together backstage. Katie was a pretty girl, but what struck Isla was how beautiful Willow photographed. She could be a fashion model for Vogue. She envisioned Willow posing some day for a Gap commercial or for a Victoria’s Secret ad. Or possibly being on a big screen high up on a building in Times Square.
She scrolled through more of the photos, until she came upon one with Katie and a boy. He stood much taller than her and was very good looking, with strong white teeth and a scruffy beard. His blond hair was swept back until it swirled into a man bun over his crown. He was dressed in casual hipster garb, the kind of fashion one might see young men wearing in LA or Brooklyn. In another photo, he wore a mustard-colored knitted beanie cap. One photo was of all three of them standing arm in arm. In another the boy had his long arms wrapped around the girls’ shoulders. In the next photo he could be seen kissing Willow’s cheek while looking into the camera. In the next he posed while kissing Katie—again looking into the camera.
Katie looked different to her in these most recent photos. It took her a few seconds to realize why. It was because she wore a good deal of makeup in them. And not just makeup that most girls her age wore. It was as if someone with advanced cosmetic knowledge had done her up for a glamorous photo shoot. Dramatic lashes. Heavy pink shade over the eyelids. Rouged cheeks and vampiric lips. In the wrong hands, this makeup would have made her look terrible. But Isla had to admit that Katie looked amazing. Looking as she did in these photos, she, too, could pose for Allure or Seventeen. Of course, since she was five-three, modeling appeared out of the question for Katie.
It became obvious to Isla that Willow Briggs had a powerful hold over her daughter. Possibly more so than she even realized. Willow had changed her daughter from an innocent town girl into someone more cosmopolitan and worldly. It wouldn’t be so unnerving if this transition had happened later in life, but she didn’t want her sweet young daughter corrupted in high school. There’d be plenty of time for that later. She cursed herself for not being a more attentive mother. Maybe she should have put her foot down when it came to Katie hanging out with Willow Briggs.
Something else came to her, and it filled her with dread. Had Katie been dating that boy in the photos? And yet Katie had a longtime boyfriend. As she looked back on things, it seemed easy to imagine Willow being sexually active. She tried to give Willow the benefit of the doubt and not to judge, but the thought of these girls having sex so young haunted her.
Her father, Gil Briggs, had been filming them for his reality pilot, Shepherd’s Bay, and Willow would no doubt be the star of the show. The camera would love her, and she’d love it back. Isla remembered a show called Laguna Beach a few years back, about a clique of beautiful, rich teens fighting with one another, behaving badly, and sleeping around. The show had been a huge ratings success. Could Shepherd’s Bay have that same potential? Would it be trashy and addictive, and set in a coastal Maine town?
Then another thought came to her, and it momentarily lifted her spirits. Maybe this entire ordeal—the two girls having gone missing—had been staged to create drama for the show. And maybe this drama would help it get picked up by a major network. Yes, that was probably what had happened, and Katie had to be in on the plan. It had to be the reason why the girls had not yet contacted anyone.
Isla turned on her daughter’s printer, prayed that there was some ink left in it—she could hardly afford a new ink cartridge right now, and the nearest office supply store was thirty miles from town—and printed out two pictures of the boy. Then she waited for the sheets to inch their way out. She had to discover the identity of the boy in these photos. Maybe he was the key to finding the girls.
KARL
THE CHIEF ORDERED HIM TO GO HOME AND SLEEP, AND HE DIDN’T argue. All the caffeine in his system had been making him more tired than he actually was, if that was possible. So he surrendered to exhaustion and went back