But the gate clicks closed, and Dixon waves Father Murphy down toward his office. “Right this way, Father.” The sound of their shoes plodding over the floor beats in my ears like a pulse.
When they disappear behind his door, I look at Lopez. He’s grinning at his crossword, his pen stalled in his hand.
“Why is Father Murphy here?” I ask. “Does he know something about who took Astrid?”
Lopez caps his pen and sets it down. Crosses his arms and glares at me. “Do I need to call security?” he asks.
“Aren’t you security?” I fire back. The pulse in my neck is throbbing—with adrenaline or blood, I don’t know. Either way, it’s making me bolder than I am. “Isn’t everyone in here supposed to be security?”
He shrugs. “You need to leave.”
I look around the room, bounce from uniform to uniform, each of them staring at me in return. There’s an open game of solitaire on one of the computers. Somebody’s biting into a candy bar, caramel stretching between teeth and wrapper. A pen falls onto the floor, and nobody moves to pick it up. When laughter booms out from behind Dixon’s door, I feel it rattle my bones.
* * *
I’m halfway back to Cedar, and my mind is stuck in the groove of all the things I have to do. Get the police to believe me. Find out why Murphy was there. Remember something else.
I squint at the road ahead, try to squeeze out memories like water from a rag, but all I see is the one I’ve recently recovered—and even that is mostly useless right now. It tells me that Astrid took care of me. Soothed my panic. Saved me from myself. But the freckle memory is too close-up. I can’t see any details of the basement. Can’t see the man, or his face behind the mask.
This is Ted’s fault. And Mara’s. If they’d just been like regular parents. If they’d seen my distress and called every doctor, every news station, until we had answers. If they’d taken me to the therapist the police suggested. Or even if Ted—I swallow at the thought—hadn’t deemed me useless to his work, then maybe the memories wouldn’t be so submerged. I could have reached them when they were still right under the surface. When they hadn’t been lost to the muck of anxiety and time.
But I didn’t have regular parents; I had the ones I have. Ones who returned to work as soon as they deemed me fine. Ones who let the case go cold. If they’d just kept up with the police. If they’d called them every day, relentless as parents should be. If they’d demanded a follow-up to the report they filed, then maybe— But I don’t get to finish the thought.
I’m belting out commands to my phone, heart thumping out a single syllable: proof, proof, proof. When a woman picks up, I’m sure my heartbeat is so loud she can hear it through the phone.
“Ridgeway Police.”
“Hi, this is Fern Douglas. I was there a little while ago. Can I speak to Chief Dixon?”
“He’s in a meeting right now, but I can patch you through to his voice mail. One moment, plea—”
“No, wait! This is urgent. I need to speak to him right now. It’s about the Astrid Sullivan case.”
There’s a pause. “We have a tip line for that. Would you like me to transfer you?”
“No, just—interrupt his meeting. Please. Tell him it’s Fern Douglas. Tell him I have proof. He’ll know what that means.”
Another pause. This one lasts for so long I have to check that the call wasn’t dropped. “One minute,” the woman finally says.
But it’s not one minute. It’s four minutes and thirty-four seconds until Dixon picks up. I wait through each moment with my hands squeezing the steering wheel, my eyes flicking back and forth between the road and the screen.
“Ms. Douglas,” he says when he answers, “this better be good.”
“You asked if I have proof. And I do. I just didn’t think of it—this day’s been so crazy—but my father filed a police report. Back in 2000, soon after I was returned. I don’t know the exact date of it, but it would have been right around the time Astrid was returned, too. Check with Cedar Police in New Hampshire. They’ll have it.”
Dixon clears his throat. “Your father filed a report,” he says, his voice cool with suspicion, “after you came back. Not while you were allegedly missing.”
“That’s—he…” My stomach flips. “It’s complicated,” I