“We’ve already looked everywhere,” Erin says impatiently.
But William knows what they’re thinking. They’re suspects, of course they are. Maybe there’s something to find in the house. “Sure, go ahead,” William says. “But please hurry,” he urges, his voice breaking. “You have to find her.”
* * *
? ? ?
Erin frets while a search gets underway for Avery. Her photo and a description of her and what she is wearing are being circulated to all police and media. Patrol cars are looking for her, police officers are already knocking on doors, talking to people who live between Ellesmere Elementary School and the Wooler residence, and going up and down Connaught Street, where they live. Maybe someone has seen her. Erin knows something is terribly wrong—Avery would have come home in time for supper if she was able.
It has just made the local evening news at seven o’clock. Breaking News . . . A nine-year-old girl has gone missing while walking home alone after school in the town of Stanhope, New York . . . Her photograph appeared on the screen. It’s all unbelievable. Erin feels as if she’s living inside a ghastly dream, the kind brought on by a fever.
A local ground search is being hastily organized, led by police officers and using volunteers, despite the increasingly heavy rain. It’s October, it will soon be dark, and it’s getting cold; time is of the essence. But Erin is trapped in the house, like a fly in amber, unable to go anywhere, unable to look for her daughter. She must stay inside and speak to the detectives, answer their questions. William is here, too, sitting by her side on the living-room couch, sometimes getting up restlessly and looking out the large picture window as if he might see Avery coming up the driveway, as if she had somehow avoided all those out there looking for her and made it home, oblivious. They haven’t let Michael join the search either. They are keeping him in the kitchen, with a female officer, so they can speak to the parents alone.
The two detectives arrived just as the first police officers, having found nothing in their search of the house, were on their way to track down the music teacher. Detective Bledsoe is Caucasian, in his midforties, an average-looking man wearing a serviceable gray suit. You wouldn’t notice him in a crowd. Erin hopes he’s sharper than he looks. Stanhope is a fairly small town, and how much experience can they have had with this kind of thing? She can’t remember a child ever going missing here. Bledsoe’s partner, Detective Gully, a Black woman maybe ten years younger than Bledsoe, with close-cropped hair and a smart trouser suit, is the one that Erin connects with. Perhaps because she is a woman. Perhaps because her eyes are more lively and her expression more sympathetic than her partner’s.
Bledsoe’s cell vibrates against the coffee table, making Erin jump. Her heart freezes, terrified of bad news. He has a short conversation and disconnects. He puts his cell back down on the table between them and leans forward in the armchair that he has pulled closer to the coffee table. “That was Hollis,” he says. “They spoke to Ms. Burke. She says that Avery began acting up as soon as choir began. She reprimanded her, but she says she had to dismiss her at about three forty-five.”
“Is she allowed to do that?” Erin asks, her voice shrill. “Can a teacher send a child in third grade home by herself like that?” For the first time it occurs to her that someone is to blame.
“Let’s not focus on that right now,” Bledsoe says. “But we now know that she left the school at approximately three forty-five.”
“Unless she didn’t,” Gully says.
Erin turns to Gully. She’s stated what should have been perfectly obvious. Bledsoe had assumed that something happened to Avery on the way home from school. They had all assumed.
Bledsoe bites his lip, looks at Gully almost as if he’s annoyed at her for speaking out, but maybe he’s annoyed at himself. He takes a deep breath, pushes it out. Then he nods. “We have to search the school,” he acknowledges. He picks his cell up off the coffee table and walks to the dining room, where he can have a bit of privacy, but they can all hear him giving instructions for the school to be searched from top to bottom.
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.