Amelia
All eastbound traffic lurches to a stop, brake lights glowing through the dark afternoon, men in hi-vis slickers wrestling a fallen tree off the road. A few cars ahead, a traffic controller waves the westbound lane through, a slow procession sliding past as our side waits its turn.
I pick at the frayed threading on my steering wheel, my pulse ticking in sync with the wipers, which are on full speed.
My mind searches for logic, for something that will make sense of this.
There is no way Parker Lane lives by Mom’s house and she didn’t tell me.
There’s no chance. Not after the way she practically pushed them out of Lake Blair two decades ago—after what happened with Imogen.
It would take nothing short of lunacy for them to come back.
And to Mom’s exact street? Surely they remember where we live. What would possess them?
That’s why it can’t be true.
I try to remember where the Lanes lived back then, but the memory is a foggy, distant thing. I was too young, too removed from them. They’d only just moved to Blair when it happened. But something in my gut tells me they weren’t lakefront. Certainly not on our street.
That’s it. I remember Mom telling me years ago that part of why she invited Meredith and Parker around was because they were “on the outskirts.” Literal outskirts, an outlying neighborhood.
She made it her mission, as head of the Blair Community Board, to wrangle outsiders into the circle. How catastrophically bad that ended.
This stalled line of cars, halted just outside Blair, feels like purgatory, holding me hostage while nerves twitch across my limbs.
I snatch the stack of mail off the passenger seat and riffle through it again, as though some new revelation might have bloomed in the envelopes since I last looked.
Bank statements. Utility bills. All for Meredith or Parker.
At the bottom of the stack sits a small, damp brown-paper package from . This one is addressed to someone named Cale Wicker.
An audible humph leaves my mouth at the name. It’s not written on the index card, wasn’t mentioned by the woman at the house. I suppose it could be her husband or partner…
I grab my phone from the front seat and open an internet browser, typing the name in.
Cale Wicker, Washington.
The search produces arbitrary links—from local wildfire maps, directories for neighborhoods named Wicker, and, farther down, an online forum thread.
The title of the forum reads, ADVICE: My dad has been missing for a year.
Curious of its contents, I click the link and scan it for relevance.
Hey, internet, the post begins, the date at the top showing it was uploaded three months ago.
I wanted to post this in the Missing Persons of Washington thread in case anyone out there can give me advice on what I should do if I believe my father is missing or deceased.
His name is Cale Wicker, he’s in his fifties, and I haven’t seen him since I was ten years old.
He left our family in 2007, and I didn’t hear from him much after that due to his addiction issues and poor life choices.
I was sort of happy to have him out of my life because he wasn’t the model father I wanted.
No one in my family has heard from him in over a year, nor do any of us know where he is.
As far as I know, he last lived in the Seattle area, but we can’t pinpoint his address or relationships.
I’m convinced at this point that he is deceased, but the police won’t help.
When we’ve tried to report him missing, they say that he’s an adult, and he’s allowed to disappear or sever familial ties if he chooses.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thoughts skitter through my mind. Would it be insane to comment? To tell this stranger that on the contrary, her father might be alive and either lives or recently lived in the Queen Anne area of Seattle?
Before I can stop myself, my fingers have already torn open the brown-paper package in my lap. The tape rips, and inside, I find a single padlock, with an order slip proving it was delivered mere days ago.
I wish I had gotten the woman’s name—something to help prove she’s a Wicker.
This budding mystery isn’t one I asked for. But I can’t displace my suspicions surrounding the post—this allegedly missing man. It all feels spookily linked.
I glance up as the men in hi-vis finish dragging the severed tree trunk to the shoulder. The traffic controller waves my side forward, and brake lights wink out in a ripple ahead of me.
I set the package aside, pull the index card from my cupholder, and type the address scrawled on it into Maps.
Now that I’m getting close, I’ll need to know exactly which house I’m going to.
As I ease off the brake, a pin drops on the house in question, my stomach knotting at the sight of it.
Not only is this house on Mom’s street.
It’s directly next door.