I wrenched myself back, planted my feet. I could not go with him. There would be no coming back. Not from the woods, not from the river. This was how people were lost. This was how things were disappeared. “Get the fuck away from me,” I said, hands held out. I didn’t care if he told, if he screamed what he thought was true. If he claimed my whole life was a fraud, a lie.

He’d come this far, after watching and waiting for a decade. There would be no coming back the same after this, for either of us.

“Don’t do something you’ll regret,” he said.

There was a noise in the distance—someone moving or an animal pouncing—and when Nathan’s head turned for a fraction of a second, I ran.

I heard him cursing under his breath, his footsteps keeping time with my own. “I’m not going to chase you,” he called, though he was; “I’m not going to hurt you, dammit,” but he was a liar. He had to be.

I kept moving because there was something I knew that he didn’t. That, for reasons beyond physics, no one could catch me. The reason I’d always been able to win when I went out fast enough: I was always running scared.

I started calculating: Time to run to my car.

Time to unlock it and start the ignition.

Time to get to safety.

But the stitches on the outside of my leg slowed my stride.

It was a good story that I told myself: that he couldn’t catch me, that I’d make it out. But he caught up to me before I was even halfway back to the road. Grabbing me by the arm, jerking me back—something twisting, snapping in my shoulder. A sudden jolt of pain, and I cried out, bent over, legs giving way beneath me.

A flash of light, a jolt of pain, a dark room. Hold on, just hold on—

“What the fuck,” he said, pulling me back upright. “What do you think you’re doing?”

I was breathing into his chest, holding on to my other arm, frantic to orient myself—

And then we both heard it at the same time. “Hello?” A voice through the trees. Coming from the direction of the road and my car.

Nathan’s hand went quickly to cover my mouth, stifle my noise. His other arm around my chest, holding me to him. Holding me tight, my neck tipped back.

And I could see how he did it—how he could do it. A box cutter in his grip. One quick motion of his hand across my exposed throat. Dropping me back to the ground, waiting for someone else to find me.

I could see him arguing with his father, stopping him. Begging him. And then—

“Do not make a noise,” he said, whispering in my ear.

Footsteps coming closer, while Nathan held me perfectly still, his hand so tight across my mouth and nose, I felt light-headed, like I couldn’t breathe.

“You don’t want to do that, son.” Another voice now, to our left. “Let go of the girl, keep your hands where we can see them.” I strained to see the speaker, could just make out the police officer in my peripheral vision.

“Just a minute,” Nathan said, but he raised his arms, and I fell forward, sucking in a huge gulp of air in the process. “We were just having a conversation here. You scared us, is all.”

But I was scrambling away from him, toward the officer on my left, who had a gun drawn and was gesturing for me with his free arm.

“This is all a misunderstanding,” Nathan said. “Arden, tell them. Tell them who you are. What we’re doing here.”

“Hands behind your back,” called the other officer, now visible, approaching him with handcuffs. He patted Nathan down, pulled something out of his pocket. “You been tracking this lady’s car?” the second officer asked.

And only then did Nathan stop protesting. The officer beside me called for backup, and we all moved silently out of the woods.

I SAW MY CAR through the trees, Nathan’s parked directly behind it. There was a police cruiser parked behind Nathan’s car. And another pulled up just as we arrived.

I wanted to feel relief, like I’d escaped something. But I could only see Nathan, hear his words in the woods, feel his conviction in his story.

And all the while, even as they questioned him and searched through his car, he kept staring at me—like he was merely choosing not to break free of their grip on him. As if he was only doing me the favor of not taking me down with him.

I sat in the passenger seat of my car, legs out the door, and couldn’t hear what any of them were saying until Nathan raised his voice. “Tell them, Arden. Tell them the truth.”

The newest officer on the scene stepped in front of me, squatted down so he was on my level. “Arden?” he asked.

“Olivia,” I said.

He nodded, held out a hand. “All right, Olivia. Come with me and tell us what happened.”

IT WAS LATE BY the time they let me go, taking my statement, contacting Detective Rigby. Dusk was settling, and they offered a nearby motel. But I just wanted to get moving.

They knew who I was at the station, of course: The girl from their town. The mechanism that had put them on the map.

The officers were my age or a little older, had grown up with their own claim to the story. Their parents had searched. Their aunts and uncles had been interviewed. Their neighbors had drawn search grids. Their schools had lent lights and equipment.

They’d told the stories that only they knew, passed down from the generation before.

It was a rite of passage during high school to trek out in the night to that grate beside the plaque, find your way in the dark, make your own stories, and leave them there. Fade to black.

They remembered the name Sean Coleman. They did not remember his son.

“I’M COMING HOME,” I told Detective Rigby on the phone, desperate to get as far away from Nathan Coleman, and all that had happened here, as possible.

“I’ll meet you there as soon as you get back,” she said. “I’ll send a cruiser by your place in the meantime, just to be safe. Okay?”

I hoped that would at least scare off any of the remaining attention around my place. But the danger had followed me here.

It was time to get the past contained again, keep it where it belonged—underground, in the dark. There was no good that could come of it now.

Everyone claimed to know things here.

I knew she was gone before I woke. The first line of my mother’s book.

The words seemed flat now. Deadened; wrong.

Of course she knew. She knew, because she had done it.

TRANSCRIPT OF 911 CALL FOR SERVICE

DATE: AUGUST 27, 2020

TIME STAMP: 6:17 P.M.

DISPATCH: 911. What’s your emergency?

CALLER, UNKNOWN FEMALE: I’m on Devereaux Lane in Widow Hills, and I just saw a man follow a woman into the woods.

D: Can I get your name and location, please?

C: Devereaux Lane, about halfway down, you’ll see the spot. There are two cars. The woman’s was here first, and he just pulled in and took something from the bottom of her car.

D: What did he take?

C: I don’t know. He followed her in. I wonder if he was tracking her car.

D: Is it a hiking trail?

C: It’s a trail but . . . Listen, that man is going to hurt her. Sometimes you just know things.

D: Okay, we’ll have an officer swing by to check it out.

C: No, not to swing by. Hurry, goddammit.