shaking so much I can barely hold the phone.
“Eric,” I whisper. “Brennan has a book called The Terror of Isolation. It’s from a couple years after Astrid and I were…” I stop. Inhale. Keep going. “There are chapters on child abductions.”
I hear Eric’s breath against the phone. A whoosh of air, then a groan.
“Fuck,” he says.
And Eric only swears for things like this—things so heavy no other words can hold them.
I’m climbing the stairs, two or three at a time, careful to avoid the steps that creak. When I’m back in my room, I close the door with a barely audible click.
“So I was right,” I say. “What I told you at The Diner—when I first suspected Brennan. Astrid and I, we were—we were…”
“Research,” he finishes for me, and hearing him say it—logical, steady Eric—my heart rattles so hard I think my ribs will crack.
He clears his throat. “It’s crazy,” he says. “Guess he’s not playing by the rules anymore.”
“Guess he really is a fraud,” I manage.
“Yeah,” Eric says. “Just not the kind Ted meant.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks. Then I hear my voice tremble. “Does Karen know where Brennan is now? I talked to his literary agent yesterday, and all she would say is that he’s unavailable.”
“Karen talked to the agent, too,” Eric says. “But it sounds like she was more forthcoming with Karen. She told her that Brennan demanded to delay his book tour this time around. Which is a big deal, I guess? Because you want to promote it right when it first comes out or something? Karen said the agent seemed annoyed about it.”
I grip the bedpost. “She needs to find out where he is now,” I say.
“Yeah, I’ve asked her to look into it.”
“Okay. Thank you. But she has to do it quickly.”
“I know,” Eric says. “For Astrid’s sake.”
When he says her name, I feel that warmth in my chest again. He’s on her side—on mine, too—and he’s going to help me find her. We make a good team, Eric and I. We always have.
I look down at my stomach. Place my hand over my belly. “Eric, listen…”
I take a deep breath. But before I can exhale, the phone beeps in my ear. “Oh, hold on a sec. Call waiting. I’ll get rid of them.”
When I click over, I’m greeted by a gravelly voice.
“Ms. Douglas? This is Chief Dixon. I’m calling regarding the report you had me look into.”
“Oh! Oh my god, thank you! Can you hang on a second?”
I switch back to Eric. “I’ve gotta go,” I tell him. “It’s Ridgeway Police—they have the report that Ted filed! I can tell them about Brennan, and maybe I can head up to Maine to help, I’ll call you later, okay?”
I jab the button to click back over, apologize to Chief Dixon for making him wait.
“Yes, well,” he says, “I called a while ago, and there was no voice mail or anything, so this is the second time I’ve reached out. But I wanted to tell you myself that this report of yours was not available.”
My hand is on the doorknob, ready to rush out of the room as soon as the call is over. Now it slips to my side. “Not available?”
“That’s right.”
“But… why?” I step backward, slowly, away from the door. Ease myself onto the bed. “Is it because it’s technically an unsolved case, so it’s not public record?”
“No,” Dixon says. “It’s because it doesn’t exist. No such report was ever filed.”
My wrist blares with an itch. “That’s… that’s not possible,” I say. “Are you sure?”
For a moment, the only sound is his breath—a long, impatient exhale. “I am absolutely positive,” he says, “that there was no police report made by Ted Brierley in 2000. Now—”
“Wait. Can you check for it under Mara Brierley? I might have given you the wrong first name.”
There’s a slight pause, but I don’t hear him typing or rustling through papers.
“If the surname is the same,” he says, “it would have come up in our search. Now I made this call myself to make one thing clear: I followed up with this, I treated it as a potential lead—only to find you’ve wasted my time. If you try to interfere in this investigation again, appropriate action will be taken. Good-bye, Ms. Douglas.”
I don’t know if I respond to him. I only know I’m a hunk of stone on my bed, and the dial tone drones in my ear. It’s such a stoic sound, so passive and indifferent.