“Oh, it’s definitely you. Do you think Violet will get anywhere?” Dodie asked.
“I think she’ll terrify whoever she has to terrify, yes.” I hadn’t missed Violet’s steely big-sister glare this morning, the kind that could wither your self-esteem with a single look. I’d learned early to dodge that glare.
“Can we turn around now? I’m hungry again.”
“Soon, you pathetic child.”
Behind me, I heard her snap a branch. “I’d rather be a pathetic child than a perv.”
Yes. We could do this all day.
Through a break in the trees, I caught a glimpse of a chain-link fence. We’d reached a property line, it seemed. “Was the fence there twenty years ago?” I asked Dodie.
“No. It doesn’t look old,” she replied.
We got closer, and through the diamonds of chain link I glimpsed more scrub, the gleam of sunlight in an empty lot. A soda can, a beer bottle, and a used condom. Dodie wrinkled her nose.
I wedged my boot into one of the chain-link diamonds and pulled myself up.
“Where are you going?” Dodie asked.
Instead of an answer, I swung a leg over the fence and wedged my boot in the other side.
“I’m not climbing that fence.” Her voice rose.
“It isn’t even high.”
“I’m not doing it.”
“Wait there, then. I’ll be right back.” I had swung my other leg over, and I jumped easily to the ground. I couldn’t see any buildings around me. I didn’t think I had ever been this far behind the house.
“Vail,” came Dodie’s voice when I took a step. “Don’t. Come back.”
I stopped. Damn it.
I knew that tone in Dodie’s voice. It meant she was scared. That was the kind of childhood we’d had, that I knew exactly what my little sister sounded like when she was scared.
Damn it.
I turned back and wedged my boot into the fence again. I paused at the top before I jumped down, looking around from the higher vantage point.
That day—that terrible day—there had been police everywhere. Their footprints had cut swaths through the new snow, left deep holes in the drifts. They’d gone through these woods, calling Ben’s name. We could see by their tracks that they’d made lines, thatching the back woods with the marks of their heavy boots. One of them had most likely stood in this very spot on that day, looking for my brother.
What had that long-ago policeman seen? He’d maybe thought that the white snow was an advantage. If the missing boy—or his body—was nearby, he had a chance of glimpsing Ben’s blue T-shirt.
I stared around me until my eyes watered and my hands went numb on the fence, searching for details. Any detail at all. Anything.Show yourself,I begged him.Show yourself.
Why did landscapers get to see my brother? Why them and not me?
Just for a second. The sight of him. I would have given anything.Anything.
Finally, I swung down, my feet thumping in the damp earth. Dodie moved next to my shoulder, so close that her arm brushed mine and I could hear her breath.
“What do you think he’s waiting for?” she asked.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, brushing the water from my eyes. This—these woods, this hill—this wasn’t the right place. Ben wasn’t here. This wasn’t where he wanted us, needed us, to go.
“We started in the wrong place,” I said. “The police search doesn’t matter. It was all over by then.”
