myself to the discomfort of that chair, the pain of those spindles against my back.
“I don’t need you to help me,” I say, and I’m up off the bed, gathering my purse from the floor, my keys from the nightstand, pulling the book from his hands. “I’m going to help myself.”
seventeen
Rusty’s office hasn’t changed. It’s a tiny, windowless room. I used to come here after school to do homework, days when I needed internet access or a guaranteed snack. Days when I didn’t want to return to an empty house—or a house that might as well have been. I can hear the buttons of Rusty’s register, the ding-click-slide of the cash drawer. It’s a soundtrack I’d forgotten, but one that used to bring comfort.
Now, that comfort is a distraction. It takes me back to the familiar safety of these walls. I keep expecting Rusty to open the door, thrust a box of Twinkies at me, and tell me to “Go nuts.” But I’m not here for comfort. Not here to feel safe. I’m here to investigate my suspicions—and I need to get to work.
I start with Brennan. Scour his website. Briefly consider messaging him through the contact form. But this isn’t the kind of thing you email, and if he’s got Astrid, a message would only let him know I’m onto him. And then who knows what he’d do.
Men who grip arms. Men who pull hair. Men whose violence sits dormant inside them, waiting to explode.
What I need is an idea of where he is now. If he’s bouncing from city to city on a book tour, then he probably isn’t the man I’m looking for. But the Events page on his website says, “Come back soon for The Desolation of Fear tour dates,” and I find myself, in a last-ditch effort, tracking down the number for the literary agent listed in his bio. When I finally get her on the line, I listen to the lies tumble out of me: Brennan’s a close family friend; my father is ill; I want to get in touch with him to let him know the situation; could you tell me how I can reach him please?
The agent isn’t moved. “He’s currently unavailable,” she says curtly.
“Oh, because he’s on a book tour? I tried to look up his events, but—”
“No,” she cuts in. “He’s just… unavailable.”
There’s something odd in the way she says it. Something bitter. Something that tells me there’s more to this story.
“Who did you say this was?” she asks.
I hang up. Move to the next person on my list. I find the website for St. Cecilia’s in Foster and dial the number for Father Murphy’s office.
A woman picks up—ancient, by the sound of her. I ask to speak to the priest.
“He’s not here,” she says, and there’s something familiar about the gruff tone of her voice. It nags at me, even as I respond.
“Oh, is he… doing Mass?” I ask.
“No,” she says, already impatient. “Can I take a message?”
“Do you know why he was in Maine yesterday?” I blurt. “I saw him at the police station in Ridgeway.”
She pauses for a long time. Then, finally: “He was helping with an investigation.”
“Because he spoke to Astrid Sullivan right before she went missing?” I ask. “The first time, I mean?”
The more I’ve thought about it—Chief Dixon calling in Father Murphy—the more it’s made sense. It’s possible he saw something the day of the kidnapping that only now, decades later, seems significant. Of course the police can’t let that stone go unturned. And neither can I.
The woman coughs, dry and rattling. “I know who you are,” she says. “You’re that lady from the other day. The one from Massachusetts.”
I sit up straighter. It’s the woman from the church parking lot. The one who knocked on my window, hissed It’s in God’s hands now. Said What’s done is done.
“Father Murphy has done nothing wrong,” she says.
“I—wasn’t saying that he had. I just want to know what he told the police. It’s a long story, but I’m looking for any—”
“I thought I told you to let this go,” she snaps. “I don’t know what you’re expecting to find. Foster is a quiet place. A good place, filled with good people. But Astrid, she wasn’t like the rest of us. She was a troublemaker. I had her as a student in CCD, and more often than not, she was brazenly defiant. She loved to bend the rules. Loved to laugh at them, too. So as far