D: Ma’am? What do you mean by gone?

C: She sleepwalks, and she’s not in her bed. She’s nowhere. Please, please help me. Oh my God. Arden!

D: Okay, is Arden your daughter, ma’am?

C: Yes. The front door is open and she’s just gone. She’s gone.

D: Okay, have you checked outside yet?

C: Of course I did.

D: What is your exact address?

C: [ADDRESS REDACTED] Please help me. Oh, God, please.

CHAPTER 20

Tuesday, 2 p.m.

THAT WAS BEFORE I had reason to think he’d been watching you.

That was what the detective had said. Implying that Sean Coleman had possibly been out here before.

I waited until after I was sure Detective Rigby and the other police officers were gone, and then I waited some more for good measure, before stepping out the back door.

My backyard was a square of grass and packed earth without a fence line, cleared long ago when Rick must’ve purchased these lots. The tree line, and the start of the wooded area, was still part of my property.

I knew the perimeter because I’d walked it the first day; Rick had given me the tour himself, pointing out what was mine and what wasn’t. Which was how I knew that the slope ending at the creek was the back of the property line. It wasn’t much—a slow-moving stream that I could step across easily, that probably dried up whenever it hadn’t rained in a few weeks.

When I reached the creek, I turned around to see how far I’d come, and was surprised that I could no longer see my house or Rick’s. I was too far down the incline, and though the density of the trees wasn’t that heavy, they overlapped in layers behind one another—a trick of perspective.

My stomach flipped as I imagined being disoriented, lost. I closed my eyes, imagining what that girl must’ve felt twenty years earlier. Waking up as the water knocked her off her feet. Grabbing for the roots or trees or grass, anything to hold her. Everything slipping through her small fingers until her foot caught on a metal grate—the tiniest moment of hope.

And then the darkness.

The girl who survived. The girl who held on. The girl who was so fucking terrified she’d buried the entire three days in the deepest recesses of her psyche.

I turned away again, stepping across the creek. I wasn’t lost; I knew if I kept moving, I’d eventually come out on Haymere Lane. I followed the incline, moving quietly, knowing I was now technically trespassing on another piece of property.

The first thing I saw was the remnants of an old fence. Just the bottom wooden slats, with a few pieces missing. The first sign of a property falling to disrepair. But I couldn’t find the house. There was a small structure set back from the road, a standing shed like Rick had in his yard. It was located at the end of a grassy drive, tire tracks marking the way through the weeds. The only evidence of a house was a wide slab of concrete—either a house that had been flattened or one that was in the process of being built.

Abandoned for now, either way.

Detective Rigby had told me that Sean Coleman’s car had been found on Haymere. He’d parked somewhere along this road. I followed what passed as the driveway out to the pavement. From where I stood, Haymere looked a lot like my street, with no sidewalk, a low shoulder, and a sharp curve, so I couldn’t see what lay beyond this property to the right.

But unlike my street, Haymere dead-ended. To my left, I could see the road stopped at something that wasn’t even a cul-desac, just a stretch of pavement that abruptly ended at the woods. Like someone had started and abandoned the project mid-work.

I didn’t think Sean would’ve parked along the road itself: too great a chance of him being rear-ended. Here—this driveway—this was what made sense. Tucked out of sight from any other residents nearby. Either here or where the pavement ended, to my left.

I imagined Sean Coleman standing where I now stood. Leaving his car out of sight. Trekking through the woods, where he knew he’d end at my house . . . How many nights had he done this? How many times had he been out there, watching?

I turned back for the shed, peered into the windows, but it was mostly empty space. Dirty windows and dusty floor. Had Sean Coleman been inside? Waiting for something?

If the police had been here, whatever was inside might have already been taken.

The sound of an engine cut through the quiet of the abandoned space. I peeked around the edge of the shed before jerking back—a police cruiser.

Turn around, turn around, turn around—

The sound of tires turning off the road into gravel and grass. The engine falling to silence and then doors opening and closing.

I felt my heartbeat down to my toes and quickly risked another look. Two men were standing outside the vehicle. I didn’t think I’d seen them before. I didn’t know whether they were looking for something here, or whether this was how they’d been keeping an eye on me and Rick. A central hub.

My phone started ringing, and I fumbled to silence it as fast as possible: a call from Bennett. I pressed mute and listened for the voices of the men in the driveway. I didn’t think they’d heard the phone; they were too far from the shed still. But their voices carried faintly in the wind.

I had to go now, before they got closer, before I was trapped. There was nowhere to hide here, just trees and open space. But they were still talking near the car. I tried to move as quietly as possible. Facing them, moving backward, stepping over the remnants of the fence, and then fading into the woods, my heart pounding, until I could tuck myself behind a tree, and then another, until finally, they disappeared entirely from my sight—and me from theirs.

MY SHOULDERS EVENTUALLY RELAXED when I reached the creek again. Knowing I was safely on my own property, not trespassing—not watching other people from a hidden location.

But then I thought: This was what they were doing to me. First Sean Coleman and now the police. I hated the feeling of being watched. Of the stories they were possibly crafting. The angles they would pick. The things I could imagine them saying.

And so I was unprepared for the man in my backyard, standing on the back steps, hands cupped around his face as he peered into my kitchen window.

He must’ve heard me at the same time I spotted him, because he jerked back, turning around slowly. “Jesus,” he said, “there you are.”

“Bennett?”

He walked down the steps—out of his scrubs, in jeans and a T-shirt—and slowed as he approached, looking at the trees behind me. “I tried calling. Your car was here and you weren’t answering the door, and you mentioned that detective . . .” He swallowed, ran his hand through his hair. “I was worried.”

I checked my phone, saw the time, realized Bennett must’ve come straight from work. He’d mentioned calling me when he was free, and I’d been unreachable.

I wasn’t sure what to make of him here. Once someone knew the truth, there was always some ulterior motive to interactions. And so it sat in the pit of my stomach, this gently gnawing unease.

Then I thought I wasn’t being fair. This was entirely within character for Bennett. Elyse up and left, and he couldn’t get ahold of me—as if he could feel the pieces spinning out of his control and was desperate to pull them back.

“I called one of Elyse’s former employers,” I said, changing the topic, because there was no good answer to why I was out in the woods behind my house after the detective had asked to speak to me. “There was some implication about shady inventory practices at her previous hospital.”