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  “Well, her daughter's been missing for a year,” I point out. “I guess that'd make anyone sad.”

  “Mmm.” She stares into space for a moment longer.

  “I'm sure I'll be back some time,” I tell her, “so -”

  “She only came in one time,” she continues, interrupting me. She almost seems to be talking to herself. “Only one time when I've been working here, anyway. I was kinda shocked, 'cause she walks past every day but she only actually came in one time. She ordered a coffee and a sandwich, and she sat over there, in that booth.” She turns and looks toward the rear of the bar. “It was like she was trying to hide. I wondered why she came in at all, but I didn't ask her that. I didn't want to be rude. After a while, I realized that maybe she was just trying to be normal. You know? Just doing things that normal people do.”

  “I guess,” I reply cautiously, not really seeing where this story is going.

  “She didn't say anything,” she adds. “Well, she told me what she wanted, but that's all. It's not like I'm a mind-reader. But after that, she didn't say anything until she thanked me and left. I didn't want to say anything either, so I just got on with things. But I remember after a while I felt weird, like really weird, like itchy weird.” She pauses again, still staring at the far-off booth. “I didn't look at Mrs. Duchette for the longest time,” she continues, “but then when I eventually did, I realized what was wrong. It was her sadness. It was just... there. With her. Like I could almost see it, dripping all over the seats and sprayed against the wall and splattered on the table. Just sadness. Like a physical thing that you could see and touch. Sadness everywhere.”

  I stare at her. After a moment, I realize my mouth is hanging slightly open, so I fix that.

  “Once she'd left,” she continues, “I did something a little weird. I went over and I, like, tried to find it.”

  “You tried to find what?” I ask.

  “The sadness. So I could see it. But it wasn't there. I guess she'd taken it all with her when she left. I even looked under the table, but there was nothing there.”

  “Really?” I reply, before swallowing hard. “What exactly did you expect to -”

  Before I can finish, I spot a familiar figure walking past the bar's window. Shocked by the sight of Sheriff Malone, and not quite ready to bump into him yet, I duck down out of sight, almost spilling my coffee in the process.

  “I still don't like that booth anymore,” Teresa continues. “I've scrubbed it and scrubbed it, but something's still there. I've tried every product I can get my hands on, but Mrs. Duchette left something behind that day, like some part of her sadness stayed behind like... Well, like a stain. Other people sit there just fine, so I guess they don't notice. Maybe you had to see it happen. And I did see it happen, so I know it's there. And I'll tell you something. I don't mind delivering orders to that booth. I don't like it, but I'm willing to do it. But I wouldn't sit there myself. Not if you paid me all the tea in China. Not even if I liked tea.”

  She pauses, still lost in her thoughts for a moment, before turning to me. It takes a moment, but finally her brow furrows.

  “So,” she says finally, “like... Why are you hiding under that table?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Stepping out of the bar, with my coffee cup warming my hands, I glance around in case Sheriff Malone is still around. I'm certain he didn't see me a few minutes ago,and I'm still not quite ready to have him see that I'm back. Assuming that he even remembers me, of course. I know I'll have to speak to him eventually, but right now I kinda want to stay under the radar.

  Once I'm sure that the coast is clear, I head across the street. Ahead is the hardware store, which I know is where Kimmy used to work on Saturdays and Sundays. I tried talking to the owner last year, but he – like everyone else around here – preferred to keep his thoughts to himself. I don't blame him. After all, the disappearance must have still felt so raw. I'm hoping that this time, now that a year is passed, I might be able to get a little more out of him.

  ***

  “Kimmy was a great girl,” Ken says as he leads me along one of the aisles, carrying a cardboard box full of... something. “She used to do Saturdays, twelve until closing. Everyone knew her. She was real popular with the customers.”

  “How did she start working for you?” I ask.

  “Well, I used to go to school with her grandfather,” he explains. “Old Tom Duchette, Greg's father, and I were on some sports teams together. Not that I really know the family, not anymore, but it was enough that I sorta saw a little of Tom in the girl. And seeing as Tom and I got on, God bless his soul, I wanted to do something to help the kid. And boy, was I soon glad that I did.”

  “She was good at her job, huh?”

  “Good?” He chuckles as he sets the box down, and then he takes out some packets of clips and starts putting them on display. “She livened the place up no end. She was professional, of course, but she also had a way of talking with the customers. She put them at ease. And do you know what? I think that helped her to sell a few extra things, here and there. Not that she was on commission, but it always helps if someone can increase turnover. To be honest, I liked the kid.”

  He glances at me.

  “Why did you say you're here, again?” he adds.

  “I knew Kimmy,” I reply, before instantly feeling bad about lying. Normally I'd just keep on going, but this time I realize that maybe I should try a different approach. “I mean, I didn't know her personally,” I add, “but I followed her disappearance last year, and I can't quite get her out of my head. I just...”

  My voice trails off.

  Why is telling the truth so much harder than lying?

  “I know the feeling,” Ken says after a moment. “I didn't know her all that well, but I like to think that we were... acquaintances. And I'm telling you, to this day, I still expect to see her at lunchtime on a Saturday. It's like I can't quite get used to the fact that she isn't here. I catch myself glancing at the door, expecting her to walk in and tell me that the whole disappearance was a misunderstanding. I know that won't happen, of course. I'm a realistic man, I know how these cases usually end. But, damn it, I cannot get the idea out of my head. I cannot stop looking at that door.” He looks now, staring past me. “I cannot stop expecting her on a Saturday.”

  “Do you...”

  Again, my voice trails off. I don't want to be pushy, but at the same time I need answers.

  “What do you think happened to her?” I ask finally.

  He turns to me, and for a moment I worry that I've been too direct. Too insensitive.

  “I don't like to think about it,” he says. “Sometimes I think she was acting a little weird, the last few weeks. Like something was on her mind. Other times, I think I'm just reading too much into it. Like I told you, she brightened the place up, but sometimes I wonder whether she was only doing that to compensate for something she felt inside. I'm no psychologist, but I guess it's possible that she was hiding something.”

  “Maybe she was worrying about something,” I suggest, hoping to prompt him some more.

  “It was just in little moments,” he explains. “I'd see her daydreaming, like her mind was miles away. And I'd ask if she was okay, and she'd snap out of it and she'd be fine again. For a while. But then it'd happen again.”

  “Could it have been a boy?”

  He shrugs, before placing the last packet of clips on a hook.

  “Her family weren't aware of anything like that,” I point out. “As far as they were concerned, she just came to work and then went home. They said she didn't have time to be meeting anyone.”

  “That may well be the case.”

  “Then what did -”

  “Maybe she wanted to meet someone,” he adds, “and she couldn't. Or she didn't. Or she wondered why she didn't have someone to meet, if that makes sense. Sometimes I felt like she was a little lonely.”

  “In what way?”

  “She never really seemed t
o have any friends. She told me she sometimes went out to the little waterfall, the one just outside town. But she wasn't meeting anyone. It was almost on her way home. She told me she just liked to stare at the water. To be honest, later, that's when I started wondering about whether -”

  He hesitates.

  “Never mind,” he mutters.

  “Never mind about what?”

  “There was a sadness about her sometimes,” he explains. “Something real deep down. I saw it in her eyes. Her mother's got it too, but Kimmy had it in spades. And, God forgive me, sometimes I think of her standing at the top of that waterfall, staring down at the rocks like she said she did, and I can't help wondering about what might have happened.” He pauses. “I know they searched the river, though. I know that, so it can't have happened that way. And she was sad, but she wasn't that sad. She wouldn't have...”

  He pauses, and then he shakes his head.

  “No,” he adds. “No, she wouldn't. Not Kimmy. She was too... right about things. Too sure. She knew she was sad, but she also had plans to go out into the world and get happier.”

  “What kind of plans?” I ask.

  “No idea. But she wasn't going to sit around in Ridge Falls for her whole life, that's for sure. That girl would have made it somewhere, if she'd had the chance. If she'd lived long enough.”

  “Maybe she still can,” I reply, although I must admit that I'm surprised by the note of optimism in my own voice. “She might,” I add. “It's possible.”

  He murmurs something, before turning and heading back toward the counter. And I've got to admit that, deep down, I already know how desperate that last comment sounded. Kimmy Duchette didn't have the means to run away from home, and she sounds like a level-headed girl who kept her feet on the ground. I was fifteen once, and I remember how crazy the world seemed, but I never once contemplated throwing my whole life away and just vanishing into the distance. Maybe Kimmy did exactly that, but I'm not quite ready to assume that just yet.

  Something happened to her. Something took her away. Or rather, someone did.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sitting alone in my motel room, cross-legged on the bed, I finally set the papers down. I've been going over everything I have on this case, and I'm starting to realize that the whole thing is pretty threadbare. It's as if the disappearance of Kimmy Duchette has become something of a non-issue, at least for the media. There don't even seem to be any bloggers covering the case, which is unusual.

  I need to figure out my angle for this story. I'd assumed that the angle would be Kimmy herself, but girls go missing every day in this country. If you're a teenager and you vanish, that's not enough to automatically hit the front pages. Maybe it should be, but in these harsher times we need our news stories to have a little more kick. If I'm going to turn this situation into a killer front page story, and a big career boost, then I need something that'll grab the attention of the public.

  Sighing, I glance at the window, and at that moment I spot the colorful neon lights outside the bar across the road. I swore I wasn't going to drink tonight, but...

  ***

  As I make my way into the bar near the motel, I'm surprised to find that the place is almost empty. It's eight in the evening and I'd kinda assumed that locals would be flocking here, but even the pool table has been left abandoned. So much for the idea of a heaving social scene. I head to the bar and order a beer, and then I glance around.

  Suddenly, to my surprise, I see Sheriff Aiden Malone sitting by himself at the bar's far end, partway through a strawberry sundae. He's seen me, and he doesn't look too impressed.

  ***

  “Is it really so difficult to believe,” I continue, unable to keep from betraying slight frustration, “that I came back here because I want to find out what happened to Kimmy Duchette?”

  “I'm sure an exclusive like that would be worth some money,” he mutters, stirring his sundae but showing no sign of being about to eat another spoonful. “You might even get onto the front page. Assuming it's a slow news day, that is.”

  “I'm not that desperate.”

  “Yet here you are.”

  “Actually, I got fired,” I reply. “So who's desperate now, huh?”

  I take another, long swig of beer. As I do so, I suddenly realize that my previous comeback wasn't exactly stellar. In fact, I think I might have made myself look pretty bad. I set my glass back down, but I still haven't quite figured out how to recover. Malone's right to be skeptical, but I need to get him on my side. I hate myself for thinking this, but a single question is filling my thoughts right now.

  In this situation, what would Rolinda Derringham do? Actually, I think I know exactly how she'd approach this situation. She'd try to seduce Malone, and then while he was sleeping she'd try to sneak through his papers and his phone. I've heard plenty of stories about the things she's willing to do in the name of getting the story, but I'm not quite willing to go that far. I still have some scruples.

  Besides, Rolinda's a certified man-eater.

  “So you got fired from the news business, huh?” Malone says finally. “Well, maybe there's some hope for you yet.”

  “That's the thing about the media,” I reply, irritated by yet another little jab at my morality, “when you don't perform, you get shown the door. Unlike local police departments, where you can marinate yourself in incompetence until eventually you float up to the top job.”

  “Which of us is supposed to come out badly in that analogy?” he asks.

  Damn, that was catty of me. I should apologize.

  “Where's your investigation at right now?” I ask, preferring to get onto hard facts. “You've had a year since we last spoke. Surely, even for you, that's enough time to look at a few leads.”

  He sighs, before glancing around to check that no-one's listening, and then he turns back to me. Still, for a moment, he seems reluctant to say anything.

  “Between you and me, Ms. Carter -”

  “Maggie, please,” I say, correcting him.

  “Between you and me, Ms. Carter,” he continues, “it's as if Kimmy Duchette simply vanished into thin air. There, that's the honest truth for you. You can even run it as an exclusive, if you want. I'm keeping all the possibilities open, because frankly I don't have a way of discounting any of them. She could have been kidnapped, yes. She could also have run away from home. Or she could have had an accident, and we just haven't managed to find her body for some reason. She could -”

  “What about Thomas Roper?” I ask.

  He sighs again.

  “You have one lead,” I point out. “In the absence of anything else, wouldn't it be wise to at least consider the possibility that he's involved?”

  “Gee,” he mutters, “I never thought of that.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, I went and spoke to him, as it happens,” he explains. “I drove out to his place and I sat down with him, and I asked him a few questions. It was all very informal and very civilized.”

  “Did you get a warrant to search his farm?”

  “No, but -”

  “Because you couldn't be bothered?”

  “Because he volunteered to let me take a look around,” he replies. “I checked every inch of Mr. Roper's property and I found nothing amiss.”

  “So he's good at hiding things. He wouldn't have offered otherwise.”

  “I spent an afternoon up there,” he continues. “That farm is a pretty big place, but I'm not an idiot. I checked it all out, and I didn't find so much as a blade of grass that seemed out of place.”

  “How convenient,” I mutter.

  “Focusing on Roper would be a waste of our already limited resources,” he replies. “Believe it or not, Ms. Carter, we're pretty stretched out here and we have to manage our time.” He sighs. “Okay, that sounded bad, but you have to get the point. I'm doing everything I can, to find Kimmy Duchette. I'm not ignoring possible leads, I'm not being lazy, and I'm not letting go of the case. I'm just try
ing to deal with a situation in which there are no clues. There's nothing to suggest what happened to Kimmy.”

  “Except some blood in the forest.”

  “That wasn't Kimmy's blood in the forest,” he replies.

  “Everyone was saying that she -”

  “Don't listen to gossip!” he snaps, and he's clearly getting angry now. “Sure, we found some blood out there. Not a lot, just a small amount. We never managed to identify its source, but based on some other tests we're almost completely certain that it was not from Kimmy Duchette. Believe it or not, other people go out into that forest, and it's not hugely uncommon for someone to get a few cuts here and there. The amount of blood we found was minuscule. It was probably just from someone who went out hunting and caught their hand on a knife, something like that.”

  I pause for a moment, as I begin to realize that he's serious.

  “So you really don't have any leads?” I ask plaintively. “Nothing at all?”

  He shakes his head, and then he eats another spoonful of his dessert.

  “People don't just vanish like that,” I say after a moment.

  “Evidently, they do.”

  “No, they can't,” I tell him. “It's not possible, not in the modern world. If Kimmy had run away from home, you'd have picked up a trace of that somewhere in her life. What about her bank records? What about her cellphone? Her computer? Did you check her email and social media accounts?”

  “Gee, what's a computer?” he asks, rolling his eyes. “Yes, Ms. Carter, it did occur to us to check all of those things.”

  “And?”

  “If we'd found anything, don't you think I'd have mentioned it by now?”

  “So she didn't run away,” I point out, “which means she was taken. By force.” He sighs. “It's the only likely outcome here,” I continue. “What's wrong? Do you not want to admit that something like that could happen in your lovely little town? Well, I've got news for you. Ridge Falls isn't that lovely! In fact, it's kind of a dump! And if you ignore something like this, then it won't go away. It'll happen again. It happened with Esmee Waters, and now it's happening with Kimmy Duchette. And it'll happen again, and again, until people like you are willing to stare into the darkness that's at the heart of this place.”