I slide into my slippers and grab a blanket from the pile, pulling it up around my shoulders. Our house is old, big, and drafty. It costs a fortune to heat, as my parents never fail to remind me, so the thermostat is always down low. Because my room is up at the very top, hidden under the eaves in the attic, it’s the coldest room of all, but that’s a small price to pay for the privacy, not to mention the view.
My desk sits in the gable at the front of the house, facing a large half-moon window that looks down over the town. I drop into the desk chair, yawning and pulling the blanket tight around me.
Far in the distance, I see lights skimming past us on the highway, a rushing river of cars and trucks and buses that could easily sweep someone away, in any direction, in the blink of an eye. On just this side of the highway is the forest, a huge stretch of spruce and pine, some bare hardwoods clustered together, thin patches in the blanket of green.
The woods butt up against a subdivision much younger than this neighborhood, full of split-levels and bungalows from the seventies. My old street runs parallel to the line of trees, and my old house still sits there, tucked in for the night like every other house in town.
From here, my childhood home looks tiny, vulnerable, just a small brick bungalow crouched in the shadow of the massive spread of forest behind it. It looks like the woods are about to swallow it up, drag it away, never to be seen again.
I like the house we live in now, in the middle of town, far from the woods. I like my room, the way it floats up here, high above the world.
I like that it would take someone a lot of effort to get up here. To find me.
I glance behind me at the door that opens to steps that lead down to a hallway lined with more doors: my parents’ room, my brothers’ room, the bathroom, the study. Then more stairs, almost every step harboring a telltale creak, alarms woven into the house’s very sinews.
At the bottom of the stairs is a foyer, where an interior door—paned with stained glass, locked and bolted—leads out to a porch and a heavy exterior door, solid as lead, also locked.
There are neighbors to either side of us, more neighbors across the street. All around us are windows and eyeballs. Security.
A noise catches my attention, and I turn back to my window, leaning forward across the desk so I can see right down to the street. The cute little yellow house directly across from us has been empty for over a year, since old Mrs. Dunlop passed away. I’ve grown used to the FOR SALE sign stuck into the lawn, but now I see that a U-Haul has pulled up outside.
The truck is still running, exhaust billowing from the tailpipe, taillights glowing red in the night, but as I watch, it shuts off, shuddering for a moment before slumping to sleep. The driver’s side door opens, and a man steps out, stretching his arms above his head and yawning. A moment later, a woman steps around from the passenger side of the truck and joins him on the sidewalk.
They stand looking at the Dunlop house, and then turn together to watch as a cool old car pulls up and comes to a stop behind the U-Haul. It’s pale blue, with wide tires and two wide silver stripes running the length of the hood. The door opens, and a girl steps out. She doesn’t close the door, but stands behind it instead, leaning forward to rest her elbows on its upper edge and stare across at the house, like she’s standing behind a shield.
The man and woman walk over to talk to the girl. They’re clearly her parents, and as they talk, they gesture toward the U-Haul. They seem to agree on something, and the man and woman move back to the truck and start digging into the cab, pulling out bags.
When I shift my gaze back to the girl she’s staring right up at me.
I jerk back from the window, startled, before I remember with a wave of relief that I’m standing in a dark room. She can’t see me.
I keep to the edge of the window and watch her head move as she runs her gaze around our house. I realize that she’s checking out the veranda, the gingerbread trim, the turret. Shabby, drafty, and unfinished as it might be, ours is the most dramatic house on the street, and she’s looking at it, not me.
But I’m looking at her. I can’t help it. She’s slight—not much shorter than me, but more compact. Her black hair is cut into an irregular bob, and her glasses have thick, dark frames. She’s wearing jeans, leather boots, and a dark olive-green winter coat with a wide white band across the chest. It’s obviously vintage and looks to be from the same era as the car.
She reaches inside her car and grabs a backpack, then slams the door shut and joins her parents, who are standing on the sidewalk with their own bags, waiting for her. Her father puts an arm over her shoulder, and together, the three of them walk up the narrow path and into the house.
I glance at the clock. It’s just past 3:00 a.m.
I drop into my desk chair, pulling the blanket around me, then I open my laptop.
Except for the late arrivals across the street, everyone is asleep. My family. My neighbors. The town around me.
I open my bottom desk drawer and pull out a small USB microphone on a stand. I plug it into the side of the laptop, then reach across the desk for my headphones and pull them on.
Somewhere, right now, somebody is disappearing.
I click on the icon for my audio recording program, and once it’s loaded, I tap on the mic with my finger.
I press [record].
It’s time to get to work.
4.
Transcript of RADIO SILENT
Episode 41—January 4
HOST: I’m happy to report that we have a development in the case of Nathan Chestnut. Listeners will remember that on the afternoon of December 27, Nathan walked four blocks to hang out at a friend’s house. When he didn’t return home for dinner, his mother attempted to text and then phone him, and when she received no response, she called the friend, who reported that Nathan had left almost three hours earlier. Within an hour, Nathan’s parents had reached out to his other friends but came up empty-handed. By the end of the night, they’d called the police, and by the time twenty-four hours had passed, he was officially declared a missing person.
I stop recording, make a few quick edits, then apply my custom voice filter to the clip. I give it a listen, and when I’m satisfied that it sounds okay, not at all like me, I continue recording.
HOST: Nathan’s older sister, Cassandra, is a fan of Radio Silent, and she reached out to us early the next day. I recorded and released an episode that evening and used the show’s page to link to relevant details, including photographs and the official police statement.
Within an hour of the episode going live, we had several tips from the LDA, including two separate sightings from listeners in the small town of Maple Mills, a two-hour drive from Hamilton, who had spotted Nathan at the local grocery store.
We forwarded this information to the family and the proper authorities. Nathan’s sister fills us in on what happened next.
I stop and slice the track, add in a few seconds of white noise to give a nice pregnant pause, then record my next chunk of text, working from the notes I’ve jotted down in my notebook as I record. I’m starting to get into a rhythm. I open the folder containing supplementary information and select and insert the iPhone voice recording Nathan’s sister sent me this afternoon.
CASSANDRA CHESTNUT: It was bizarre and totally out of character for Nathan to just disappear like that. We were looking for him everywhere, from local hospitals to homeless shelters to abandoned buildings. The police had told us to start preparing for the worst. None of us had even considered that Nathan would have left town. He gets along with everyone in the family, has good grades and plenty of friends. There was no reason for him to run away.