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“Bad day at work?”

“Depends on your perspective, I guess. Edgar hated my piece on how church used to be.”

“Sorry, sweetie.”

“He’s obsessed with this Web site thing going on. And apparently so is the rest of the town. Two guys got in a fight over at Harmon’s. Then an elderly lady got a threatening letter on her door. Dispatch said that today they actually had people calling 911 to report their conversations on the Web site. Tires are being slashed. Cars being keyed.”

Kay had turned, giving him her full attention. “Let’s make sure we park our cars in the garage.”

“Let’s make sure we don’t say anything that would offend someone,” Damien said.

“Time to eat!” Kay called.

“Yet should we censor ourselves in our own home?” Damien helped her carry the dishes to the table. Jenna arrived from upstairs, slumped and bored-looking. Damien sat down and engaged her. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“Should we censor ourselves in our home because of the fear of what might be heard?”

“I dunno.”

“It’s a good question,” Damien said. “Would make a good op-ed piece. I mean, aren’t we entitled to private conversations?”

“Of course we are,” Kay said, joining them at the table. “Where’s Hunter?”

The front door opened. Hunter came in, barely managing his skateboard and backpack.

“I thought you were upstairs,” Kay said.

“Nah. Went down the street to skateboard a little.” He set his backpack and skateboard down. “Yes! Meatballs!”

Damien passed them over as Hunter sat. “So the question is, Hunter, do we have a right to say whatever we want behind closed doors?”

“Sure. I guess.”

“It’s the old saying, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Jenna sighed. “Dad, why does everything have to go deep for you? Why can’t you just admire a tree and be done with it?”

“So you think this is admirable, this Web site? Be honest. I want your honest opinion about it.”

Jenna sliced a meatball but looked like she was thinking it over. “I don’t know. I guess it is. I think it’s good.”

“You do? Why?” Damien slid his plate aside, giving Jenna his full attention.

She glanced up, blinked like she was surprised. “Maybe people shouldn’t say mean stuff. Like they don’t think about what they’re saying; they just say stuff and don’t care what happens or how it makes people feel.”

Damien leaned back, crossing his arms. “So you think this is calling attention to how we use our words?”

“It’s right up your alley,” Jenna said. “You know how you’re really into the whole power of words thing.”

“Yes, I was always more interested in the power of vocabulary, but it seems even simple words demand attention in this case—don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. Whatever. It’s only a gossip site.” Jenna gave a wry smile. “Or perhaps voyeurism in its most simple yet fatal design.”

Damien jumped up and grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil out of the kitchen. “This is good stuff. So you think it’s the voyeurism aspect that’s captivating?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it about verbal voyeurism that captivates?”

“Sorry. There’s a limit to how much I can talk about voyeurism with my father, especially when he looks like he’s going to quote me in the newspaper.” Jenna’s gaze dropped to the pad of paper.

“Sorry. I promise not to quote anybody. I’m just writing down some notes.” Damien looked at Hunter. “What about you? What are your thoughts?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really have any.”

“Oh, come on. This is fun. Be real with me. What are you really thinking about it? I promise not to quote you.”

“Well,” Kay said, “if I’m being real and honest, I have to say I’m totally addicted. To hear people’s private conversations . . . it kind of lets you know who they really are. It’s almost the only way to know who people really are. That’s when their guard is down.”

“So the question is, do the conversations we have privately define who we are, or are we who we are despite our private conversations?”

“It’s like you are what you eat, which is why I want to finish eating these meatballs,” Hunter said, stuffing one into his mouth.

“Did Frank say if they were getting closer to knowing who’s doing it?” Jenna asked.

“No. They don’t have any good leads. That’s what he said.” Damien set his pad down and started eating, trying to escape the thought that Frank might be behind it all. He’d pushed it out of his mind today, but it was back now. Frank had lied to him. Twice. And Frank was not one to lie about anything. But what would cause him to do it?

His thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell ringing.

“Probably the Mormons.” Jenna sighed. “I’ll get it. The boys can be cute.”

Damien smiled. She did seem a little happier today, and if it took cute Mormon boys to make that happen, well, he’d take what he could get.

Damien heard a male voice, then Jenna say, “Dad, I think you better come here.”

They all three got up from the table and went to the door. Standing on the porch was a Marlo police officer.

“Officer, what’s wrong?” Damien asked.

The officer held up a picture. “We have a missing girl. Wondered if you know her or have seen her.”

“A missing girl? In Marlo?” Kay gasped.

They all studied the photo; then Jenna said, “That’s Gabby.”

“Gabby?” Damien asked.

“Gabriella Caldwell. She’s in my class.”

Damien’s heart stopped. The pastor’s daughter?

“Yes, that’s her name,” the officer said. “Have you seen or heard from her?”

“No,” Jenna said.

“Are you friends with her, Jenna?” Damien asked.

“No, not really. I kind of know her. She’s quiet. Doesn’t hang out much. She stays to herself mostly.”

“Let us know if you hear from her or see her,” the officer said.

Damien shut the door and turned. His family stared at him. Kay took his arm and squeezed against him.

“It’s going to be fine,” Damien said. “I’m sure they’ll find her. She’s probably out with friends or something.”

“She doesn’t have any friends,” Jenna said. “I mean, not really.”

“Maybe she ran away,” Hunter said.

“Maybe,” Damien said. “You guys finish dinner. I’m going to have to cover this.”

When Damien had decided he wanted to be an investigative reporter, he never imagined he’d be investigating the quick unraveling of his beloved town.

16

Frank zipped his coat all the way to the chin and pulled on his heaviest leather gloves. The wind snapped and howled. The moon, nearly full, provided decent light at 2:30 in the morning. The quietness was undone by the distant sound of dogs barking and people shouting Gabriella’s name.

“Come on. Get something hot to drink,” Frank said, urging the volunteer team into the parking lot. They’d searched the large park in the center of Marlo but came up empty and dejected.

Captain Grayson handed Frank a cup of hot cider. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

Nearby, Reverend Caldwell huddled with his wife, his gaze darting to every sound. He clutched a Bible to his chest.

“We’ve issued the Amber Alert, and we’ve got the FBI coming in with more dogs.” Grayson laid a map down on his car. “When we get light, we’ll start here. There’s a lot of country out there, lots of trees and shrubs.”

“Light? We can’t wait that long.”

“And then there’s the river.”

“I know.”

Lou leaned against the car, sipping the cider. “Her parents are sure she didn’t run away. They said she’s very responsible, very reliable. They said she’s been upset since the cat incident, but she wasn’t upset with them, just with the circumstance. She left her money, her coat. Her car is still in the driveway, and the keys are at home. She takes medication that was left.”

Frank scanned the hillside, listening to the volunteers call her name, watching the lights bounce through the darkness. “She didn’t run away. Call it a gut instinct.” He tossed his cider. “I’m assuming we’ve interviewed Tim and Darla Shaw?”

“Yeah. Murray tracked them down. They have solid alibis.”

“Which means there’s a good chance they had nothing to do with the cat either. Because it seems to me these two things could be connected.”

“Maybe.”

Frank looked out over the crowd of people. Their faces, cold and chapped, told the whole story. They were losing their town. Innocence was fading. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Fear shone in their eyes, haunting and hollow.

“You okay?” Grayson asked.

Frank swallowed hard, trying to shove memories aside. But today they wouldn’t budge. Not even a little. “You know how many calls we covered yesterday? I saw two men, bathed in blood, on the floor of a grocery store. All because one man said something about another man’s sister.”

“Well, we all know what that leads to.”

“Except he didn’t say it to him—he said it to his wife at a party in a back room. And now it’s on the Internet for everyone to read. The Web site is showing eight thousand hits a day. People are devouring this stuff.”

“I know. I started reading it myself.”

“You still think we shouldn’t investigate?” Frank knew his tone was heavy and intense, but that was the best he could do under the circumstances.

Grayson let out a hard sigh. “We don’t have the resources. I think I can get Sampson to pull a detective off Robbery to monitor it, and we may be able to gain a lead if they slip and make a mistake, but we need some computer experts in here. We can ask state, but you know that’ll take weeks to process.”

“People are growing paranoid. They’re not trusting their friends, their neighbors. Relationships are being permanently ruined.”

“My hands are tied.”

“What’s it going to take for you to see how bad this is going to get?”

“Frank—”

Frank slapped the map. “I’m going to the alley off Gordon Street.”

“Wait. Let me get some volunteers together to—”

But Frank didn’t wait. He couldn’t. He had to find this girl if it was the last thing he did. Ever.

***

Damien’s entire body shivered as he made his way inside his home. The heated air enveloped him when he shook off his coat. Unwinding the scarf from his neck, he took his first deep breath since he’d left the house hours ago.

He still trembled but from the inside out. Even as he sought to reassure anyone he could, dread seized every word. Nobody was reassured. Not even him.

Quietly, he turned the light on above the stairwell and tiptoed toward the top, hoping not to wake anyone. He’d left to cover the story and ended up joining a team searching for Gabriella. They marched through a field high with weeds, calling out her name, flashlight beams bouncing around like pinballs. It felt haunting, frantic, but slow and methodical. At one point, he’d stooped down, catching a glimpse of a shoe. Turned out it was an old farmer’s boot. But his emotions swelled, and it was all he could do not to show them.

He topped the stairs and stood looking at the closed doors of his children’s rooms. Both said Keep Out. But he longed to check on them, make sure they were okay. He grabbed the doorknob to Hunter’s room. His door always squeaked. He gently pushed his body against it and it popped open. Hunter stirred in his bed but didn’t wake.

He used to check on the kids several times a night. When they were first born, he’d stand over their cribs, watching them breathe. When they were toddlers, he’d stand over their beds and pray. Then one day, they didn’t want nighttime stories read anymore, and they didn’t come downstairs for good-night kisses. The routine vanished, and now they all simply slept and didn’t think about one another until the morning.

Damien tried to shut the door quietly, then felt someone grab his arm. He jerked around to find Kay in her pajamas, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t sleep.”

Damien wrapped an arm around her and led her to their bedroom. “Have you been crying all this time?”

She nodded, wiping the tears. “I kind of freaked out earlier, after we got home from handing out flyers, and told the kids they weren’t walking by themselves in the neighborhood. And I told Jenna she couldn’t drive by herself. Then I made some stupid remark about her skirt. . . . They’re both mad at me.”

“They’ll get over it.”

They sat at the edge of the bed. Kay put her head on his shoulder, blotting her face with her hands. “I just can’t believe this is happening. What terrible thing has happened to this poor girl?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying not to think about it. They sent us home tonight and said we’d resume in the morning. Maybe if you came with me, it would help you feel like you were doing something. Rather than sitting here worrying.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea. I want to help.”

“Let’s get you to bed.” He pulled down the covers.

Kay scooted back and lay down, her body sinking into the sheets. She suddenly started crying harder.

Damien turned, rubbing her shoulder. “Sweetie . . .”

“They called me a slut.”

“What? Who?” Damien sat straight up. “On the Web site?”

Kay turned over to face him, her hands tucked between her cheek and the pillow. “In high school. It was painted on my locker one day after school. I couldn’t scrub it off.” She broke down, burying her face in the pillow.

Damien didn’t know what to say. Kay had never mentioned anything like this.

“I used to wear these really short skirts. They were kind of the style. But then these rumors started going around about me. They weren’t true but . . .”

“Why haven’t you ever told me this?” Damien said, taking her into his arms.

“I was so embarrassed. It hurt me so much. My friends stopped talking to me. I was totally alone. I had nobody. All because of a stupid rumor. And now I see our daughter . . .” Kay clutched his chest. “Don’t you see that string around her wrist? Don’t you know what that means? And those blouses she wears? I feel like I’m living a nightmare with her. In her.”

“Sweetheart, I am so sorry. I had no idea.”