“Are you going to say good night to Aunt Paxie?” Nicole’s mother asked.

“Good night, Aunt Paxie!” she shouted from her desk.

“Good night, Nicole.”

Nicole listened to her mother and aunt shuffle away from her closed bedroom door. She’d seen, earlier in the evening, her mother shake her head at the restaurant when Aunt Paxie asked about Nicole’s black hair and black eyeliner and black lipstick. “Just ignore it,” she heard her mother say under her breath.

That’s all her mother and aunt ever did, ignore things. What else could explain Aunt Paxie’s presence in North Carolina for the past three days without mentioning Julie? Ignore anything long enough, and it will go away. It was her mother’s unspoken motto.

When Nicole heard no more whispers outside her door, she pecked at her keyboard and found the chat room where they normally talked. Sometimes they moved around, at his urging, to different spots online, as if someone were stalking them and spying on their conversations.

Hey. You around? she typed.

It took a few minutes, but then the response came.

Nikki C! Where you been?

Trying to find you. You’ve been hiding from me.

Ha! LOL. You’re the mysterious one. So what’s going on, sweet thing?

Not once had Nicole heard his voice, but still she loved when he called her that. No boy at Emerson Bay High would have the courage to talk to her that way. Most could barely hold eye contact, let alone engage in a full conversation. Flattering her with a nickname was something out of the realm of high school banter, which was why Nicole had no FOMO about anything happening tonight on Emerson Bay. This was the only place she wanted to be, and the only person she wanted to talk with. She typed.

Been busy with my friends, but they’re getting SO boring lately. Do I sound like a bitch?

A hot one. I saw the picture you posted. You’ve got a great body, and your face is gorgeous.

Thanks. When can I see you?

I’m way too shy to post a pic.

How about we meet, then?

Much better idea. Your aunt still visiting?

Yeah. Leaves tomorrow. Had to do the whole dinner thing. So over her being here.

She’s the one whose kid got snatched?

Their conversations always ended up here. This was a big topic for them and they talked—or typed—for hours about it. He was the only one in Nicole’s life who was willing to engage her about the subject. Aunt Paxie had been here since Tuesday, and hadn’t once mentioned her daughter. Fine, Nicole reasoned, it was eight years ago. Fine, it still depressed her. Paxie didn’t want to turn the visit—her first since Julie went missing all those years ago—into a sobfest. All understandable. But Aunt Paxie hadn’t even mentioned Julie. Not once. Ignore, ignore, ignore, and the problem will go away.

Nicole finally typed. Yeah.

What was her name?

Julie.

Your cousin?

Yeah.

You guys were close?

We used to visit each other when we were kids. Mostly it was just our moms getting together, but Julie and I always considered them our trips. I remember riding on the airplane next to my mom and just feeling so excited to see her. Then, with our mothers preoccupied, catching up as long-lost sisters who only saw each other twice a year, Julie and I would stay up until midnight, chase fireflies, and sit around the bonfire while our moms got drunk on wine and relived their childhoods.

Nicole watched the screen after typing so much of her heart and her childhood onto the page. Finally, the reply came.

Sounds fun.

It was.

How old was she?

When she disappeared? Nine.

Tell me about it.

God it felt good to finally talk to someone about this.

Don’t really know a lot ’cause my mom never gave me any details. Guess she thought I was too young. I’ve looked for stories about her on the Internet, but there’s not much. They never had any leads. Julie just disappeared one day walking home from school.

Common route.

Nicole looked at the screen for a moment before replying. What’s that?

Perps use common routes to take kids because they’re predictable. Whoever took Julie knew she would be walking that exact route on that exact day. Guy probably watched her for a long time while he plotted the take.

That’s freaky.

Totally. He probably waited and watched and calculated who Julie walked with and at which points during the walk home from school she was alone. Framed his window of opportunity perfectly, then . . .

There was a small pause in the typing.

They ever find the guy?

No.

Julie?

Another short pause before Nicole typed again.

No one ever saw her again.

Sad.

Nicole stared at the screen and at the word sad as it popped up in the dialog box. She typed.

Still miss her.

Ever think about what Julie went through? Try to put yourself in that situation?

Nicole watched as the question popped onto her screen. This was why she was helplessly addicted to their conversations. She’d thought about this very thing for years. She wondered how Julie was taken and how she felt when she realized she wasn’t going home. She wondered if Julie climbed into his car by herself, or if he forced her. She wondered where he took her and what he did to her. Morbidly, she thought about these things. During the days and sometimes when she slept at night. Mostly, she and Julie chased fireflies in her dreams, but within the darker imaginings were murky images of Julie crying in a dim closet, too scared to push open the door and run for help.

Finally, Nicole’s fingers moved over the keyboard.

All the time.

Long pause.

Me too. I think about my brother, Joshua. Picture him in some dark place, scared and all alone. It makes me want to cry but I can’t stop thinking about it. Does that make us weird? These thoughts?

I don’t know. I don’t think so. Better than pretending Julie never existed, the way my mother and aunt do.

Nicole sat still and waited for a reply. Finally, it came.

I’ve got a secret, if you promise to keep it.

I promise.

Nicole stared at the screen. There was a short pause before Casey’s reply popped up.

I know a club.

Oh yeah? What kind of club?

The kind I think you’d really like.

CHAPTER 7

July 2016

Four Weeks Before the Abduction

Actually a chain of four lochs connected to one another by channels, Emerson Bay was the largest and most populated, and ran via the Chowan River to the Atlantic Ocean. Homes colonized the shores and were stacked deep inland away from the bay. Matt Wellington’s house sat on the banks of Emerson Bay and, like Rachel Ryan’s, was a sprawling hillside estate whose backyard spilled down to the water’s edge. By ten p.m., Saturday night’s party was in full swing.

The Wellingtons’ pool was dug into the side of the hill, with boulders and granite creating a backdrop where the bulldozer had cut into the earth. Spotlights highlighted the granite, and underwater bulbs made visible the kicking legs of kids treading water in the deep end. Girls screamed as they sat on guys’ shoulders for chicken fights. Matt Wellington’s parents made an appearance every so often, walking out to the pool to check on things. The kids resorted to sneaking beers down by the bay. Stairs cut through the hill and led to the water. Out of sight from the house, a cooler filled with cold Budweiser was quickly losing its bulk as kids chugged beer, squashed the cans, and tossed them in the bay.

Megan McDonald sat with her friends at a patio table. Some girls walked around in bikini tops and cutoff shorts. The bolder ones lost the shorts and paraded around in full bikinis.

“She’s a total slut,” Megan said. “Look at her.”

Megan was hanging with her cheer team friends, a huddle of ten girls. They watched Matt hoist Nicole Cutty onto his shoulders by dipping his head underwater and swimming between her legs before standing, his hands firmly planted on her thighs. Nicole screamed as she wrestled Jessica Tanner, who was sitting on Tyler Elliot’s shoulders.

At some point during the chicken fight, Nicole reached over and pulled Jessica’s bikini down to expose her breast. The boys hooted at the skin show before Jessica screamed and fell backward into the water, one arm crossed over her bare chest, the other extended straight at Nicole with her middle finger raised until the deep end swallowed her.

“Who does that?” Megan asked.

“They’re so desperate for attention,” Stacey Morgan said.

“And they’re getting it. She’s going to end up pregnant before she’s twenty. Just watch.”

“They call her Slutty Cutty for a reason. Half of Emerson Bay would have to take a paternity test to determine the father.”

This got the cheer team laughing. Megan and Stacey split off and headed down toward the bay. They each grabbed a Budweiser and sipped the awful-tasting stuff for ten minutes while they watched boys skip crushed empties across the water. From behind her, Matt grabbed Megan around the waist and hugged her tight. Soaking wet from the pool, he dripped all over her.

“You haven’t even said hi to me yet,” he said in her ear.