Everyone Here Is Lying(7)

Erin closes her eyes, thinking of all the places you could hide a little girl in that sprawling school. The storage cupboards, the lockers, the basement, the roof. She could have been dragged into an empty classroom at that time of day, with no one to see it, and anything might have happened to her. At the thought, Erin feels off balance. She grips the edge of the sofa until the feeling passes. When she recovers, she opens her eyes and leans toward Detective Gully, who she thinks is smarter than Bledsoe. She says, “Promise me you’ll find her.”

“I’ll do everything in my power, I promise you that,” Gully says.





Four


Nora Blanchard is glued to the evening news, the shock of it displacing her own puny concerns. They are all seated around the television in the living room—her, Al, Ryan, and Faith. William’s daughter is missing. It’s too awful to contemplate.

She thinks about earlier that afternoon, how she’d ended her relationship with William, and regrets the timing of it. How rudderless he must feel. She tries to imagine what he must be going through. Her heart breaks for him, and she wishes she could comfort him. His wife can’t comfort him. There is no love left between them—he’s told her that—and she must be hurting even more than he is. She’s the mother, after all. Nora can’t begin to imagine the anxiety William’s wife must be feeling. Nora’s own daughter, Faith, is only two years older than Avery, two grades higher, at school. What if it was Faith who had gone missing? Faith, at eleven, is very athletic, wears her hair short, and can still be mistaken for a boy. But not for much longer.

But Nora can’t go to William and comfort and support him. Their relationship is a secret. His family will be under a microscope, and she can’t reach out to him. The only way she can contact him is by phone. Her dirty little secret—her second phone, which she uses sometimes to communicate with him. He has one, too, just for her.

It occurs to her now, with sudden dismay, that if Avery isn’t found quickly, the police might find out about his second phone, the one his wife doesn’t know about, and her heart seems to stop.

They will be found out. He will have to tell them what it’s for. He will have to tell them the truth. She can feel the blood drain from her face.

“Hey,” her daughter says, reaching out to pat her shoulder, “they’ll find her.”

She jumps when Faith touches her. She turns away from the television to look at her family. All three of them are watching her in concern. She realizes that she’s been crying and wipes the tears away with her fingers.

“Sorry,” she says, trying to smile. “You know how emotional I get. That poor family.”

Al shakes his head. “I can’t believe anything could have happened to her on the way home from school. Faith walks home from school every day. We live on the same street. This is a safe community. I’m sure they’ll find her.”

That’s just like her husband, Nora thinks, looking at him. He has no imagination. Head in the sand. Everything is fine. Even when it isn’t; even when it’s right under your nose.

“She’ll turn up, Mom,” Faith says. “She’s probably doing it on purpose. Everybody knows what she’s like.”

“What do you mean?” Nora asks her daughter. William has never said anything about Avery to her; they speak very little about their families when they’re together.

“She’s always getting in trouble. She does whatever she wants. The teachers always send her to the office because they can’t deal with her.”

Her son, Ryan, announces abruptly, “They want volunteers. I’m going to help look for her.”

“That’s a good idea,” Nora says. She’s glad that her son wants to help, though she’d looked forward to having him around tonight; his evening shift at the plant had been canceled. He’s not usually home for supper. He stands up, a tall, well-built, good-looking boy of eighteen. So much potential, and yet he has caused her so much anxiety this past year.

“I’ll join you,” Al says, surprising her. Maybe he’s not so sanguine about the neighborhood after all.

“Can I come?” Faith asks.

Nora shakes her head. “No. You’re too young. You stay home with me.”

Al and Ryan put on their hiking boots and jackets and rain gear, scramble for flashlights, while Nora and her daughter return to the kitchen and start clearing the dishes. Nora stops to watch them go, and soon dismisses Faith to go do her homework. She wants to be alone with her thoughts. She imagines her husband and her son out there in the deepening dark, in the pouring rain, searching the woods between the town and the river, looking for William’s daughter. She hopes they find her soon, safe and sound. They have to.



* * *



? ? ?

Time ticks by, all too quickly. Detective Gully knows that when a child goes missing, every minute counts. There’s a team now inside the school conducting a thorough search. So far, no results from the door-to-door; it seems no one saw Avery walking home. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t leave the school—she might simply have gone unnoticed. If she isn’t found soon, they will start looking into all the staff and volunteers in the school that day. They’re already going through all the registered sex offenders in the area. They have a large group of volunteer searchers fanning out in the empty, undeveloped fields to the north of the Woolers’ house and the woods behind the Woolers’ street, toward the river. They have flashlights, but it will be completely dark by eight o’clock and visibility will be poor. If the girl isn’t found, they will have to cover the same ground again in the morning. They will look in the river, too, drag it if they have to. They will do a television appeal and set up a tip line. They will leave no stone unturned. It could be Avery hopped on a bus and they’ll find her in Manhattan. Stranger things have happened. But Gully doesn’t like the feel of this one. There’s an uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. She loves her job. What she does is important, necessary. But it takes a toll.