“I’ll drive you,” Rachel says.
“You saw the ‘come alone’ part?”
“I still don’t get it,” she says. “The Fishers are all about extortion and drugs and prostitution, stuff like that. Why would they be involved in Matthew’s…” She stopped. “I don’t even know what to call it.”
“Let’s call it kidnapping,” I say.
“Okay. Why would they be involved in that?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you expect them to just tell you?”
“We don’t have any other leads.”
“But maybe we do,” Rachel says, opening up her laptop. She clicks on a file, and photographs start downloading. “I started going through various image searches in line with what we know about Irene’s photo from Six Flags. We know the location. We know the date. I started with that. I looked up on Instagram, for example, any photo that was tagged for Six Flags on that day. I spread it out three days forward to start because I figured some people wouldn’t get to posting right away. Then I did image searches of Irene and her family, hoping that maybe they’d be in photographs someone else posted, all hoping maybe we’d get another glimpse of Matthew.”
“And?”
“And the search came up with six hundred eighty-five photos and videos from across social media—Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, whatever. We have a little time. I figure we could go through them.”
They are organized in time sequence—time posted, not time taken—and then further subdivided by social media outlet. I see couples and families on rides, getting on rides, coming off rides, waving from the Ferris wheel or the merry-go-round or hanging upside down on roller coasters. I see posed shots, candid shots, distance shots of the rides. I love rides. I was always the adult who would readily volunteer to take cousins, nephews, nieces—anyone—on the harshest coasters there were. My dad loved rides too, even when he got older. I think about that now. I took Matthew a few times. He was obviously too young for any of the major roller coasters, but he loved the little train, that airplane ride, the slow boats. Matthew looked like my dad. That’s what everyone said, and once again, after my visit to my dad, I can only think about what passes down, from my grandfather to my father to me to Matthew. It’s all there in the echoes.
Some of the photos are of people driving to the park. Some are with animals from the park’s drive-thru safari. Some are with ice cream or burgers or waiting on long lines. Some feature dressed-up characters like Batman or Bugs Bunny or Porky Pig. Some are of arcade prizes like a stuffed turtle or blue dog or assorted Pokémon characters.
Amusement parks are diverse melting pots. There is every creed, religion, what have you. I see boys in yarmulkes and girls with head coverings. Everyone is smiling.
There are a surprising number of group shots with ten, twenty, or even thirty people. We stop here and zoom on every face. The children I understand. We are trying to find Matthew, of course. As for the adults, we are both looking for anyone we recognize in any way, anyone who might be—I don’t know—suspicious.
We find Tom and Irene Longley and their two boys in a group photo with sixteen other people. We take our time with that one, but we get nothing.
I check my watch. We may not have time to get through them all before I need to head to my meeting at Pop’s Garage in Malden. We start picking up the pace, realizing we can go through them later, when we pass another photograph of the Longley family with actors dressed up as yellow Minions from the Despicable Me movie.
Rachel hits the button to continue, but I say, “Wait.”
“What?”
“Go back.”
She clicks back.
“One more.”
She does. It’s the Longleys. Just the Longleys. No one else in the photo. But that isn’t what catches my eye.
“What are they standing in front of?” I ask.
“Looks like one of those screens for corporate events.”
It is one of the backdrop banners people use to advertise the movie being premiered or the company holding an event, normally decorated with a repeat logo. But that wasn’t the case here. There are various logos.
“I think Irene said they were at a corporate event,” Rachel said. “I told you that her husband works for Merton Pharmaceuticals. That’s their logo over there.”
There are others. I see one for a common over-the-counter pain medication. I see one for a popular line of skin care products.
“It’s a huge conglomerate,” Rachel says. “They own food brands, pharmaceuticals, chain restaurants, hospitals.”
“Do you think they rented out the whole park?”
“I don’t know. I can ask Irene. Why, what’s up?”
“There are other photos like this, right? In front of the banner?”
“Yeah, a bunch, I think. We’re just getting to them now. Usually, you take a picture like this when you come in, but I guess they wanted to wait to the end of the day.”
“Keep clicking,” I say.
I see it on the third click. When I do, I feel my entire body freeze.
“Stop.”
“What?” she asks.
I point to a logo on the bottom right. I’d been able to see part of it with the Longley family, enough to make me pause, but now I can see it clearly. Rachel follows my finger. She sees it too.
It’s a stork carrying three words in what looks like a sling:
BERG REPRODUCTIVE INSTITUTE
Rachel stares another second before turning to me.
My mouth feels dry. “That’s where she went,” I say. “Cheryl, I mean.”
“Yeah, so?”
I say nothing.
“What does that have to do with anything, David? I mean, this company also owns pizzerias. You’ve been to those.”
I frown. “My marriage didn’t fall apart because of a visit to a pizzeria.”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here.”
“Your sister went to that”—I make quote marks with my fingers—“‘institute’ behind my back.”
“I know,” she says in a voice so soft and gentle it almost feels like a caress. “But it led to nothing. You know that too.”
“Except it didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I stopped trusting her.”
“You didn’t have to, David. Cheryl was in pain. You could have understood that. She didn’t go through with it.”
I see no reason to argue and perhaps she’s right. I stare at the logo and shake my head. “This isn’t a coincidence.”
“Of course it is. I just wish you could have understood.”
“Oh, I understood,” I say, my voice surprisingly matter-of-fact. “I was shooting blanks. It was putting a strain on our marriage. Cheryl figured maybe she could get pregnant with a donor and claim the baby was mine. I’m surprised she just didn’t fuck another guy and cut out the middleman.”
“That’s not fair, David.”
“Who’s she married to now, Rachel?” I counter. “You didn’t tell me that part.”
“It doesn’t matter.”