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“No, look.” I pick up my phone and zoom in on the picture: the girl with dark hair, the black hole of her mouth, the stream of smoke exiting it . . . and the barely discernable blue flowers on her shirt.

“My mom doesn’t smoke,” I repeat, holding the phone out to Bristal.

“But Denise Halverson did.”

Twenty-Seven

“Holy. Fuckin’. Hell.”

Bristal stares at the picture, vapor escaping her mouth as she moves the phone first one way, then another, trying to change the clarity of a thirty-year-old photo when she can only see out of one eye. “Hold on,” she says, grabbing her phone and flipping through her pics to find the original.

I take my phone back, staring at the smoking girl, who is staring back at me.

“Okay,” Bristal says, widening the screen on the original photo she took of David Swinton’s pictures. “Here’s the whole thing, not cropped.”

The girl is tall and slim, with loose black hair. Her right arm is bent at the elbow, holding the cigarette away from her body in the relaxed posture of a seasoned smoker. The trio is too far away to make out much more, but I can identify my dad, even in profile. I’d simply made the assumption—as had David Swinton—that the girl standing with him was my mom. They’d been a couple all through high school, and Denise Halverson was built like my mom, with the same hair color.

“Did your dad say anything about knowing Denise Halverson?” Bristal asks, cutting straight to the point.

“No,” I say, the single word coming out reluctantly. “He never mentioned her.”

“But he knew you were looking into her disappearance?”

“Yes, I mean . . . we never talked about her specifically. Mom and Dad were both upset about the podcast in general, and how explosive the comments got.”

“Which was because of Denise,” Bristal says, but for the first time, I poke back.

“Not necessarily,” I tell her, still gazing at the picture, zooming in and out and taking in all three of the teens standing in a group next to the railroad tracks. “People were upset about me describing the Lytles as a military family, and of course just having a feminist view overall.”

“Right, but . . .”

I trail my finger over the screen, lingering for a moment on the third party of the trio. I’d never taken a closer look after identifying my dad and who I thought was my mom, tucking the picture away as an interesting piece of nostalgia, squarely placing my parents—teenagers themselves at the time—in the path of destruction.

Now, though, this picture has taken on an all-new meaning. And a very sinister one.

“Bristal,” I say, zooming in on the third person in the picture and handing it over to her. He’s tall and lean, tanned arms hanging loosely from a white tank top and low-slung blue jeans.

“Shit,” she says. “That’s Dover.”

“It is,” I admit. “But we already knew that Denise and Dover hung out, so it’s not that big of a deal that he’s there.”

“Right,” she agrees. “It’s your dad that’s the weirdo third wheel. I mean, we could play one of these things does not belong, but I can’t carry a tune real well and I’m guessing you already know the answer.”

I don’t say anything but start frantically scrolling through my phone. “Swinton wrote something on the back of that photo, the date it was taken and the location. Did you happen to—?”

Bristal hands over her phone, David’s neat, heavy hand fills the screen.

June 11, 1994, Henley, Ohio N/S Railroad Tracks, Sweet Corn Festival

“Two days before the tornado went through,” I say aloud.

“And the day Denise went out the window,” Bristal adds. “She’s technically a missing person in this photo.”

We’re quiet for a second, each of us staring at our phones, and the blurry face of a girl with black hair, wearing blue roses.

“You realize this is probably the last time anyone saw her, right?” Bristal says.

“Yeah,” I say, my hand tightening on my phone. “I get that.”