“Delia,” says my mother. “The girl who went missing lives in our old house.”
“I know that,” I say. I glance at my father, who looks shocked, and hasten to explain. “Burke told me about it. It’s Layla, right?”
“You know her?” asks my mother, surprised.
“Not really. I mean, I met her. The other day when I was out with Burke, he said hey to her. She was in a car, with her mom.”
“When was this?” asks Avery. He’s fumbling for his notebook.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” I say. “It was a few days ago. We stopped at the gas station on Livingstone because Burke wanted to buy some chips. We met her mom in the store, and Burke introduced me. When we came out of the store, Burke dragged me over to the car to meet Layla for some reason. That was it.”
“How did she seem?” asks Avery.
“Who?” I ask. “Layla or her mother?”
“Both,” he says.
I shrug. “They seemed normal. Like, the mom was nice, you could tell she likes Burke. I mean adults always like Burke, so no surprise there.”
He nods, takes a couple of quick notes. “And the girl?”
“She seemed normal,” I say. “Like a little girl. She seemed smart, I guess. Mature.”
He keeps taking notes. “Nothing else?”
“Not really,” I say. “I literally just met them and then forgot about them. There were no kidnappers lurking in the bushes or anything.”
Avery finishes writing and tucks his notepad into his belt.
“I understand,” he says. “But you never know when someone might have relevant information and not even realize it. That’s not why I’m here though.”
My stomach seems to collapse in on itself, and I bite on my lower lip to calm myself down.
“There’s more to this story,” Avery continues. “I wanted to come see you all because of something that was discovered at the scene.”
He reaches into a leather bag sitting propped up next to his chair and pulls out a simple file folder. It’s purple, and the scratched out and rewritten labels tell me that it’s obviously been recycled many times. He places it on the coffee table between us and leans forward, placing one hand on the folder.
“There was a…a note,” he says.
“A note?” my father asks, pushing forward and looking at him with some urgency.
Avery looks at me and hesitates.
“You can tell me,” I say impatiently. “You can’t screw me up more than I already am.”
“Dee,” says my mother, calmly reassuring. She puts her hand on my knee and squeezes, worried, I know, that I’ll have some kind of attack.
“I’m fine,” I say. I turn back to Avery. “Please just tell us.”
He takes his hand off the folder and pushes it across the table toward us, then sits back and waits.
I slowly open the folder. Inside is one simple piece of paper, a color copy of what I assume was the original. It looks like a stereotypical ransom note from an old TV show, letters cut out of magazines and glued to a plain background. It would be almost ridiculous, a childish cliché, if it wasn’t for the message it spelled out.
YOU KNEW YOU WERE PLAYING WITH FIRE WHEN YOU MOVED INTO THIS HOUSE.
“What does this mean?” I ask, my heart thumping.
Avery shakes his head. “We really don’t know,” he says. “It’s cryptic to say the least.”
“Were there any other clues?” asks my father.
“Nothing that I can talk about,” says Avery. “We’re still examining the scene of the crime. I can tell you that this is the only thing we found that implies a connection to…to the events of the past.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” says my father. “Why would they target our old house and not the Carmichaels’ old house? Isn’t there a family with kids living there?”
“The Tufts,” says Avery. “They’ve lived there since the original…event.”
“You can call it an abduction,” I snap. “I was there, remember?”
“Delia,” says my mother, rubbing my back. I pull away.
“It’s okay,” says Avery. “You’re right, Dee. I’m still trying to figure out how to approach this. The Tufts have a couple of boys, but they’re both off at college. They were teens when the Tufts bought the house. To answer your question, we don’t know why anyone would have targeted your old house.”
“It’s been almost ten years,” I say.
“You’re right,” he says. “It’s been a long time, and we probably wouldn’t even be making a connection if it wasn’t for the note. To be honest, we’d still be exploring other possibilities—that the girl ran away or was at a friend’s house—if it wasn’t for the note.”
“No,” I say. “I mean it’s been ten years almost exactly, since Sibby went missing. Maybe someone is obsessed with the case, like a copycat.”
Nobody says anything for a long stretch.
“Right,” says Avery, and I can tell that this is the first he’s considered it. “Like I said, we’re trying to figure things out on the fly.”
“The internet is full of stuff like this,” I say. “People obsess over old cases. There are copycat serial killers. Why not copycat abductions?”
“We will consider every angle,” says Avery. “I can promise you that.”
“Do you think there’s anything to be worried about?” asks my mother.
“Do you think she’s in danger?” asks my father more abruptly.
“Jesus, Jake,” says Mom, shooting him a what the hell look.
“No, no, it’s okay.” The detective brushes off her concern. “I don’t think there’s any danger. We really don’t. But we do think it’s best to be extra vigilant for the time being. Basically, don’t go wandering around by yourself, okay, Dee?”
“I’m not in the habit of doing that anyway,” I say.
“Well, that’s good,” he says. “Until we’ve got some kind of an answer to what happened, keep it up.” He stands, reaching for his bag, and I can tell he’s relieved to have delivered his message and ready to get out of here.
“What happens if you don’t figure it out?” I ask. “You didn’t figure out what happened with Sibby.”
His face blanches. “You’re right,” he says. “And we don’t want the same thing to happen twice, obviously.”
“It isn’t an insult,” I say. “But isn’t it true that…” I hesitate, realizing it will sound kind of weird if I spout the exact percentage of unsolved missing persons cases. “A lot of cases like this go unsolved?”
He nods slowly. “We’re going to do our best,” he says. “I promise that. But you all know the reality here. We can only do what we can do. Beyond that, we’ll have to figure it out as it develops.”
Before he leaves, Detective Avery reaches inside his coat pocket and pulls out a card. He hands it to me, pressing it into my hand and folding my fingers over it.