I turned it off and threw the phone onto the bed, tasting something sour. It was endless. Death and loss and violence. I didn’t want to hear about people shot or beaten or strangled to death. I didn’t want to imagine them dying, alone and afraid. Because they were all alone, even when they weren’t.
Everyone dies alone.
So had Liv. So had Persephone. Both of them, alone in the woods. Like I had been, bleeding, crawling toward safety that didn’t exist.
I’d never really escaped. None of us had. We tried to find our way out, but it drew us back in. We’d all rot among the roots and stones eventually.
I rubbed at my arms, fighting a chill that seemed to radiate from my core. My nerves prickled, an unformed sense of dread and danger growing steadily as my damaged psyche translated my anxiety straight into panic. I clenched and unclenched my hands, trying to focus on the physical sensation.
“You are safe,” I told myself, monotone. “You are here. You aren’t in the woods.”
Yes, you are, my whole body insisted, and I dug my nails hard against the scar on my wrist. Like I could slide them under its edge and pull that seam of flesh open again.
A casual knock on the door brought me whirling around. It was a solid five seconds before I processed what I was supposed to do and went to answer it.
I opened the door to discover Ethan Schreiber in a cozy brown sweater, a white paper bag flecked with grease in one hand and a cardboard tray with two foam cups in the other. I stared, unable to interpret the scene or comprehend how he had transformed from a voice in my ear talking about Deedee Kent to the man standing in front of me.
He held out the bag. “You strike me as someone who needs to be reminded to eat,” he said. The scent of diner burger and French fries oozed from the bag. My stomach growled.
“You brought me a burger,” I said blankly.
“And a milkshake,” he confirmed. He smiled—the kind of close-lipped smile you gave an animal you were hoping wouldn’t maul you.
“Thanks,” I said, and stuck out a hand.
He pulled the bag back out of reach. “It comes with company.”
I folded my arms, irritated. Irritated was better than panicked. I held on to it. “That’s blackmail.”
“I think it’s closer to bribery,” he replied. “No interview, promise.”
“What, you just want to spend time with me?” It was supposed to sound biting. It came out pitiable.
“I want to make sure you’re all right,” he said. He had a face made for sincerity. He was like a puppy pawing at your arm to comfort you, with those big brown eyes. “But if you really don’t want company, I’ll leave this with you and go.”
My gut tightened. I didn’t want Ethan Schreiber here. I wanted to be alone even less. This is how I ended up with guys like Mitch, I thought. Even the terrible ones were better company than my own mind.
I sighed, dropping my hand from the door and turning away. It took him a few seconds to catch on and follow me inside.
He set the food out on the tiny table in the corner. I really was starving. I unwrapped the grease bomb of a burger and wolfed it down. Ethan approached his more strategically, watching me with something between horror and admiration. I sucked a stray glob of ketchup from my thumb and moved on to the fries at a more sedate pace.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I hate that question slightly less than I hate being asked if I’m okay,” I told him.
“You don’t like answering questions at all, do you?” He quirked an eyebrow at me.
“That’s another question,” I pointed out. I took the lid off the milkshake so I could attack it with a spoon.
“I surrender,” he said. He threw up his hands. “I’m sorry I barged in here.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said quickly. Alone, my thoughts had scrabbled through my skull like panicked rats. With him here, they’d settled to faint, anxious scurrying. “I’m not … good at being alone,” I confessed.
He gave me a sidelong look, considering. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. You have a loner vibe.”
“No, I have an asshole vibe. Which just means that I end up spending all my time with other assholes,” I said.
“Does that include me?”
I shrugged. “Haven’t decided.”
He watched me as I skinned a spoonful off the top of the milkshake. The pause had a tender quality I knew all too well—that moment where you were trying to decide whether to address the obvious subject or skirt around it. He was going to ask me about Liv. His lips parted, the words starting to form.
“Maybe you can help me with something,” I said quickly, groping for a distraction.
“What sort of something?” he asked.
I shifted in my seat. Ethan Schreiber, it occurred to me, was exactly the person to ask about how to track down a missing woman. If I could do it without revealing too much. “I’m working on this project,” I said. “Just a personal thing. And I’m trying to do some research, but I don’t really know how to start.”
“I am good at research,” he conceded.
“I know,” I said. He gave me a curious look. “I sort of looked up your podcast. I only listened to a minute of it, but it seemed like it was … good.”
“Not our best review ever, but I’ll take it,” Ethan said.
“So that’s what you’re working on here? An episode of Aftershocks about Stahl?” I said. I wondered what the episode titles would be. The Survivor. The Families. The Son.
“No. This is a new project. It’s still in development. I haven’t quite found the right format yet.” He considered me, like he could tell I was stalling. I didn’t know how to ask what I needed to without raising suspicion. “What is it I can help you with, Naomi?”
No more stalling, then. “Right. So. If you were trying to find a missing person, how would you start?” I asked in a rush.
He stared at me for a beat. “Does this have something to do with Liv?”
“Liv isn’t missing, is she?” I said sharply.
“Okay,” he said, drawing out the word. “Then why are you asking about missing persons?”
“I told you. It’s personal,” I said.
He rubbed a hand over his head. “Um. Okay. Am I law enforcement or a civilian?” he asked.
“Civilian.” I snagged a French fry and dragged it through the last smudges of ketchup.
“If I was a PI or something, I’d start by talking to family, friends, roommates…”
I shook my head. “No, not that kind of missing. You know someone is missing, but you don’t know who they are.”
“So I’m trying to identify a Jane Doe and hopefully match them up with a missing-person report?” he asked. He looked at me curiously. “You really aren’t going to tell me what this is about?”
“I wasn’t planning to, no.”
He rested his palm on the table, one finger tapping an idle rhythm. “There’s a theory,” he said. “It’s pretty popular in certain true-crime-fan circles. Alan Stahl was active for five years. His attacks all took place in the summer, one or two each year. Except for one year. People call it the ‘quiet summer.’ But there are some people who think that he didn’t take the year off—that we just haven’t found the victim or victims. So you have two camps—the quiet-summer theory and the missing-summer theory.”