“What?” My voice carried through the nearly empty restaurant, but I didn’t try to quiet it. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s an order, Clara. From my boss,” Max said, carefully enunciating each word. “The sheriff assures me that the chief or someone from Alber PD will talk to your family this evening. I waited to call you, hoping for news. But I just got word that the chief will personally get in touch with you when he has something to report.”
“When he has something to report?” I heard the rage in my voice but didn’t hold back. “You’re kidding. I’m supposed to just sit back and wait?”
“Clara, I’m sorry I’ve dragged you into this, but don’t make this any harder than it is,” Max said. “I’m out on a limb here. As I said, the sheriff was against my calling you in the first place. We need to let the chief do his job.”
“This is my sister we’re talking about, Max.”
“I know.” Max’s voice grew stern, as if warning me.
“Hannah told me she talked with you about two other girls, Jayme Coombs and Eliza Heaton. She’s worried—”
“We checked up on those girls. Their families say that they’re fine.” Max sounded angry that I’d questioned him. “Listen, Clara, Sheriff Holmes told me to remind you that you have no authority in Alber. This isn’t your investigation. Any interference won’t be tolerated.”
“Max, I—”
“I have to go, Clara. Good night.” At that, Max hung up.
My conversation with Max kept playing in my head as I paid the bill and Hannah and I left the restaurant. We were the Bannions’ final customers of the evening, and they locked the door behind us. I decided to drive directly to my family’s trailer, but then I thought better of it. The police chief or someone from the department could be there when I arrived. If they were making any headway, and I hoped they were, my showing up could stop the conversation cold. If any chance existed that someone might break through my mother’s wall of silence, I couldn’t interfere. At least, not yet.
But I had to do something. I couldn’t just wait.
We got in the Pathfinder, and I turned to Hannah. “Should we go to the Coombs’ house first or the Heatons’?”
“Tonight?” Hannah said, her voice rising in alarm.
“Yes, tonight.”
“They’ll be getting in bed. You know how folks here go to bed early.”
“Hannah, I don’t care if it’s midnight, I need to—”
“No. Clara, you’ve been gone a long time,” Hannah said, the worry lines across her forehead and around her mouth stretching. “You’ve changed. But this town hasn’t, at least not that much. Not yet. This isn’t how things are ever done here.”
All that was true, but it altered nothing.
“Hannah, Delilah is twelve years old,” I said. “After everything you’ve told me, I feel certain that she’s been abducted—perhaps the other girls too. I have to wait on the police chief to talk to my family, but in the meantime I can at least try to figure out what’s going on in this damn town.”
“Clara, you need—”
“What I need is to figure out what happened to Eliza and Jayme. I need to know if all three of these girls are pieces to the same puzzle. Because if they are, you’re right.”
“I’m right?” Hannah asked.
“There’s something truly evil here.”
Hannah closed her eyes, as if collecting her thoughts. When she opened them, she said, “Let’s go to the Heaton house first. We can talk to Eliza’s family.”
It turned out that the Heaton and Coombs families both lived in the trailer park. I drove through the quiet town, the street lights glowing and the mountain ridge barely visible in shadow. Above us, the skies shimmered dark and clear, peaceful.
“How long’s it been since it rained?” I asked, trying to make conversation and cut through some of the strain in the car. We were both on edge, unable after all this time to be truly comfortable with one another. Perhaps I’d changed too much. Plus, neither one of us knew what would happen once we knocked on the Heatons’ trailer door.
“Thursday morning, just a brief shower,” she said. I looked over and she gave me a brave smile. “A lot of the farmers are worried about the crops. Not much rain again this year.”
The road continued straight north and then turned east and ran parallel to the mountains. I thought about the old white double-wide my family lived in. My father dead a year. There would be young children, brothers and sisters I’d never met. I wondered if anyone talked of me, if my younger siblings knew I existed. I decided they probably didn’t.
Suddenly, headlights glared behind us. I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a black SUV behind us. I noticed a light bar across the top. It looked like the Chevy Suburbans the SWAT teams drove in Dallas.
Alber’s streets were nearly deserted, my rental and the Suburban the only two vehicles visible on the road. That left a lot of room to work with, but the Suburban tailgated, practically attaching to my Pathfinder’s back bumper.
“Is that a cop car?” I asked Hannah.
She looked in the side mirror, but couldn’t get a clear bead on it, so she turned around and peered through the back window. “I don’t know. I guess it could be.”
“I’m going to pull over and see if whoever it is will pass us,” I said, but before I could, Hannah put her hand on my shoulder.
“No. Keep driving.”
“Why?”
“It may not be police. There have been some problems after dark in town,” she said. “One night a man who moved here with his family from Salt Lake was found beaten along the side of the road.”
“Bad?”
“Bad enough. Broke his jaw,” Hannah said. “There’s a lot of anger around here. People… some people are upset. During the day it seems calm, but sometimes at night things
