“I remember that summer.” He got up from the couch, relieved to move, as always, and walked over to pick up a photo of a sun-bleached six-year-old. “We went camping.”
The last great childhood summer. By seven Boyd’s dad had run off with a waitress, and by eight, Sammy was gone. Summers were never the same after that.
“Two weeks you got that I didn’t,” Donna said. “I could have taken him to the beach. All three of us could have gone hiking as a family.”
Boyd bit his tongue and put the photo down gently. She never had, before or after that summer, but it wouldn’t be kind to point that out. It wasn’t as though Donna had been a bad mom, not that Sammy ever said, but she never had much time—two jobs, two kids, and when there was a man in her life, they were never up to much.
“Have you had any trouble?” he asked instead. “With the press or those true crime fans?”
Most years the anniversary of Sammy’s disappearance stirred up interest among the sort of people who were interested. Some of them were motivated enough to email or call, even travel out here. So far the tenth anniversary had been the worst, with two true crime books that came to mutually conflicting but inescapable conclusions, a podcast series, and a handful of psychics who trailed through town with cameras to record their impressions.
Donna bent her head over her glass, her face hidden behind pin-straight gray hair. “Hecalled.”
She waved one hand toward the stack of books in the corner of the room,Ben Sullivanprinted in bold red letters on each spine, in case Boyd might have mistaken who she meant. He hadn’t. The local boy reporter turned sensationalist true-crime bottom feeder made his annual pilgrimage to town this month. Boyd was never sure whether to be grateful that he kept the story fresh for the public or resentful of the money the guy made off it.
“There’s new leads, other cases that could be linked to what happened to Sammy. He thinks he might get another book out of it, maybe even convince the captain to take a look, but he can’t visit this year. I haven’t answered the phone to any of the others.”
“Good,” Boyd said.
She glanced up at him through her bangs. “I don’t regret it,” she said in response to what hehadn’tjust said. “It would have been worth every penny if they’d found him.”
Twenty grand. All her savings and five grand she borrowed from Boyd with the lie that she needed it for rehab. Instead she paid two con men to drive her around backroads on the trail of Sammy’s ghost, and they left her high and dry in a motel over in Lexington.
“I know,” he said. “But they didn’t.”
She curled up in the recliner, feet tucked under her, and stared at her hands wrapped around the glass. Still unable to think of anything to say, Boyd finished his soda and stood with the empty can in hand. After what felt like an eternity, he glanced at his watch. It had been fifteen minutes. It would be another half hour before he could justifiably beg off to go to work.
“Busy?” Donna asked, a sharp edge to her voice.
“Sorry.” Boyd sheepishly stuck his hand in his pocket. He thought she’d been lost in the bottle. “I’ve got a shift this afternoon.”
She nodded slowly. “Oh, of course, you got the job.”
“Two years now,” he said.
Donna drained her glass and filled it again. The level in the bottle had dipped below the label, but her voice was only slightly slurred, and her hands were steady.
“Doesn’t seem fair, does it?” she said as she lifted the glass. “This was all your fault, but you get to live the life he wanted. You get to live.”
There the script went. Boyd cleared his throat and ignored the statement. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and checked his watch again, as though a lot of time had passed.
“I should go,” he said. “Traffic. I still miss him, Mrs. Calloway. He was my best friend.”
Donna nodded slowly. She waited until he was at the door to reveal that she’d had something to say all along.
“Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if they’d taken you instead, if my boss had let me leave early, and Jessie’s hadn’t…. If I’d left you to walk home all alone. Do you think Sammy would have visited her every year? Would he have been a firefighter? Would everyone think he was a hero?” Her voice almost gentle, dreamy. “Is it awful that I wish I lived in that world?”
Boyd let himself out. He stalked over the road and climbed into the cab of his car. It was hot enough from the nearly afternoon sun to prickle sweat under his collar, but he still felt sort of cold. He sat for a second and then hammered his fists on the wheel in frustration. It didn’t help. Boyd leaned forward and rested his forehead against his arms.
Tomorrow Donna would email, and then text, a heartfelt apology. She’d be sorry by then for how much she drank and for what she said, but she still meant every word. Not that he could blame her.
Sometimes Boyd wished the same thing.
THE WOMAN’Sscreams went through Boyd’s head like a drill. It was a beautiful sound. As long as her mouth was open and her lungs full of air, she was alive. The plan was to keep her that way.
Heat scorched the back of Boyd’s neck and made him sweat under his heavy jacket as he crawled into the twisted frame of the car. Glass crunched under his elbows and knees as he tucked himself into the compressed space. There were files in the back seat and a broken laptop. He pushed them out of the way and reached through the front seats. With gloved fingers he found the bony point of the driver’s elbow and squeezed gently.
“Hey,” he said. “My name’s Boyd. We’re going to get you out of here. Okay?”
