“Oh yeah?” Eric puts his sandwich down. Rubs his hands together to dust off the crumbs.
“When you asked me,” I say, “back at the house, what was wrong…”
I tell him everything. Not about the baby—and my belly burns at that—but about Astrid. About me. I tell him all I’ve learned the last couple days: details in the memoir, details I’ve remembered; Ted’s studio confession, my own revelations; my visits with Father Murphy and Rita and the police.
As I speak, Eric’s face is a kaleidoscope of expressions—surprise, anger, disbelief. He keeps trying to interrupt with questions, but I barrel ahead, afraid that if I don’t finish, I’ll never start again. But when I do finish, he’s so silent that every sound in the room becomes magnified. The tap of a mug being set on the table. The clink of a fork against a plate.
“Are you sure?” Eric finally asks.
It’s not the response I was expecting, and my face must give that away.
“No, what I mean is,” he tries again, putting his hand over mine, “are you sure that Ted’s not just messing with you? That making you think you were kidnapped isn’t some Experiment to get you worked up and scared?”
I shake my head. “It’s not. You’ve said it yourself—his Experiments are basically pranks. And this isn’t that.”
He rubs his thumb across my hand. A steady back and forth. “Are you sure?” he asks again. “Didn’t he take you into the woods one time? Tell you some messed-up story about a guy who ate his unborn child? Couldn’t this be another story he’s telling you?”
I inhale deeply, exhale slowly. I will forgive him for this. For wanting to blame it all on Ted instead of hearing what I’m saying. In his mind, Ted is always the villain. Eric loves me so much, so well, that he can’t understand why someone else wouldn’t.
“But I’ve remembered things,” I remind him. “And what Ted told me only corroborated those memories.” I lean in closer, catch his thumb with my own. “This is real, Eric. I promise you.”
He pushes his lips to the side, looks at his plate. His grip tightens on my hand.
“We have to go to the police,” he says.
I sit back, straighten my spine against the booth. “I told you, I already tried that.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I’ll go back to them when they get the original police report. Chief Dixon said it might take a couple days, and until then, he’s not going to believe me.”
“Then you need to come home with me.”
“Come home? I just got here. I have to… I still have to…”
Help Astrid, I should say. Remember where we were kept, I should say. But all I can picture is Ted. The way he looked at me on the porch, his expression something like tenderness. Something fatherly, I think. And maybe the thickness I heard in his voice was more of an apology than his lips could ever say.
“You have to be safe,” Eric insists. “And if all this is true, then how do you know that the person who got Astrid isn’t coming for you next?”
“I know. I thought of that earlier, but…” I pause. Remember what made me dizzy in Ted’s kitchen. “Maybe I know who to look out for now.”
“What do you mean?”
I slide my hand out from Eric’s, let it fall to my lap, where it’s free to scratch at my wrist. “That inscription Ted showed us,” I start, “back from when Brennan stayed with us. It was dated June 23, 2000. The day before Astrid was kidnapped. And maybe that’s why I don’t remember him staying with us for so long. Because I was on vacation with the Kelleys until the day after Astrid was taken, and you heard Ted, Brennan was in and out—a lot. Because he would’ve been…”
Eric’s brows squeeze together. “Would’ve been what?”
“What if… what if it was Brennan? What if he was the one who took Astrid? Took me.”
Confusion warps his face. “You think Brennan Llewellyn, America’s favorite pop psychologist, kidnapped you?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe. Isn’t it too big a coincidence otherwise? That he just happened to be in New Hampshire when Astrid got taken?”
Eric’s eyeing me carefully now. “But a lot of people were in New Hampshire, Fern.” I hear the concern in the slow pace of his words. “A whole state full of them. And… why would Brennan do that?”