Once, entering a supermarket to buy a carton of orange juice and a tub of the cream cheese Katie liked on her bagels, Sherri found herself face-to-face with a poster that showed a different photo of Madison Miller than what she’d seen in the past, which was a casual family photo in front of an ocean. But now here came a school photo, fall foliage in unnatural shades of red and orange: a background. On the bottom of the poster at the supermarket was a number to call with any information: an FBI tip line. Sherri copied the number on a receipt and shoved the receipt back into her wallet.
She brought the groceries home and toasted a bagel for Katie.
What could she say if she called the FBI? Could she say, “I have a bad feeling about this”? What did she know, for sure? She knew nothing to connect Bobby and the guys with Madison Miller. She knew he had a secret computer, and she knew he engaged in business that was not quite legal. But did that make him a kidnapper? Was a bad feeling a tip? If she called the FBI, their lives would crumble around them.
“They still haven’t found the girl,” she told Bobby later that evening.
He said, “What girl?” But before he said that he paused, and she watched him arrange his face carefully. She watched him reach for the right words.
Was the seed planted then?
After that, she spent hours at her computer, getting lost in what she found. Rabbit hole after rabbit hole. Madison Miller didn’t come back, and she fell out of the news cycle. But there are dark places on the Internet where stories never die, and where they morph into conspiracy theories. Madison Miller was kidnapped tobe part of a sex trade operation run by a ring of South Americans. Madison Miller was a drug dealer, a porn star, a Russian operative, a garden-variety runaway.
Sherri couldn’t stop, and she couldn’t stop, and she couldn’t stop, because she knew that Madison Miller was none of those things. She was somebody’s sister and somebody’s daughter and Bobby had said himself, Sherri had heard him: she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She couldn’t shake the thoughts. They swirled around her like tumbleweed. They were with her always, her quiet, evil companions.
And then, seventeen days after Madison Miller disappeared, a dog walker found her body.
Rebecca told Sherri that if she wanted she could bring an appetizer to share. Sherri worked all morning on individual Brie bites made in a mini muffin tin with phyllo dough. Each bite had a little dot of pepper jelly inside, like a friendly surprise. She’d found the recipe on an app Katie had kindly downloaded onto her phone. Once they got their lives in order, Sherri vowed to use the app more often.
Rebecca had explained to Sherri that the town of Newburyport did not have fireworks on the Fourth of July; instead the town celebrated something called “Yankee Homecoming” at the beginning of August and did its fireworks then. However, there was a group going out on Gina and Steve’s pontoon on the Fourth, as it fell on a Saturday. Sherri should come.
Sherri’s first thought wasHell no.She wasn’t going to leave Katie at night. But then Rebecca said, no worries, Katie could stay with Morgan until Alexa got home from work at seven thirty, then Alexa would keep an eye on them. It would give Alexa and Katie a chance to get acquainted before Sherri’s first full work shift.
“Doesn’t Alexa have plans? On the Fourth of July?”
No, said Rebecca, she didn’t seem to. She acknowledged that that was unusual, and looked troubled for a moment. Alexa’s boyfriend was out of town, Rebecca said.
Sherri debated for a long time about what to wear. She didn’t want to dress too much like her old self, but she didn’t really want to be her new self either. In the end she chose white jeans and a flowy navy blue tank top that she hoped whisperedupscale nauticalbut worried screamedMarshalls.
Once on the boat, which was docked near Michael’s Harborside restaurant, Sherri counted six couples, plus herself and Rebecca. So not the whole squad then. Some people must be on vacation, or busy with extended families. At least half the women were wearing white jeans, and this felt like a small victory to Sherri. She had never met the husbands before, and Rebecca introduced them quickly—SteveJoeDavidHenryMattOtherJoe. They all looked more or less the same, like overgrown frat boys gone a little thick, and she felt a sharp pang of nostalgia for how she and Bobby used to make heads turn when they walked into a party together. Bobby had never let himself get soft.
But never mind all that now. She accepted a drink in a red cup that somebody handed her, and she took a sip. “Delicious,” she said. She attempted a friendly laugh but it came out more like an awkward squeal.
“Tito’s and blueberries with just a touchof tequila,” said Gina. She took the Brie bites from Sherri.
“I didn’t get a chance to make anything,” Rebecca told Gina. “I’m so sorry! The day got completely away from me.”
Gina and Rebecca exchanged a glance that could possibly have been described as frosty.
“Well,theselook phenomenal, anyway,” said Gina, peering at the Brie bites.
With that endorsement, Sherri began to relax. The seats were like giant cozy couches, and there was a dark green canopy covering the captain’s chair. Steve was at the helm. The pontoon began to glide in a stately manner down the river.
Rebecca sat on one side of Sherri. On Sherri’s other side was a husband. (One of the Joes? David?)
Rebecca leaned over and said, “Joe, Sherri’s new to town. She came from landlocked Ohio, and yes we all feel bad for her, but now she’s found her way to the right part of the country. She’s never eaten a whole lobster, you know! We’re going to rectify that soon. Can you give her a little bit of a geography lesson?”
“Ohio!” said Joe. “I lived in Ohio until I was ten.”
“I didn’t know that!” said Rebecca.
Sherri flushed and ducked her head. This was okay: she was fine. She had prepared for a moment like this.Redbrick,she thought.Livingston Park. Carpenter Street.
“Cleveland,” Joe said to Sherri. “Well, just outside.”
Relief washed over Sherri. She tried to make her voice sound regretful as she said, “Oh! Too bad. We lived outside of Columbus. I don’t know Cleveland very well at all.”
