“Promise. You going to the beach party on Saturday?” Megan asked.

“Yeah. I think everyone’s going. Isn’t that when Nicole Cutty puked in the fire last year?”

Megan laughed. “Nicole’s an idiot. She chugs five beers to impress . . . who? I don’t know. Then tries to douse the fire with her vomit.”

“She was such a slut the other night, I don’t understand her.”

“Nicole? I don’t know. I’m trying to stay out of her way. She wants drama and I just wish no one would give it to her.”

Stacey smiled. “Will Matt be at the beach party? I heard you guys hooked up last weekend.”

“No!” Megan said. “We kissed in the bay, that’s the end of it.”

“I thought you guys were together last year?”

“Sort of.”

Stacey waited.

“It’s complicated. He was kind-of-sort-of dating this girl from Chapel Hill, but not really. And at one point, he was hanging out with Nicole. I don’t know. I could never get the full story. So things are brewing but not, you know . . .”

“Fermenting?”

“Gross. I’ve got to run. I’m meeting my dad for lunch. I’ll see you Saturday night.”

Megan climbed into her Jeep and drove across town. As her father had grown increasingly depressed about Megan’s upcoming college career, she was making the effort this summer to spend more time with him. It was hard to see him this way. The pride she saw in his eyes was unmistakable, and Megan knew he was excited for her. But she also felt her father’s fear. Sadness came over him in the last few months since Megan had decided on Duke. The campus was just three hours away, but hours were not what upset her father. It was the idea that college was the first step in losing his daughter. Megan had never been deceptive in her desire to get out of Emerson Bay and live in a big city. Fascinated by Boston and New York since she was a little girl, Megan had been vocal about those cities being her first choices for medical school after college. Her interests might change, but for the moment she was enamored of the idea of neonatology, and St. Luke’s in New York had one of the best programs in the country.

She pulled into the lot of Gateways, an Emerson Bay staple that served good salads and gourmet burgers. Parked out front was her father’s cruiser, SHERIFF stenciled across the side. Megan knew he was already inside chatting up the waitresses and bartenders and earning a free lunch from the owner. Her father had a certain charisma that made people comfortable. Some officers wielded their authority as a source of intimidation. Her father was never that way, which was likely why he was so successful as sheriff. Everyone in town knew him, most liked him, and the majority voted for him.

She entered the diner and she saw the newspaper spread across the bar, a cup of coffee steaming next to it and the red-topped stool empty. As soon as she sat down, the waitress approached. “Hi, hon. Your pop’s in the bathroom. What can I get you?”

“Diet Coke, thanks.”

Megan scanned the paper. The sports page was open. She turned to the front page and skimmed the headlines. As Megan read, she heard the familiar jingle-jangle of her father’s keys and holster as he walked up behind her. When conjuring a persona of their fathers, most girls pictured their dads’ faces, hair color, or smiles. But Megan’s dad had always been the swashbuckling sheriff of Montgomery County. She pictured him in his uniform more than she ever did “street” clothes—keys jingling and leather holster squeaking.

There was a part of her that was sad to leave for college. Not nervous. She’d flown alone to Africa and found her way to a desert village where she worked alongside strangers in a country where she didn’t speak the language. All the nervousness of her life had been spent on the Doctors Without Borders trip last summer. But there was a small ache of sadness when she thought of being away from her parents, and specifically her father, whom she’d worked her entire life to please.

“Hi, Daddy,” Megan said when he kissed the back of her head.

“How’d the retreat planning go?”

“Good. Stacey’s got it covered. A few other details to work out, but we’ve still got a couple of weeks.” She swiveled on the barstool as her father sat next to her.

“I’m sure you’ll get it all done.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m kind of happy to hand it off, is that bad?”

“The retreat? It’s a lot of work. There’s no dishonor in being relieved to turn it over to someone else.”

“I love the program. I just don’t want that to be all I’m about.”

“You’re only eighteen, sweetheart. Plenty of time to build a legacy.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Her father looked down at his newspaper, now with ugly front-page headlines staring up at him. “What happened to my sports page?”

“Lots of things happen in the world besides sports, Daddy.”

Her father grumbled as he rustled the paper.

“Hey,” Megan said. “I got a big packet from Duke yesterday. Included was the basketball schedule. Just before Thanksgiving, we’re playing North Carolina and it’s a big rivalry game. You and Mom should come that weekend and we’ll go to the game. It’ll be fun.”

“Thanksgiving? That’s a long ways off.”

“I’m not saying that’s the first time you guys come to visit, I’m just telling you to save the weekend so we can go to the game.”

“What’s the date?”

“It’s the weekend before Thanksgiving. Then I’ll just come home with you and Mom on Sunday for break.”

Terry McDonald scrolled through his phone and set a reminder. How easy it was to think November would come without problems.

“You ever hear from MACU?”

Megan smiled and rubbed her father’s forearm. “Not yet, Daddy.”

It was a longstanding joke, between just the two of them, for her father to ask about her status with the Mid-Atlantic Christian University, the closest college to Emerson Bay. He sometimes asked about Elizabeth City State, as well. Both schools were within thirty minutes. Megan had applied to neither.

“Well, maybe they’re just making you sweat.”

“You know I’ll be home for every holiday, and even some long weekends.”

“MACU is twenty minutes. You could commute. Keep your room at home.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Sounds super fun for college. Keep checking the mail for me, okay?”

They ordered lunch, two salads per Megan’s request. Her father, now in his early fifties, had gathered an impressive bulge around his waist Megan was constantly on him to lose.

“So what’s going on this weekend?” her dad asked.

“End-of-summer beach party.”

“Adults going to be present?”

“It’s right next to my friend’s house, so her parents will be around.”

“Name?”

“Jenny Walton.”

“No drinking.”

“Got it.”

“And if you end up making a bad decision—”

“I’ll call for a ride home.”

“And when you’re at Duke, the same rules apply. I know kids drink, I’m not an idiot. I bust enough punks around town to know what’s going on. But no drugs, and no drunk driving. And that means—”

“No drunk riding, either. Don’t drink and drive, don’t drink and ride. I got it, Daddy. I never have.”

Terry McDonald leaned over and kissed his daughter’s cheek. “As long as you keep that deal with me, anything else can be worked out.”

“Don’t forget the deal I have with you,” Megan said. “I get straight As first semester at Duke, you lose fifteen pounds by the end of freshman year.”

Her father picked at the salad in front of him, pushing arugula to the side. “Yeah. Deal.” He took a deep breath. “Got a feeling I’m going to be eating a lot of this crap.”

They ate a quiet lunch together, two weeks before college, discussing the future—basketball games and Thanksgiving break and weight loss and medical school and big cities. The future was something taken for granted. It was always there, waiting to be lived.

CHAPTER 27

August 2016

One Week Before the Abduction

Nicole helped Casey pack the generator into the back of his pickup truck, along with the chalkboard and folding tables. They took one last pass through Coleman’s to make sure the old brewhouse was empty of the club’s presence. They were sure to sanitize the ruins out back where they had kept Diana Wells, removing the tape and plastic wrap they had used to restrain her, and tossing the chair that held her onto the tracks for the next passing freight to demolish.

When they were satisfied, they jumped into Casey’s pickup and headed up Highway 64, leaving Coleman’s as nothing more than a decaying brewhouse in West Bay.

“She looked like a goddamn zombie when we cut her loose,” Nicole said in the passenger seat. “If she goes to the cops, they may not take her seriously.”

“Either way,” Casey said, “better to close things down for a while just in case.”