Chapter Five
Five
Despite my protests at being dragged out of the house for the day, even I can admit that Blackridge knows how to put on a parade. The early July holiday doesn’t have much appeal—too much shameful history wreathed in the day—but I’m not one to turn down good food and sparklers.
Mom, Paige, Margot, Jasper, and I spend the morning in the town square.
Crowds line the streets, waving tiny flags—they’re more purple-and-pink than red-and-blue, probably some printing error, but no one minds—and cheering as the glittering floats pass.
The sheriff’s department rides past on horseback, followed by cheerleaders in the god-awful yellow and green school colors, a convertible behind them with a homecoming queen who looks more like a debutante.
He’s too tall to fit comfortably, but I heft Jasper up onto my shoulders so he can watch everyone pass.
My shoulders burn and he has an iron grip on my neck, but his excited laughter as the local animal shelter parades its rescue animals guarantees I won’t force him down.
A cat in a wagon is the funniest thing he’s ever seen in his short life.
“Can we get a dog?” he calls, stretching over to tap my mom on the arm.
“No way,” she says.
Paige leans forward to look at him, grinning. “Don’t worry, I’ll convince her,” she says.
My mother rolls her eyes. For a moment, I can see Margot and me in the pair. My mom, like me, is steadfast and calm. My aunt, like Margot, is meddlesome and easygoing.
Margot was as interested in leaving the house as I was, but her expression softens at the sight of the dogs, too. She’ll certainly join Paige’s team in the adoption argument.
When I was eleven and Margot was nine, we begged Mom for a pet. After a full year, she relented. We spent hours at the shelter and left with a tiny scraggly thing named George.
Then the door was accidentally left open. George got out. And he never came back.
Margot liked to think he was out there somewhere, leading a pack of stray dogs down the mean streets of Denver.
I knew his fate was nowhere near as positive. And I never asked for another pet. Even now, watching a dog using a wheelchair pass, I can see only the short time we’d get to spend with it before it, too, died or ran away.
—
Two hours later, all of us sufficiently sunburned and equally dehydrated, the parade watchers disperse. We walk the few blocks back to our street, where the beginnings of a block party are filling the end of the asphalt.
“Oh, you’re kidding,” Margot says under her breath.
Margot and I are, for once, on the same page.
“Oh, yes,” Paige says, slowing her pace to squeeze between Margot and me.
She wraps her arms around our shoulders, pulling us against her, all too pleased with herself.
“Margot, you volunteered to help the McCaffreys out at the dessert table. How kind of you.” She points to a table with an equally plump and curly-haired couple our grandparents’ age.
They’re sifting through plates of cookies, brownies, cakes, and pies, setting them out on a card table.
“Like hell I did—”
“It’s either desserts now or dishes for a week,” Paige says in a singsong tone.
“This is an abuse of power.”
“That’s the spirit,” Paige says, and gives Margot a nudge
A grin starts to crack across my lips. Paige, as if sensing it, turns to me and gives me a mischievous smile.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of this community-building. You’re with your mom and me at the sides table. Your mom is grabbing the mac ’n’ cheese now.”
Twenty minutes later, I’ve introduced myself to neighbors I had no intention of making acquaintance with.
Half know me through my mom; I hear a dozen stories about my mom and Paige when they were wild teenagers.
Most offer a warning to stay home after dark, and one deigns to outright ask how I’m doing after the accident.
“What a tragedy,” the oblivious woman says, “and how lucky you are to come out the other side intact.”
Intact. It’s not the word I would use. I am, and maybe also will remain, fractured. Pieces of me, blood and soul, are forever etched into the road hundreds of miles away. In the same stretch of asphalt where Harper took her last breaths.
My already dour attitude takes a nosedive. I don’t even care how rude I’m being, which, according to Paige, is very.
“You can’t blame people for being curious,” she says, nudging my side.
I stick her with a glare.
She opens her mouth, inevitably preparing a placation, but she’s interrupted by Jasper. Having been forced to stay in eyeshot, he’s run out of napkins to rip in half, and announces, “I wanna see the floats!”
At the other end of the block, a few large decorated trucks sit abandoned as their owners fill up on food and chat.
“I’ll take you over in a bit, Bubs,” my mom says. “But you’ve got to hang out here for a while longer.”
Jasper pouts. “But it’s not far.”
He looks my way, as if expecting me to hop to his defense, but I keep my mouth shut. A twisted part of me thinks if me and Margot are stuck at these tables, he should be, too.
“Not right now,” Mom says.
Tears well in Jasper’s eyes. A little too old for the crocodile tears, but they’re effective. My mom grumbles a sigh, sweeping the hairs out of her eyes.
“Jasper—”
“Take him, Diana. Jo and I can keep the table from lighting on fire for five minutes,” Paige says.
My mom frowns, clearly trying to decide whether her sister is joking. But Jasper starts tugging at the sleeve of her jacket, and she eventually relents, reassuring us she’ll be back to help in a few minutes.
I busy myself clearing the mashed potatoes off the end of the table, where a child who had no right handling his own ladle dumped half the bowl.
“Can I get everyone’s attention?” an older woman with short purple hair calls from her post in front of the dessert table. Mrs. McCaffrey.
Silence falls on the block, and every eye turns to Mrs. McCaffrey. She gives a wan smile.
“I’d like to take a moment to remember those we’ve lost. The children who couldn’t be here today. Let’s take a minute of silence. If you’re of the variety, feel free to make a prayer for their safe return. And if you’re not, you can wish for the same.”
We bow our heads, and I can’t help noticing the ones hanging lower than the rest. It’s as if they’re wearing neon vests declaring their losses.
Shoulders stooped low, like they’ve been sinking under the weight for longer than these sixty seconds.
The McCaffreys, reaching for each other’s hands, squeezing tight.
Another couple off to the side, two men, one who clasps a hand on his partner’s shoulder.
The minute ends, and the air is heavier after it. Like calling the town’s loss back into focus has left it hanging all around us, dragging down our limbs.
Most of the neighbors have filled up their plates and sit around on lawn chairs or rickety plastic ones. The majority, the unofficial table attendants, have abandoned their posts, too.
Except our table. Paige has had to run back to the house to grab another bowl of mac ’n’ cheese twice now; the last bowl is half-empty, and I still haven’t gotten a scoop.
I’m considering stashing the whole thing under the table with its corny plastic tablecloth when two new faces approach the table.
“Well, well, well,” Paige says, “look who decided to show.”
I jerk my chin up.
On the other side of the table, a man Paige’s age stands beside a girl a few years older than me. They share the same light brown hair and high cheekbones. Father and daughter, I assume.
“Speak for yourself, Griffin. I’ve been busy fielding sign-ups for the neighborhood watch,” the man says.
“Volunteers always spike in the summer, so scheduling can take ages.” He’s handsome in an eighties-supervillain way, all sharp features and permanently pursed lips.
His gaze lingers on her a moment before turning to me.
My fingers curl into the edge of the table.
“And you must be Joanna. I’ve heard all about you. The musician.”
Heat rushes up my cheeks. Regardless of whatever history this man has with my family, I want to shrink, curl up under the table, and vanish.
The musician. I don’t know if the label applies. Considering I’ve never really played outside my house, I’m unsure it ever did.
“It’s just Jo,” I correct.
The man’s brows rise ever so slightly, but a smile quickly replaces whatever expression he had.
“Oliver Holden,” he says, holding out a hand to shake. I take it reluctantly and drop it quickly. “I grew up with your mom and Paige.”
“Holden’s parents lived across the street,” Paige says. “They ran the ranch hospital for ages.”
“They’re enjoying their retirement in an RV, driving across the country,” Holden says with a smile.
“And Holden took over the practice for them,” Paige says. She reaches over to squeeze his arm. “Always a mama’s boy.”
Holden lets out a laugh. “I used to spend my days in a lab. Now I deal with big splinters on horses.”
At his side, the teen clears her throat. Holden gives a sheepish smile and loops an arm around her shoulders.
“And this is my daughter, Cecily. She’s starting her second year of college in the fall.”
Cecily waves. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks have a sunken look to them. Like she hasn’t slept in days, weighed down by the stress of her college courses.
“School’s going well?” Paige asks.
Cecily nods, and it’s clear that’s as much acknowledgment as she’s going to give. Paige seems ready to push for more but doesn’t get the chance.
Two new faces approach the table. I hadn’t noticed them walk up, but they are definitely not here for the block party. A man and a woman who look around my mom’s age but with a weariness etched into their skin that goes bone-deep. They each carry a stack of posters. I catch a glimpse of one.
A missing poster—I recognize the girl in the photo from the flyers at the bookstore. Ingrid, who is around my age, with long blond hair and dark eyes. She’s smiling in the picture.
“Harriett. Andrew. It’s good to see you,” Paige says. “How are you?”
The man says nothing, but Harriett gives Paige the most strained smile I’ve ever seen.
“Doing our best,” she says. “Taking it one day at a time.”
At the far end of the table, Holden watches the couple with an expression I can’t place, then looks to his own daughter. I wonder if he is thinking about Cecily, her face on a poster.
Harriett clutches the stack of papers to her chest. “We’re working with a new PI. He’s incredibly highly rated, so we’re hoping he can make progress. Find some clues the police haven’t.”
“Let’s pray he finds her trail,” Holden says, joining the conversation.
Andrew, speaking for the first time, nods, and says, “Samuel Higgins. Top-rated PI in the Midwest. He specializes in missing persons. Has a success rate higher than seventy percent.”
“That’s great,” Paige says. “If anyone can find Ingrid…”
“Maybe you could hand some out to your clients at the vet,” Harriett says to Holden. And to Paige, “I know your corkboard is full up, but—”
“We’ll take down the old poster and put up the new one,” Paige says, reaching for a stack. “It’s not a problem, Harriett.”
Holden holds out a hand and takes a stack. “Anything to help,” he says.
Soon the couple departs, and I take one of the posters from Paige’s stack.
Ingrid Halstead. Missing four years. Now aged eighteen. Blond hair, brown eyes. A little over five feet tall.
Four years. Four years is a long time to be gone without a trace. Once upon a time, it might have been possible to disappear, but this new world is connected to cameras. Traffic stops and security cameras and doorbells.
A teenage girl doesn’t vanish off the face of the earth because she wants to. And she isn’t the only one. The faces on the corkboard at work, on electrical poles, and in store windows.
This town is littered with the empty spaces where kids should be. The ones who I can still see are watched by everyone. No one is immune to cautionary tales, certainly not small towns, but this is a different story. Real enough to leave an air of fear hanging over us all.