get me into that chair in his office. But I need someone who’s working for Astrid’s sake. Not for his own.
As I drive to the Ridgeway police station, the new memory returns. Plays out on the faded pavement, flickering like an old filmstrip. In those few frames of it, Astrid’s face is dirty. Her cheek is streaked with basement grime, and even though she’s doing her best to calm me down, I know my heart is boxing. Because I was scared down there, in that basement we shared. I was panicked and petrified. And Astrid made her freckle into a beacon. A harmless, constant thing to pull me away from the edge of terror. To lull my pulse. Unclench my heart.
Right now, I have no beacon. I’m safe inside my car, but I still feel like I’m escaping from something. This is where Astrid was taken. Somewhere in this town, down the road from the house I’ve just left. It’s possible—likely, in fact—that the kidnapper is keeping her someplace close. That his eyes are following me, even now, as I drive away. I scan from left to right, but all I see are woods, interrupted here and there with clapboard houses. Astrid could be in any one of them. She could be in none of them, too.
I shake my head, try to block out my thoughts. Listen only to the GPS as it leads me to the center of town.
When I arrive at the police station, I’m surprised to see how small it is. The brick one-story building looks more like an old schoolhouse than a place where cases are solved. Opening its door, I find an officer sitting at a desk a few feet in front of me. Behind him, there’s an open room where a couple uniformed men and women talk on phones, their words slow and casual. Not urgent and sharp, as I’d imagine the search for a missing woman demands. The rest of the officers look at computer monitors, their chins like paperweights on their palms.
“Can I help you?” the man at the front desk asks. He’s got a gold-plated name tag that identifies him as Lopez, and he’s holding a pen over a crossword puzzle.
“Yes. Thanks.” I sound wobbly, but I try again, this time with Social Worker Voice. “I’d like to speak to the detective in charge of Astrid Sullivan’s case.”
Lopez closes his eyes and inhales slowly. A strange reaction—one of annoyance, I think. I suppose the police must be bombarded with people hoping to learn about the case. But I look around the room again. Besides all the officers, I’m the only one here.
When Lopez opens his eyes, he scrutinizes me. “What is this regarding, specifically?”
Behind his head, I see a woman yawn. She stretches her arms out wide, like a cartoon character waking up.
Panic flutters in my stomach. There shouldn’t be anyone in this room at all. Everyone should be out there, searching for Astrid. Knocking on doors. Scouring the forests for footsteps, for the slightest sign of dragging.
“I’m Lily,” I say. Louder than I wanted. My throat tries to close around the confession, but I clear it and continue. “The girl who was kept with Astrid in the basement twenty years ago.”
I expect all heads to turn my way. I expect them to set down their phones, snap their gazes toward me, and stand from their chairs. But no one moves at all. Instead, Lopez looks me up and down before rolling his eyes. Then he picks up a phone, punches in a number.
“Hey, Chief,” he says after a few moments. “We’ve got another Lily.”
thirteen
Chief Dixon’s office is small. Just a desk crowded with folders and loose papers, a computer monitor and keyboard crammed into the corner. He sits on a black swivel chair, which creaks beneath his weight, and gestures for me to have a seat in the chair pointed toward his desk. I look at the framed photos on the wall: Dixon in uniform at a restaurant, shaking someone’s hand; Dixon on the golf course, an arm around another man’s shoulder; Dixon holding up a fish the size of a small canoe.
“Lily, is it?” he asks.
His expression looks nothing like it does in his photographs. There, his smile takes up half his face, his cheeks red with recent laughter. Here, his lips form a straight line, tight and pinched.
“No,” I say. “I mean, yes—I am Lily. I was. But my real name is Fern Douglas. Fern Brierley at the