“Yeah,” I say. “The Gerrards right?”
He nods. “The police wanted to talk to me because I’m a neighbor.”
“Why?” I ask, although my spidey senses are tingling: this can’t be good.
“It’s Layla,” he says. “Their little girl. She’s missing.”
10.
TEN YEARS EARLIER
The forest is darker than normal, a hundred thousand layered shadows sliding over and under and into one another, and as Dee follows Sibby into the woods, she feels like they’ve lost hours and hours just by stepping through the tree line.
The fort is pretty deep into the woods. Burke’s uncle Terry started building it for them a couple of months ago, when he moved into the basement in Burke’s house. All the kids in the neighborhood helped out, on and off, but mostly it was Terry and Burke and Delia and Sibby, with some visits from Terry’s girlfriend, Sandy. Dee’s dad even came out to help and brought lumber that he had left over from the deck he’d been building, but he was pretty busy with work, so it was just a couple of times.
Since then, all the kids from the street play there every afternoon: Dee and Sibby and Greta, Dee’s little brothers—although they’ve been at hockey practice a lot lately—Burke, and even his sisters, every once in a while.
“It’s about time we had the fort to ourselves,” says Sibby. “There’s never enough room when everybody shows up.”
As always, Dee is happy to hang out with Sibby one-on-one, but she’s not sure she agrees about the fort being better when it’s just the two of them.
But most of all, the woods are scary without a big gang.
Ahead of them, the treehouse comes into view, a ghostly structure of weathered wood, just barely visible through the trees, suspended in the air.
“Last one there is a rotten egg!” yells Sibby gleefully, and without waiting for Dee to catch on, she begins to run.
Dee stands where she is, frozen in place. She doesn’t want to hurry to the treehouse. In fact, she wants to turn and run back the way they came, out into the clear air, the houses of their neighborhood in full view, and eyeballs looking through a dozen windows, watching them.
But as Sibby crashes away from her through the underbrush, branches snapping and dead leaves crunching underfoot, Dee realizes that she’s going to be left behind, all alone, if she doesn’t follow in Sibby’s wake.
Her boots, when she does start to run, are solid and thick. They aren’t the best for a footrace, but they’ll keep her feet warm. They’ll keep her tightly gripped to the ground.
11.
It’s snowing heavily by the time I arrive home from school. In the front entryway, I stomp to knock the snow off my boots, then I step through to the foyer. There’s a low murmur of voices coming from the living room. It sounds like my parents, which is odd since my mother usually doesn’t get home from work until a lot later than this, and there’s another voice in the mix too. A man’s voice.
“Dee?” my mother’s voice calls out from the living room. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” I call back. I glance at the twins, and they raise their eyebrows. I wonder if they’ve heard about Layla Gerrard.
“Can you come in here, honey?” It’s my father this time.
An uneasy feeling rises from my stomach, and I let my backpack slide off my shoulder and drop it next to the stairs, then head down the hallway and into the living room.
My parents turn to me from their perch on the couch as I enter. Their mouths are smiling, but it’s their eyes—wide and anxious—that express how they’re really feeling.
Across the room from them, sitting in one of the beat-up leather wing chairs that flank the fireplace, is a face I haven’t seen in ten years. I remember it well, though. The face of the man who was charged with finding out what I knew after Sibby disappeared.
Detective Reginald Avery stands to greet me, stepping forward to give me his hand.
“Hello, Delia,” he says, shaking firmly.
“Hi,” I say, looking back and forth between him and my parents.
“It’s been a while,” he says, and all I can do in response is nod.
“Delia, honey,” says my mother, “come sit with us.”
My mother insists on calling me “honey,” even though I’m about as far from a “honey” as you’re likely to find. She’d do better to call me “champ” or “buster.”
I squeeze onto the couch between them, the three of us staring across at the detective. Both of my parents are turned slightly toward me in a subtly protective gesture. The effect is of an awkward family photo, but as much as I wish they’d give me a bit of breathing room, I’m comforted by their concern.
“You’ve grown up,” he says, smiling. I hate it when adults say this kind of shit. How am I supposed to respond? You’re looking older yourself?
The truth is, he does look older now. I know that’s obvious, but when I was a kid, he seemed really old, although he couldn’t have been much more than forty at the time. That was at a point in my life when every adult was one of two kinds of old: parent and teacher old, and grandparent old.
Now I realize that this man was pretty young when he interviewed me, and he’s since moved well into middle age. His face is the same, but he’s aged. Lines on his face, gray in his hair, a slight paunch where there used to be a fit, trim figure.
What interests me most, though, are the changes I can’t see. The hidden thoughts and considerations that sit behind his eyes.
Maybe he was trying to be a savior back then. Maybe he thought he could fix things, make things right, find Sibby and bring the kidnappers to justice. Back then he was the man who was trying to solve the case.
Now, ten years later, he’s the man who didn’t.
It’s funny to think about, but I realize suddenly that Avery and I have come to the same place from two different directions. We’re both haunted by the girl we let down.
He smiles at us, then drops his gaze to his hands, clasped as if in prayer in his lap.
“You might have heard some rumors at school today,” he says.
“About the missing girl,” I say. Next to me, I feel both of my parents tense, like dogs who’ve spotted a squirrel.
Avery lifts his gaze to mine and nods. “Yes. What have you heard?”
“Just that a girl is missing,” I say. When none of them say anything, I go on. “She lives in our old neighborhood. Burke and a few other kids from the area were pulled out and asked questions.”
“That’s everything you’ve heard?” Detective Avery asks.
“Yeah. What else would I have heard?” I sit up in my seat, suddenly alert, my spidey senses beginning to tingle. “Why are you here? What’s going on?”
My mother reaches out and gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Take a breath, Dee,” she says. “Everything’s fine.”
“Obviously,” I say, forcing myself to keep my voice calm and steady, “you’re here for a reason. Something is going on that involves me.”
“Not exactly,” he says. “Not directly, at least.”