Saul steps back toward his boat as someone calls his name again. “I need to go. Come by another time if you’re still curious. Have a good evening.” He goes back into the cabin without another word.
As we walk away from the boat, I stare down at the paper in my hand.
Three names. Three kids who ran away.
Or who vanished, just like my daughter.
THIRTEEN
After getting off Saul’s boat, Gabriel and I slide into the car, the vinyl seats still hot from the afternoon sun.
The slip of paper trembles in my hands. I unfold it carefully, revealing three names written in blue ink: Eliza Bennett. Marisa Lane. Anthony Hoggins.
I grip Gabriel’s hand. “What do you think? Do you think Sadie ran too?” Even though I thought about it when I went to the library, it’s the first time I’m saying it out loud to Gabriel.
My husband starts the car and slides his hand from mine to handle the wheel. “Why do you think that?”
“Well, Saul did say some kids leave, right, that they don’t want to stay? I hate to think it, but maybe Sadie was one of them. Maybe she heard their stories from others at the camp and was influenced. Maybe she’s out there.” Not drowned. Not kidnapped.
Gabriel says nothing and I watch his jaw tense.
“Gabriel,” I say quietly. “You didn’t say much back there. When Saul told us, you didn’t react like someone who was hearing about those kids for the first time.” My voice is just above a whisper now.
“I didn’t want to say anything until…” He glances at me. “Until I was sure. I didn’t want to upset you.”
“What does that mean?”
He exhales slowly. “The investigator I hired…he found out about the missing kids a while ago. He was looking deeper into it to see if there’s more, a connection?—”
My stomach drops. “You knew about this already?” I wrap my fingers around the piece of paper. “You knew children had run from that place and you didn’t say anything to me?”
When I found out about the detective, he should have said something.
“I was trying to shield you from going down a rabbit hole that might lead nowhere near what happened to Sadie.”
I grip the paper tighter. “You don’t get to decide what I can handle!”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
Again with that nonsense.
“From what, Gabriel?” My voice is loud in the car’s stillness. “From information that might help me understand what happened to my child? Or from the truth that our daughter might have chosen to leave me?”
“That’s not fair, Judy.” His jaw visibly tightens. “She was my daughter too, my little girl.”
“Is,” I correct, my voice tight. “But you secretly hiring someone to dig into our daughter’s disappearance, then only feeding me scraps of information when it suits you, is what’s not fair.” I inhale sharply. The heavy smells of diesel and salt linger in my nostrils. “What else did he find?”
“Nothing that proves Sadie ran.”
“And why hide that information?”
He grips the steering wheel tighter. “Because, like Saul said, one of those kids didn’t make it.”
When we get home, I go straight to our bedroom, unable to be in the same room as my husband. As I walk away, Scarlett’s voice floats from the living room, low and urgent.
“What did the fisherman say?”
“Nothing helpful,” Gabriel mutters.
