anymore that I might have ended up in her town. I was here.
“Okay,” Kyla says. “But anyway, there was a long wait at the salon, and I was starting to have second thoughts. So you went with Cooper to get me some candy so I’d stop freaking—”
“Cooper?” I say it loud and fast. As if the name burns my tongue and needs to be spit out. “Why was he there?”
“He drove us,” Kyla says. “And he was heading to the gas station to get some cigarettes, so I asked you to go with him to get me some Nerds Ropes.”
I remember that now. The request had seemed so unfair. Kyla knew what Cooper did to me. How sitting in the same car as him made me feel like I was in a cage. I remember being mad at her for even asking such a thing—but I went anyway.
“I vaguely remember leaving with him,” I say. “But I can’t really remember anything after that. What day was this?”
“You actually expect me to remember something like that?”
I wait for her to consider, because I do. Kyla’s always had an impeccable memory—what shirt she wore to a party ten years ago, what she got for Christmas in 1999; she could probably even tell me the exact date of the last time I called her—and right now, I need that precision. I know the fireworks we watched were on “June goddamn twenty-second.” I know Astrid was taken on June 24. But when was I in Foster?
“Saturday, I guess?” Kyla says. “Yeah, Saturday. Because our Edgewood Lake rental was always Sunday to Sunday, and I got the haircut on our last full day. But why does that matter?”
“Hold on,” I say, and I pull the phone from my ear to look up what day of the week June 24, 2000 was. When the answer appears, my heart lurches. My breath sputters.
Saturday.
“How long were we gone?” I almost shout. “Cooper and me.”
There’s a beat of silence before she answers. “A long time, actually. My haircut was done by the time you guys came back. I remember waiting out front like a loser for, like, twenty minutes. I’m still waiting on my Nerds Ropes, by the way.”
She laughs, but my abs have all tightened. My mouth feels incredibly dry. “So I could have seen something,” I say. “While I was gone. With Cooper.”
Kyla’s laughter cuts off. “I mean… I guess? But then Cooper would have seen it, too, and he’s never mentioned anything weird happening.”
That’s because he’s Cooper, I want to say. He was sadistic. He probably could have seen someone get dragged away and think it was just a game.
“Can I have his number?” I ask.
“Who—Cooper?”
“Yeah.”
She hesitates. “I can give it to you, yes. But I wouldn’t bother talking to him, Fern.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think there’s anything he could say to help you. I don’t think you really—” Her sentence cuts off with a crash. “Oh, shit. I mean shish kabob!” A wail starts up, siren-sharp in my ear.
“Kyla? Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m— Jeff! Can you— Look what she did!” Voices tangle together. A cacophony of cries. “I don’t know, I turned around for a— Fern? I gotta go. I’ll text you my brother’s number.”
“Okay, but what—” Then there’s nothing in my ear but the sound of air.
I close my eyes, rest my forehead against the steering wheel. My nerves are sizzling. My skin is still slick. Cooper, of all people, knows something. But will he tell me what it is?
A knock at my window startles me. I snap my head up and squint at the old woman squinting back at me. Her gray hair puffs out like a cloud. Her hands are so arthritic that her knuckles, still pressed against the glass, look like tiny fists.
I roll down the window. But only a crack.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“I heard you in there.” She points to the church with a finger that won’t stay straight. “Talking to Father Murphy.”
I look at the church door. Red like a firetruck. Like the cross on an ambulance. Red like an open wound.
“Yes,” I say, “I—”
“Your plates say Massachusetts.”
I stare at her. Nod once. “They do.”
“You need to stay away from all this,” she croaks.
“All this?”
She leans closer. I can smell her breath through the gap in the window. Cough drops and lipstick. “What happens to that girl,” she says, “it’s in God’s hands now.”
I open my mouth. Close it again. Her eyes, murky as they are, drill into