tried to be a sounding board, a sympathetic ear. Tracy needs much more help than I can provide, but it was a start.”

“Do you know Liann Stipes?” I asked.

“That’s Tracy’s lawyer, right? The woman whose daughter was murdered? Tracy mentioned her. Complained about her really. I get the feeling I was a better listener than Liann or anyone else in Tracy’s life.”

“And that man. .?”

“She says it’s the same man, the one she saw in the club with your daughter.”

“How did she see him in that club and still dance for him? Why didn’t she run or call the police right then and there?”

“She was terrorized, Tom. Terrorized. She thought that he came back there to taunt her, to intimidate her. It was like he wanted to remind her he still held some power over her. Which he did. Why didn’t she say or do anything? It’s a miracle she’s ever said or done anything. She feels as though saying anything is taking her life in her hands. She went to Liann because she couldn’t stand to not do anything about it.”

“And now Tracy’s gone.” I brought my hand to my face and chewed on some loose skin around my thumbnail. “This man released her over five years ago, about a year before Caitlin disappeared. And now that Caitlin is back, Tracy is gone again. You think. .?”

“Frightening, isn’t it?”

I thought back to the first time I’d met Tracy, our conversation in the strip club. I calculated. “Tracy told me her daughter is almost five,” I said.

Susan nodded. “She has a constant reminder of what this man did to her.”

I curled my hands into fists, and when I did, they shook. “He let Tracy go because she was pregnant,” I said.

“Who knows? I wouldn’t assign humanitarian motives to him.”

“What should I do now?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, Tom,” she said. “But I wanted you to know everything you needed to know. The police, they might have their own agenda. There are things they don’t want to tell a crime victim. Or they want to tell them on their own schedule and terms.”

“And Liann? Why didn’t she tell me?”

“I don’t know Liann,” Susan said. “I can’t speak for her. But you’ve been chasing ghosts. Maybe this will make things more concrete.”

“And what happens if I catch up to the ghosts?” I asked.

“You’d be lucky to put them to rest.”

Chapter Thirty-four

Ryan didn’t answer. I tried two times after Susan left, leaving two messages. Before I could call a third time,

Abby came out onto the porch, letting the screen door slam closed behind her.

“Who was that, Tom?”

I shut the phone. “She’s helping me.” I pointed to the house. “Did you leave Caitlin in there alone?”

“Chris is talking to her.”

“Lovely.”

“Is that woman a therapist of some kind?” Abby tried to stop me from going inside. “Tom, I think you do need help. Real help.”

I went past her and up the stairs. At the half-open door of the master bedroom, I heard Pastor Chris’s cheery voice chirping inside. I pushed in. They were sitting on the floor.

“Tom,” Chris said. “I was just counseling Caitlin here-”

“Do you know someone named Tracy Fairlawn? She’s a stripper at those clubs you used to go to with the man in the sketch. Did you talk to her?”

“If I say I don’t know,” Caitlin replied, “will you slap me again?” She scooted closer to Pastor Chris.

“Tom, if you’d like to join our conversation, it might-”

I turned and left the room, letting him talk to my back.

When Liann came home from church, her family in tow, she found me waiting on her front porch. She told the family to go on, and when they were inside, she still didn’t say anything.

So I spoke.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

Her shoulders sagged a little. She knew what I meant.

The phone rang in my pocket. I ignored it. “You knew this about Tracy all along,” I said. “The man, the baby. . you kept it all from me. You told me you were her lawyer for a drug case. You didn’t mention she’d been the victim of a violent crime.”

“Tom, she did come to me needing legal help. That’s where my contact with her started. And in the process of helping her with the drug case, I found out that she had been taken and assaulted. The police turned their backs on her, Tom. They just turned their backs on her. Someone had to help that girl. She trusted me, and I couldn’t-”

“No. I don’t want to hear any bullshit.”

The phone rang again, so I checked it. Abby. I silenced it.

“So you decided not to tell me everything you knew about Tracy?” I asked. “Answer the question.”

“I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“Not relevant?”

“What mattered was catching the guy,” she said. “Tracy was skittish. She was scared of the police. But she did see Caitlin in that club, and it was easier for her to talk about that than about what he did to her. That’s why I brought Tracy to you with her story. I helped you.”

“I trusted you,” I said. “You came to us when Caitlin disappeared. You cut through the bullshit and helped us. I thought you were on our side. But you kept this information from us. From me.”

“What do you want me to do, Tom?” she asked.

“All those things that happened to Tracy. The kidnapping, being held hostage. The rape. That’s what happened to Caitlin, isn’t it?”

“What matters now is that we find that man-”

I was up and past her. “Call me if your agenda changes, Liann.”

Chapter Thirty-five

I sat in my car in front of Liann’s house. I wasn’t ready to drive off. I didn’t know where to go or who to turn to.

I looked down at the phone. Two more calls from Abby. Three messages.

The slap. My confrontation with Caitlin.

There was music to face on all sides. And what did they say about home-when you go there, they have to take you in. .?

So I drove home.

I stepped inside the back door. “Abby?” She didn’t answer my call, but I found her in the living room, sitting on the end of our couch, her elbow on the armrest and her chin cupped in her hand. It looked precarious, as though her head could slip loose at any moment. “Abby?”

She still didn’t look up, but I could tell something more was wrong, something besides the fight and the slap. The room felt devoid of air, like someone had died.

“What’s the matter, Abby?”

She jumped a little. She looked over, moving her head slowly, as though turning took a great deal of effort. “Oh, Tom. It’s you.” She held the phone next to her on the couch.

“What gives?” I asked. “Why did you call me so many times?”

“Ryan called,” she said. “They found that guy, the one from the drawing. They made an arrest.”

Abby told me the little she knew. Ryan had called shortly after I’d left the house and told Abby they had someone in custody, someone who matched the description given by Tracy. Someone they believed to be the man Caitlin was seen around town with. Abby didn’t know how or where they’d found him or what tipped the police off, but Ryan was going to come by the house at any minute to fill us in. And talk to Caitlin.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the morning.

If the man was in custody, where was Tracy? She hadn’t been seen in weeks.

“Caitlin told me about the fight this morning,” Abby said. “Actually, she told Chris about it.”

The fight and the slap seemed so distant somehow, something that had happened in another life.

“I lost my cool. And I’m sorry for it. She must have gotten a thrill out of being able to tell Chris about it and make me look like the bad guy.”

“It’s not like that, Tom.”

“I know. In a strange sort of way, I’m glad he got her to talk to him. About anything. I thought slapping her was going to wake her up.”

Abby didn’t respond. She still wore the slightly stunned, slightly spacey look she had been wearing when I’d first come into the room.

“Abby? Does Caitlin know about this?”

She shook her head. “I’m scared, Tom.”

“Of the man?”

“I thought we’d turned the page,” she said. “I was ready to just go on. When she talked to Chris today, I thought things might really be moving ahead.”

“I’m going to go tell her,” I said.

“I couldn’t do it, Tom. I thought telling her would make it more real. I called you. I was glad when you didn’t answer.” She knotted her hands together, a lump of flesh and fingers. “Chris left, so I was alone.”

I heard something and turned my head. I held a silencing finger up to Abby. A rustling at the top of the stairs. Faint. I listened and heard nothing more.

“I’m going to go tell her,” I said. “She has to be ready to face Ryan.”

“I didn’t like the way he talked to her last time,” she said. “It was too harsh.”

“I know,” I said. “But he was trying to push her a little.”

“It sounded like he was blaming her,” she said. “Do you think they’ll let Chris be there or talk to her? She opened up to him.”

“She wasn’t opening up to Chris,” I said. “She was getting back at me.”

Halfway up the stairs, I stopped. They were holding the man, physically. He was in custody. He could answer for-explain even-everything. For ripping the fabric of our lives to pieces. For Caitlin. For Tracy. For God knew how many others.

My grip tightened on the banister. Something clouded my vision. Red and white splotches. My heart thumped. When the splotches disappeared, I found myself pulling against the banister, trying to rip it out of the wall. It didn’t give and my grip slipped. I fell back against the opposite wall of the staircase, making a loud thump. It hurt my back, and I welcomed the pain. It brought me back to reality. My home. My daughter.

The man in the sketch.

I took several deep, gasping breaths. Abby appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“Tom?”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I fell.”

She took a step up. “You look sick, Tom.”

“I’m fine.” I held my hand out. “I’m going to talk to Caitlin.”

She was in the master bedroom, the door closed. I knocked, and when I didn’t get any response, I knocked again. “It’s your dad,” I said, trying the knob and feeling it give. Not Dad. Your dad. A more distant and formal designation, as though I were talking about two strangers.

Caitlin was lying back on the bed, reading a book. I couldn’t make out the title, but it looked like the kind of thing she used to read before she left, something aimed at preteen girls. She didn’t look over at me when I came in but kept her eyes on the pages of the book. Her brow was furrowed and her lips moved as she scanned the words. She looked like a certain kind of kid who passed through my classrooms, the ones who came from areas with poor public schools and adults who never attended college.

“I need to tell you something, Caitlin.”

She didn’t look up from the book.

“Did you hear what we were talking about downstairs? Were you at the top of the stairs?”

“I heard some,” she said. “You were talking about the police. And Pastor Chris. Then I heard you try to rip the banister out of the wall.”

“Detective Ryan’s coming over again.”

She stiffened a little. “Why? To ask me more sex questions?”

“They found him, Caitlin. They arrested him.”

She considered this for a long moment without looking at me. “You’re a fucking liar,” she finally said. “You’d lie to me about anything.”

“No.” I kept my voice firm. “He’s in jail, right now. Detective Ryan is coming over to talk to you, and this time there’s no point in keeping everything a secret. They have him, so we’re going to find out what it’s all about. He’s hurt other people, Caitlin. Other girls like you. He’s not going to be able to do that to anyone else.”

“He wouldn’t hurt someone.”

“He did.” I took a step forward into the room. “Remember, just this morning, you said that he did things to you. He hurt you.”

She sat up on the bed, letting the book fall to the floor. Her face showed real animation. “Are they bringing him here?” she asked.

“No, they’re not bringing him here. He’s in jail. Didn’t you hear me?”

She looked at the floor, her chin quivering. She took hold of the necklace and rubbed the stone.

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked. I stopped myself, gathered my thoughts. “Caitlin, I know this is confusing for you. I know that after what’s happened, you might be confused about your feelings, especially your feelings for this man. It’s part of what you’ve been through, but you need to start getting through that. This man. . he needs to go to jail.”

“They’re not going to hurt him, are they? Tell me you won’t let them hurt him.”

She turned away and flopped back onto the bed, burying her face in the covers so I couldn’t see her. It sounded like she was crying.

Chapter Thirty-six

Ryan looked more tired than usual when he showed up at our door. He wore a polo shirt, tan pants, and no jacket despite the cool temperature. He didn’t come inside, but instead motioned the two of us out onto the porch.

When we were all seated, Ryan started talking.

“I imagine you want to be brought up to speed as soon as possible.” He flipped open the small notebook. “Yesterday, just before five a.m., the fire department responded to a call for a house fire out on Smith Springs Road. When they arrived, they found the house engulfed and beyond saving. A neighbor had seen the flames and called it in, but no one was certain if anyone was home at the time. It’s still too hot to do a thorough search of the house, but the preliminary investigation hasn’t revealed any evidence of human remains yet. Records indicate that the house belongs to a John Colter. Does that name mean anything to either of you?”

“Is that the man?” I asked. “Is that his name?”

“Does the name mean anything to either of you?” Ryan asked.

Abby shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Tom?”

I scanned through every student name I could remember, every coworker, every maintenance person who ever passed through school or our home. “I don’t think I know him.”

Ryan went on as though I hadn’t spoken. “The preliminary investigation shows that the cause of the fire was arson. A pretty amateur job. Whoever set the fire didn’t make much of an attempt to cover their tracks. They simply poured gasoline over everything, and investigators even found the melted plastic gas cans in the debris. Initially, we thought it looked like insurance fraud of some kind.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“They also found something else in the basement of the home.”

“Do we want to know?” Abby asked, more to herself than to us.

“They found a room. At first, it looked to be a bedroom, something created after the home was built. It didn’t appear to be part of the original structure. The door to this room was heavily fortified. Several different locks as well as some sort of reinforced steel sheeting.”

I stared at the sky. It was perfectly blue like a robin’s egg. I was numb.

“It looked like it was meant to keep someone locked up.”

“You think. .” Abby left her thought unfinished.

“Like I said, it’s going to take some time before they can complete a more thorough examination of the house, especially the basement. Given the nature of the fire damage, it seems unlikely we’ll be able to find any definitive proof that any individual, Caitlin or otherwise, was ever in that basement room. It seems possible the fire was set for that very reason. To obscure evidence.”

“Maybe he didn’t want the police to know he held Tracy Fairlawn there as well,” I said.

“Excuse me?” Ryan said.

“Tracy.” I looked at Abby. “You know, the girl from the strip club?”

“Why are you bringing her up?” Abby asked.

“Maybe Detective Ryan should tell us,” I said.

“I don’t think this is relevant, Tom,” he said.

I turned back to Abby. “Tracy was held captive by a man for six months about five years ago. He took her off the street and brought her to a house. She didn’t know where. He held here there. He raped her repeatedly. She managed to get away, and then she had a baby.”

Abby looked stricken. “Are you going to tell me there’s a connection?”

“We don’t know-” Ryan said.

“She says it’s the same man.” I kept my eyes on Abby, boring in. “The man she saw in the strip club with Caitlin was the man who took her and held her and raped her. The same man. Detective Ryan here just declined to share that information with us.”

Ryan stiffened. “Where are you hearing these things, Tom?”

“I have my sources, too.”

“Well, I came here because I’d like to talk to Caitlin,” Ryan said. “And I’d like to be able to talk to her alone.”

“Shouldn’t we be there?” Abby asked. “Someone to look out for her.”

“Our attorney?” I said.

“Why would she need an attorney?” Abby asked.

“Caitlin isn’t guaranteed access to a lawyer during questioning,” Ryan said. “We may allow her to have one present, as a courtesy. Some kind of advocate. I can decide on that-”

“She has fewer rights than this guy in the jail?” I asked.

“Hold it, Tom.” Abby held her hands out for silence. “Hold it.”

“Abby, he doesn’t care about Caitlin. .”

She kept the hand up in the air between us, and I stopped talking. Abby looked calm and determined, so I yielded. “Who is this man?” she asked Ryan. “And are the things Tom is saying true? Did he hold Tracy there?”

Ryan shifted his eyes between the both of us. “Late last night, police in Union County pulled Mr. Colter over for speeding. Do you know where Union County is?”

Abby nodded. “About seventy miles away.”

“When they ran him through the system, the warrant for the arson came up, so they took him in and called us. We collected him in the morning and brought him back here to have a little talk about the house fire. Let’s just say we caught a lucky break. Caitlin’s story has been in the news, so our officers have seen that composite sketch on an almost daily basis. One of our officers raised the question, and we put it together with the house with the room in the basement.”

He held his hands out. There you go.

After four years, a speeding ticket wrapped it up.

“What did he say?” Abby asked.

“Nothing yet. When we brought up Caitlin’s name, he said he’d read about her in the paper. But that’s it.”

“And witnesses?” Abby asked. “The girl from the club? Tracy? Is it true he took her too?”

“She’s gone,” I said.

Abby whipped her head toward me.

“She’s disappeared,” I said. And my voice was quieter, distant even to my own ears. “No one can find her. Not her mother, not Liann. Two weeks and no sign of her.”

“She’ll turn up,” Ryan said. “They usually do. Like I told you, that girl has problems, drug problems. She’s not reliable.”

“Who is this guy?” I asked. “What does he do?”

“He’s on disability. Some kind of knee injury. He used to work at the Hearn plant, but it’s been about ten years since he did that. He hasn’t been in much trouble with us. One assault arrest about fifteen years ago. Otherwise, nothing.”

“How old is he?” I asked.

“Fifty-three.”

The number stabbed me like a knife. Fifty-three. Older than me.

Ryan leaned back and worked his hand into his pants pocket. He brought out a Polaroid photo. “I’d like you to look at this and tell me if you know this man.”

He held it out in the air between us, but neither Abby nor I made a grab for it. Finally, she moved and took it. The corners of her mouth turned down with revulsion.

“I don’t know him,” she said.

She passed the photo to me. My hands shook as I took it.

I looked down at a stunned face, one that didn’t appear prepared to have its picture taken. His surprisingly blue eyes were open wide, his lips slightly parted. He bore a strong resemblance to Tracy’s description and the sketch the police had created. There was the same long, greasy hair, the wide nose. His skin was ruddy and pocked, like twenty miles of bad road, as my stepfather used to say. I didn’t recognize the man from anywhere in my life, but I continued to stare, searching for something. A mark of evil, a sign of malicious intent. But I couldn’t find the marker that would tip me off, the thing that told the world this man aimed to destroy lives. It was an ugly face, not an evil one.

“Do you recognize him?” Ryan asked.

“No,” I said.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

I held on to the picture, and Ryan reached out and took it back. He didn’t put it in his pocket, but held it in his hand. He tapped it against his thigh a few times. “I need to talk to your girl,” he said.

“You said you don’t need our permission,” I said. “Are you just going to drag her out of here while we watch?”

“I don’t need your permission, but I’d like it.” He continued to tap the photo against his leg. “I’d also like to talk to her away from here. Since it didn’t go so well the last time, I thought we might try it at the station. She might take it more seriously.”

“Will she have to see him?” Abby asked.

Him. We all knew who she meant. The man. John Colter.

Ryan shook his head. “No way,” he said.

“But she would have to see him at a trial?” I asked.

“That’s why we’d like her to talk now. Maybe this guy agrees to plead to something and save us all a lot of trouble. If we can get to the bottom of this sooner, it might save Caitlin some grief.”

Abby looked at me. “Tom?”

I recognized my cue. “Ryan, I-we-were a little concerned about the way you spoke to Caitlin the last time. It seems as though you were treating her like she had done something wrong. She’s the victim here, remember?”

“Of course, Tom.” Ryan shrugged, and the gesture seemed too large, overexaggerated. “We all have the same goals here, to understand what happened and to get Caitlin the help she needs.”

“She’s only sixteen now,” Abby said. “Sixteen is so young. .”

Her voice trailed off, fading like the wind through the trees.

Ryan stood up. He slipped the photo back into his pocket. “We’re still tying some things up from the morning,” he said. “But if you could bring her to the station in an hour or so, that would be great.”

“Are you going to get this guy, Ryan?” I asked.

“That’s the plan.”

“And will we know what was said, what she tells you?”

Ryan nodded. “I will keep you in the loop.”

“Tom?” Abby asked. “Are you sure you want her to do this alone? I’m really not. Caitlin is so fragile right now. She’s been so hurt by this.”

What happened to me.

“That’s exactly why she needs to do this,” I said. “Don’t you think?”

Abby didn’t respond, so I pressed on.

“Because she’s been hurt, she needs to tell the story,” I said. I felt the need to convince her. “This man has hurt other girls. He needs to be put away. Caitlin can do that.”

“You just want to hand her over to be questioned?” Abby asked.

“A crime’s been committed, Abby,” Ryan said. “I have to find the answers, and Caitlin has them. I’m not trying to harm her, but we need her to try to help us as much as she can. Even if it’s just a little.”

“There are a lot of people involved in this, Abby,” I said. “Not just us.”

“Is that who you’re thinking of, Tom? All the other people?”

“It’s necessary, Abby,” I said.

“Right.” She stood up and folded her arms across her chest. “I guess I better be the one to go tell her she’s being handed over to you men.” She nearly spat the last word at us, like it was a stone she’d found in a loaf of bread. “You two have such a good rapport with her these days.”

She whisked away, leaving the two of us on the porch. We didn’t have anything else to say to each other, so Ryan turned and went, reminding me as he left that we should bring Caitlin to the station in an hour.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Abby stared out the cloudy front window of the police station at the traffic passing on the street. She didn’t appear focused or fixed on anything. I sat down beside her, and she pretended not to notice me. I waited a few moments, not sure if I should even bother to say anything. Finally, I decided to try. “I’m not trying to hurt Caitlin,” I said. “Or you.”

She didn’t say anything, but I saw a muscle in her jaw twitch.

“I think this is our last, best chance, letting her talk to Ryan today.”

Abby turned to me. “You talk about last chances, Tom. Caitlin is the one who matters. Our focus needs to be on her. She’s what matters-to both of us.”

I stared at the floor. Then my phone rang. I stood up and took the call.

“Hey,” a voice said through the line. It sounded flat, almost unrecognizable.

“Buster?”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Where are you? I came by the house.”

“We’re at the police station,” I said. “They made an arrest.”

“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For everything you’ve been through. You and Caitlin.”

There was something about his tone, something off.

“Where are you?” I asked.“What are you doing?”

“We’ll talk soon, I think. Okay?”

“Buster. .”

But he was gone. I called right back, but it went to voice mail immediately. Three times in a row.

Ryan appeared again and summoned the two of us with a quick wave of his hand. He led us to the conference room. No Caitlin.

“Where is she?” I asked.

Ryan pointed to the chairs. “She’s fine, Tom. I wanted to talk to you alone.”

“Did she have to see him?”

“No,” Ryan said. “Please. Just sit. You can take Caitlin home in a minute.”

Abby nodded at me. It’s okay. So we sat.

“We really didn’t make much progress today,” he said. “At least not with Caitlin.”

“Talking to her alone didn’t help?” Abby asked.

“She told us a few things,” he said.

I scooted to the edge of my seat. “Like what?”

“She didn’t so much say anything,” Ryan said. “But she did ask something. Over and over again. She asked to be allowed to see John Colter. She asked to see him multiple times. Repeatedly and passionately. Finally, I told her to stop asking because it wasn’t going to happen.” He sighed, shifted his weight a little. “And then Caitlin said that she’d tell me whatever I wanted to know if I would just let her see Colter again and spend a few minutes with him. I told her that we couldn’t allow that to happen, that the victim of a crime couldn’t speak to the alleged perpetrator.”

“How did she respond?” Abby asked.

“Like a pouty teenager.” Ryan rubbed his hand across his chin. “You asked me to let you know everything that was said in there. If you still want to know all of that, I can share some more details.”

“Yes,” I said.

Abby moved in her seat, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t object.

“Caitlin told me that she’s in love with John Colter. She said he didn’t do anything wrong, that no one did anything wrong, and she wants the police and the two of you to drop all of this and let her life go back to the way it was before.”

“Meaning. .”

“Meaning she wants to go back to her life with him, not with you.”

He let that settle over the table, a deadweight dropped into our lives.

“We’re going to hold Colter on the suspicion of arson charge. We’re still talking to witnesses and waiting for the arson investigator’s report.”

“So he’ll stay behind bars,” Abby said.

“We need Caitlin’s story,” he said. “She’s the only lead-pipe witness we have. Without that, and without the evidence that went up in the fire. . Have the two of you thought any more about that picture I showed you of John Colter?” He dug in his pocket and brought the photo out. “Why don’t you look at it again?” He slid it across to us. I didn’t look.

“Do you know something else?” I asked.

“Do you?” he asked. “Are you absolutely certain you’ve never seen that man?”

Abby picked the photo up and looked it over. “How can I answer that?” she asked. “Maybe I passed him in the grocery store. Maybe he came and fixed our plumbing. How can I remember every face I’ve ever seen? But, no, I don’t know him, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t. Do you, Tom?” She held the picture out to me, but I didn’t take it.

“Is there something you’re not telling us?” I asked.

Ryan held my gaze, unblinking. I didn’t look away either. He was digging for something, pushing. I couldn’t imagine what it was. He took the photo back.

“Nothing,” he said. “But we need to be sure.”

“Nothing?” I said.

He stood up, hitched his pants. “I’ll have Caitlin brought right out to you,” he said.

Chapter Thirty-eight

I really didn’t feel like dragging ourselves back to Rosenbaum.

But we all climbed into the car, our jackets zipped against the cooling fall weather, and backed out of the driveway.

Then Abby surprised me. She turned to me while I was still backing out and said, her voice casual and effortless, “How would you feel if I went to the church today?”

“Now?”

“I just. .”

She didn’t finish her thought. But I understood. “You want to talk to Chris. I mean, Pastor Chris.”

“It’s not that simple.”

I didn’t drive away. The car sat in the middle of our street, idling. No traffic came either way, and Caitlin sat in the back quietly. “What is it then?” I asked.

She looked back at Caitlin, then shrugged, as if to say, Who cares if she hears? “It’s been a difficult time, and I get something out of being at the church,” she said. “It’s not just Chris.”

“Not just.”

“Let’s just go to Rosenbaum’s,” she said. “I should be there.”

When I came to the turn that would take us to Rosenbaum’s, I went right instead of left. We didn’t say anything else about it, but I headed for the church. We passed a couple of strip malls and a long, low building that manufactured machine parts. Then I turned into the church lot.

“Head toward the back,” Abby said. The complex of buildings went on and on, like a small corporation. “Stop by this door,” Abby said. I did. It was a nondescript side entrance flanked by some evergreen shrubs. Ten cars were scattered through the lot, most of them later models. Abby sat with her hand on the door release. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go?” she asked.

“It’s fine.”

“We could take her in there,” she said, nodding toward the door. “She could talk to Chris again. The last time. . Do you really think she talked to Chris just to get back at you?”

I turned and looked into the backseat. Caitlin stared at me. “Yes, I think so,” I said. “Isn’t that right, Caitlin? You talked to Chris just because you were mad at me? Because I slapped you, right?”

“You have it all figured out, don’t you?” Caitlin said.

Abby turned around now, too, letting her hand slip off the door. “Did that man at the jail hit you?” she asked. “Did he hurt you? What about that bruise on your stomach? I’ve never asked, but I worry that he abused you.”

“You don’t know,” Caitlin said.

“What? What don’t I know?” Abby asked.

“Anything,” Caitlin said. “You just don’t know anything. Either one of you. You’re both a couple of fucking idiots.”

Abby let her eyes linger on Caitlin a moment longer; then she turned back. “I guess I don’t know anything, do I? I want to. Very much, Caitlin. But I’m trying to remind myself that there are things in this life I just won’t know or understand. And I guess I’m okay with that. I’ve tried to accept it.” She turned a little, back toward Caitlin. “But the less you talk to us, the more you have to talk to the police. And you know how that’s been going. So really it is your choice. I hope you understand that.”

With that, Abby climbed out of the car. We sat and watched while she disappeared into the building. When she was gone, I dropped the car into gear and headed out of the lot.

“How do you feel about skipping out on the shrink today?” I asked. “Seriously. Do you want to go somewhere else?”

“Where?”

I was out in traffic now, heading back toward town. “To see a friend of mine,” I said, trying to sound normal, almost cheery.

“You have a friend?”

“It’s either the friend or the shrink,” I said, an edge creeping into my voice. “You pick.”

“I pick neither.”

“Then it’s Rosenbaum.” I paused. “But she’ll be disappointed. She wants to meet you.”

“Your friend’s a woman? Is she your girlfriend?”

“I thought you weren’t interested.”

She clammed up and sat back against the seat. I kept driving, leaving her to her own devices. After a few minutes, she spoke up. “I did talk to him because I was pissed at you,” she said. “You’re right.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Is it weird for Mom to have a boyfriend?” she asked.

“You think he’s her boyfriend?”

“He is. She told me.” She waited a beat. “She said she loves him.”

“Bullshit.”

“She does. I can tell she loves him.”

“You mean the way you love John Colter?” I asked.

She looked out the window. “It’s not like that at all,” she said, almost dreamy. “You’ve never been away from someone you love.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Who?”

“You.”

I waited for a response and again looked for one in the mirror. This time, I thought-hoped-I saw something there, some registering of emotion. A slight swallow, a blinking of her eyes, a flush to her cheeks.

But she said nothing. She stared out the window, silent.

I called Susan from the car and explained what I wanted to do and who was with me. We agreed it wouldn’t be a good idea to meet in public again, so she gave me directions to her house. Susan lived in a small bungalow not far from campus in a neighborhood dominated by run-down student rentals. Her house was the nicest and best kept on the street.

When I parked in front of the house and turned the car off, I said to Caitlin, “We’re here.”

“Who is this?” she asked. “Someone you work with?”

“No.”

“Is she a shrink? I’m tired of that.”

“She tries to help people figure stuff out.”

“Sounds like a shrink,” she said. “Have you figured anything out?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’m sort of in the middle of things.” I looked back at her. “Do you want to go in and talk to her?”

Susan must have seen the car pull up. She came out onto the broad front porch that stretched the length of the house. She wore the same plain pants she always wore and an oversized flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She held up her hand and gave us a tentative wave.

“She kind of looks like a man,” Caitlin said.

“She’s not,” I said. “In fact, I thought you might like to talk to a woman for a change. I know these things can be difficult to talk about, especially with men. Maybe a female perspective would help.”

Caitlin seemed to be considering this. She nodded. “Okay. I’ll hear what she has to say. Anything’s better than that idiot shrink.” She reached for her door handle.

“Hold on,” I said.

She let out a long, exasperated sigh. “I’m not running off. Don’t worry.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “I want to tell you something.”

She settled back against the seat, her eyes cautious.

“I know I shouldn’t have hit you the other day,” I said. I chose my words carefully. “But I was angry. You know, as a parent, I feel responsible for everything that happens to you. I feel like there must be something I could have done differently, and if so, we would have gone down a different path. You might have gone down a different path.”

“What’s wrong with the path I went down?” she asked.

“You were gone for four years. We missed you. We lost you.”

“You mean you didn’t choose it for me.”

“Nobody chose it,” I said. “I know that.”

She turned away, her gaze drifting out the window to the small trees, their leaves turning orange and dropping to the ground. She didn’t answer. I backed off, changed gears.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about when you were little. I remember the time-you were just six years old, I guess-and you crossed the street when you weren’t supposed to. Do you remember that? You thought I couldn’t see you, that I didn’t know what you were doing, but I did. I came out to call you home, and instead I saw you cross the street and a car almost hit you. You ran right in front of it, and they slammed on their brakes so they didn’t run you over. Do you remember that?”

She was still looking out the window, but she spoke. “I remember. I can still see the grille and the headlights right in front of me. I think they honked their horn at me. I remember it that way.”

“I didn’t know what I was supposed to do,” I said. “Was I supposed to stop those people and yell at them? Was I supposed to drag the guy out of the car and beat him up?”

“It was my fault,” she said. “I ran out there without looking.”

“Were you scared?”

She nodded. “At first. When it first happened I was. But I also felt like it couldn’t touch me, like it wasn’t meant to run me over. I guess I felt protected in some way.”

“Protected by what? God?”

She shook her head immediately. “Not God.” She kept shaking her head. “Not God.”

“What then?”

“I don’t know.”

“I didn’t yell at you or hit you when you crossed the street because I didn’t think it was necessary. Kids do things like that. They test their boundaries. They make mistakes. It bothered me, of course. It scared me. But I never told your mom about it. She wouldn’t have been able to handle it. She never would have let you leave the house again.”

“She likes to overreact. I guess you both do.”

“You know, I look back at that, and I really wonder about the way you just stood there and looked me right in the eye, probably the same way you looked at the grille of that car, and you lied to me like it was nothing. Why did you think you could do that? Where did you learn to lie like that?”

“I guess I didn’t think it was any of your business,” she said.

“But you were a child,” I said. “Everything you did was my business.”

“That’s what parents think,” she said.

“This is a second chance, Caitlin, for all of us. And I’m not going to let it slip past me. I’m not.”

“Are you going to hit me again? Would that make you feel better? Some men like to do that.”

“Did that man hit you?” I asked. “Did he hurt you? You said things happened to you. What happened to you, Caitlin? Tell me.”

She shivered, her shoulders rising, her body quaking. But she didn’t yield. “It’s cold,” she said. “I either want to go in or go home.”

“Were you kept in the basement? In that room?”

She didn’t look at me. She scrambled for the door handle and tugged against it. She pressed against the door with her shoulder, but it didn’t give. The child safety locks were on. She couldn’t get out. “Locks,” she said. “You all use locks.”

“I’m protecting you, Caitlin. There’s a difference.”

She kept her eyes straight ahead. “If you want to go in, let’s go in,” she said. “I already told you I’m cold.”

Chapter Thirty-nine

Susan greeted us on the porch. “Well, I think I know who this is,” she said, stepping aside and sweeping her arms out, directing us through the front door and into a wide, cluttered living room. The house smelled of something like fried onions, and a national news program played over the radio.

Caitlin looked uncertain. I nodded at her, letting her know it was okay to go in. Susan pointed to an overstuffed chair, and after a brief hesitation, Caitlin sat down.

“Would you like some tea, Caitlin? I have some tea in the kitchen,” Susan said.

“No.”

“Would you like anything?” Susan asked. “Water? A Coke?”

Caitlin’s eyes wandered around the room before settling on me. “My dad wants me to talk to you,” she said. “Instead of the shrink.”

“Very good,” Susan said. “What do you think of that?”

Caitlin kept her eyes on me when she spoke. “It’s fine, I guess,” she said. “But if he wants me to talk to you, he has to leave.”

“No,” I said. “That’s not the deal.”

“What deal?” Caitlin asked.

“Tom.” Susan’s voice cut through the room. “Tom, listen. I’ve talked to girls like Caitlin before, and sometimes they want to have their privacy. At least initially, while they’re getting to know me a little better.”

“Can we talk?” I said to Susan.

We moved off toward the doorway to the spotless kitchen. We stopped there so I could talk to Susan in a low voice but still keep my eye on Caitlin.

“I don’t like this,” I said. “I brought her here to learn something. For me to learn something.”

“I’m a stranger to her, Tom. She has to learn to trust me too.”

“All the more reason for me to stay.”

Susan looked behind her, then turned back to me. “Tom, you and I have trust issues to work through, don’t we? You’re feeling angry because I wasn’t up-front with you the first time we met, and I understand that. Maybe if I can talk to Caitlin alone, we can make up for that.”

She fixed me again with her wide-open eyes, and they worked on me. Despite what I considered her betrayal over Tracy, I believed this woman when she said she wanted to try to help. And beyond that, even if I didn’t completely believe her, I didn’t have anyone else to turn to.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“You can wait on the porch. It’s a nice day.”

I looked at Caitlin, who was pretending to ignore us. “She likes to run,” I said.

“I’ve been there before, Tom,” Susan said. “I’ll keep a close eye on her.”

I broke away from Susan and stopped by Caitlin’s chair. “Is this what you want?” I asked. “Me outside and you in here?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be outside if you need me.” Susan walked with me to the door, and I whispered to her, “There’s more to this story, you know.”

“There usually is,” she said.

“And you’ll find it out?” I asked.

She placed her hand on my chest, gently but insistently, and moved me back. “I’m going to do whatever I can, Tom.”

It took fifteen minutes for Rosenbaum’s office to call my cell phone. When I answered on the porch, it was the man himself speaking, not his secretary.

“Tom, we were just wondering where Caitlin is. She’s missing her appointment with me.”

“I don’t think we’re going to make it in today. To be honest, I’ve decided to take her to someone else, another professional, someone who I thought might have a better rapport with her.”

“You can’t do that,” he said, his voice rising. “It is not advisable to take a patient from one specialist to another. Who did you bring her to? Does your wife know about this? I know we haven’t made much progress yet, but a case like this can take a long time to work through.”

“I have to go.”

“Who have you taken her to? What’s the doctor’s name?”

“It’s not a doctor.”

“Not a doctor? Tom, I’m going to have to tell Detective Ryan. This case is at a critical juncture. If she’s not getting consistent care-”

I hung up.

I paced on the porch after I hung up with Rosenbaum, listening to the birds and watching the comings and goings of the students in the neighborhood. Soon enough, Abby called, and I knew I needed to reassure her.

“It’s okay, Abby. She’s with me.”

She sighed on her end of the line. “Did you really take her to another doctor?”

“No, not that.”

“Who then?” A pause. “Oh, Tom.” She didn’t sound angry. Instead, her voice dripped with judgment and concern. “That woman from the porch?”

“She works with the police department. She’s a counselor-a support system-for victims of crime.”

“Is she a doctor?”

“No, she’s not, but she’s trying to help,” I said. “She listens. She’s trained to work with people who are having crises. She doesn’t have an agenda. She just listens and works with me.”

“Caitlin’s my daughter, too. You need to tell me what you’re doing with her, especially now.”

“I didn’t plan this. I just did it.”

Someone spoke to Abby in the background. She muffled the phone with her hand and said something that sounded like, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Then she came back on the line. “I feel bad that you think this woman was the only person you could turn to in a crisis. You’re so alone, Tom. I worry about you.”

“I have to go, Abby. Caitlin’s going to be ready soon.”

“Will you talk to me about this later? I don’t think this should be the end of our conversation.”

“I have to go, Abby. Good-bye.”

Chapter Forty

It took another thirty minutes for Susan to come out onto the porch. Her face impassive, she made a beckoning gesture toward me, summoning me back inside. I followed.

Caitlin sat in the same seat, but she clutched a ragged ball of Kleenex. She’d been crying, but when we made eye contact, she looked away, apparently ashamed.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Sit down, Tom.” Susan pointed at an empty chair.

So I sat. My hands were clenched in my lap. I didn’t know what to do with them. I reached out to Caitlin, but she pulled back. Her rebuke felt physical, like a sting. When Susan was settled, I said, “Well?”

Susan rested her hands on the tops of her knees. “Caitlin has been through a profound experience, one beyond her very young years.”

“I can imagine.” Then I shook my head. “I can only imagine.”

“I’m not sure you can. I’m not sure any of us can, Tom.”

“Okay, you’re right. I can’t. I’m starting to understand that.”

Susan looked at Caitlin. I wasn’t certain, but it seemed as though Caitlin made an almost imperceptible gesture, a quick, tiny nod of her head. Susan nodded back, confirming something. “Tom, Caitlin doesn’t want you to ask her any more questions about this subject. She has shared some things with me, and she told me it’s okay if I share them with you.”

“She told you,” I said, looking over at Caitlin again. “But she didn’t tell me. Why won’t you tell me?”

I became aware of a wheedling, pleading tone in my voice, so I stopped.

“She fears your reaction. Like this. She fears you will think too much like a parent and not really hear what she is saying.”

“Okay. I’ll listen. I’ll listen to you, or I’ll listen to her. I’ll listen to whatever is sent my way.”

Susan looked at Caitlin. “Honey, are you sure you want me to be the one to tell him these things?”

Caitlin nodded, still clutching the Kleenex.

“Okay.” She turned back to me. “Tom, Caitlin has fallen in love with this man, the man at the police station. She wants you to know this so that you will understand why she tried to leave that night and why she doesn’t want to cooperate with the police. She doesn’t want this man to go to jail.”

A pause, and I realized Susan wanted a response from me. The room felt smaller, closer and more cramped. It seemed as though I were heading down a blind alley, so I tried to turn around. “What exactly is your interest in all of this?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to help me.”

She didn’t ruffle or back down. “I am.”

I turned to Caitlin. “What do you want then?” I asked. “You just don’t want me to ask questions? You want the police to stop with the questions? Is that all you want?”

Again the look passed between the two of them, and this time Caitlin spoke, although she didn’t look at me. “I want to see him,” she said.

“No,” I said. Then I said it again. “No.” My voice was flat, but firm. It lacked emotion this time, at least to my own ears.

Caitlin still didn’t look at me. “I won’t tell the police anything. They won’t have a case.”

“They have other witnesses. People who saw the two of you out together. In strip clubs and God only knows where else. They’re going to nail him to the wall, with or without you. And I’ll be thrilled to watch it happen.” I stood up. “Come on. We’re going home.”

“Tom-”

“Enough,” I said. “You’ve done enough. Come on, Caitlin.”

Again Caitlin looked to Susan, and again Susan nodded, but this time she nodded in my direction, telling Caitlin she needed to go with me.

But Caitlin still didn’t move. She held the Kleenex, but her eyes were dry. And I feared I was about to truly see the limit of my own power. What would I do with her if she didn’t want to move, if she wanted to curl up in the chair, an inert mass of teenage resistance? How would I move her or reach her?

But she wasn’t ready to make her last stand yet.

She stood up, her shoulders hunched, her posture folded in on itself. When we reached the door, I placed my hand on her, my fingers encircling her bony arm, feeling its scrawniness through her sweatshirt. She looked up at me, then down at the place where my hand made contact with her body. She gave a little tug back, so I tightened my grip, adding not so subtle pressure. I didn’t care if she bruised.

Before we went out the door, Susan said my name. “Tom? I’m happy to see Caitlin again. Or you. Together or alone. But some of this is beyond my expertise. She should-you all should-be dealing with the professionals as well.”

I guided Caitlin out to the car. It felt like we were an odd pair of conjoined twins.

When we were in, and the child safety locks were activated, Caitlin spoke up. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“Everything?”

She nodded. “One condition, though.”

“What’s that?”

“When it’s done, when I’ve told you all that bullshit, you let me go. Back to John. Back to the life I want to have. Let me go, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“He’s going to jail for the rest of his life.”

“Then you don’t want the deal.”

I shook my head. I put the car into gear and drove us home.

Chapter Forty-one

I was outside collecting the paper on Wednesday morning. The weather had swung back to warm again, and the trees and their dying leaves were putting on a red, orange, and gold show that was enough to lift my spirits in that quiet moment on the lawn. My neighbors began to embrace the spirit of the season by putting out pumpkins and corn sheaves and fake spiderwebs. A couple even placed fake tombstones in their yards, RIP scrawled across their front in dripping spray paint.

I took a deep breath.

Once, the Halloween after Caitlin had disappeared, a group of children came to our door. One of them was a teenage boy who almost looked too old to be trick-or-treating. He wore a floppy blond wig and a girl’s dress. He must not have known who I was or whose house he was at, because when I asked him who he was supposed to be, he replied casually, “Caitlin Stuart, that girl who disappeared.”

I shut the door then and turned out the lights inside the house, leaving our bowl of candy on the porch for the kids to pick through if they wanted.

It wasn’t possible to have a normal life. Not then, and it wasn’t possible even with Caitlin back. But in the yard that morning, just for a moment, I felt like a guy collecting his paper while his family slept inside. If I unrolled the paper and saw a news story about Caitlin or the arrest of John Colter, the spell would break.

I didn’t go inside right away.

I sat on the porch, barefoot and wearing my robe, the rolled-up paper in my hand, and just watched the morning unfold for a few quiet minutes. It was all waiting for me: Abby and Caitlin, John Colter, Ryan and the police. A light breeze blew and I took a deep breath, taking in the clean morning air, the sweet scent of decaying leaves.

I must have lost myself to the reverie for a few moments, because I didn’t notice Liann’s car pull up in front of the house. It swept dead leaves in its wake; then she stepped out, her sunglasses pushed onto the top of her head. She smiled at me, some strain on her face, and I saw she carried a briefcase in her left hand.

Something was happening.

“Good morning, Tom.”

“Is it still?”

She sat down next to me on the steps. “Have you talked to Ryan today?” she asked.

“No. What is it?”

“I was down at the courthouse this morning. I know a lot of people there. They still talk to me. Anyway, I found out there’s a bail hearing for John Colter,” she said. “Ten a.m. I think you should be there. You and Abby, if you can both stand it. I’m sure Ryan will be calling you about it. Colter’s lawyer has been pushing for it, and if it goes before a judge-”

“They’re not-”

“I can’t locate Tracy. And while there are witnesses to say they saw John Colter with Caitlin, that in and of itself doesn’t prove he’s guilty of anything beyond being a slimeball.”

“Statutory rape?”

“According to who? Is Caitlin ready to go down there and testify against him? All they have is the fire,” Liann said. “It’s a crime, and when the investigation is complete, they’ll prosecute. .”

“Insurance fraud.”

“He hasn’t filed a claim, and I doubt he will. His lawyer’s pushing for bail. It will be high, but he’ll get it.”

“Can Colter afford that? He’s on disability.”

“His mother’s putting up her house, some other assets.” She frowned. “He’s going to be out, Tom.”

I dropped the paper, put my head in my hands. My guts twisted and turned like my midsection was full of snakes. “Why should we go then?”

“It can’t hurt. It might pressure the judge, even just a little. I’m going to be there, too. We have to try, Tom.”

I looked up again. The same quiet street, the same falling leaves. Nothing would ever be the same. Truly. “I’m tired of trying, Liann. You can carry the flag for me.”