Tammy pursed her lips. “Yeah.”
“Who was that?” Ashley asked.
Paris and her mother eyed each other. After a moment, her mother shook her head. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Whispers erupted around them and Ashley felt sick. This was all wrong; the vigil was supposed to be about Tristan. It was supposed to be a way to bring him home. Even if everyone here thought he was dead, Ashley knew he wasn’t. She could still feel him here, like there was a line connecting them. Wherever he was, he just needed someone to find him. He just needed someone to bring him home.
“Mrs. Granger,” Ashley said, sharp enough to cut through the crowd. “I know you asked everyone to bring a memory of Tristan. I think we should share now.”
For a moment, all eyes turned to her. The morning smelled like soil and hurt, and the inside of Ashley’s mouth was swollen with unspent tears. The crowd slowly gathered around Tristan’s photo. Shakily, Ashley pulled a notecard from the pocket of her dress.
Before she could speak, Sheriff Paris cleared his throat.
“Ashley,” he said, “I hope you don’t mind if I start us off.”
Ashley blinked.
“Right. This isn’t so much a memory as a promise. I know we’re a pretty small town and when something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us. And I know it’s easy for us to point fingers at people who’re different.” Sheriff Paris cleared his throat. His blond hair was bright and slick in the summer sun, eyes clear and blue as the sky behind him. “I love Tristan like he’s my own kid. Even if we’ve officially called the case cold, I’m not done looking. I won’t stop until we find him alive. I won’t stop until he’s home.”
Ashley took her mother’s hand. In front of her, Mr. and Mrs. Granger nodded solemnly. They had their problems with the investigation, but Sheriff Paris was right. He couldn’t arrest someone on suspicion alone, and even if he could, arresting Brandon Woodley wouldn’t solve Tristan’s disappearance. No one wanted to find a killer—no one wanted Tristan dead. Ashley just wanted Tristan home.
Paris gave a tight-lipped frown and a terse nod, then motioned to Ashley.
“All yours.”
Ashley took a deep breath. The crowd of people in the cemetery turned to face her. Ashley shakily held up her notecards and studied them. She’d practiced her speech all night in front of her bedroom mirror, but with dozens of eyes trained on her, the words suddenly felt far away.
This wasn’t for the crowd. This was for Tristan.
“I hope you guys don’t mind if I, uh … if I say something to him.” Ashley looked up and caught her mother nodding at her. She cleared her throat. “Tristan, when we were in second grade, you asked me to marry you. You took me out to the field behind the track and made a ring out of dead grass. I turned you down because we were too young and because I said if I was gonna marry you, it had to be for real.”
The crowd laughed softly at that. Cool lake wind brushed Ashley’s ponytail across her back. She stared at the words on her notecard until they swam and she had to stitch the memory together.
“You didn’t give up. That’s how you are—you see the way things should be and you make them happen. You asked me to marry you again in third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade. In eighth grade, you compromised. You said we could just go to the spring social together. I would’ve said yes to you then, but my mom said I was too young to date.”
Tammy Barton sheepishly raised her hand and took a long sip of lemon water.
“It didn’t matter to us. We didn’t have to be on a real date. I went to the dance with my best friend and had the night of my life. Freshman year, you asked me out to dinner. No marriage, no dances, just cheeseburgers and milkshakes. I sat in that booth across from you and we laughed for hours. You and me were just two people who already shared everything. It was the easiest thing we ever did.”