“Yeah, that would look good.”
I opened the door for Ryan. Momentary surprise passed across his face; then he held out his hand to Buster and they shook. Buster’s posture stiffened. He pulled back his shoulders and lifted his chin.
“Are you living here, William?” Ryan asked. “In New Cambridge?”
“Over in Columbus.”
“Nice,” Ryan said. “Actually, it’s a good thing you’re here. I need to talk to Tom and Abby, and if you don’t mind . . .”
Buster nodded. “Sure. I’ll sit with Caitlin and watch TV or something while the grown-ups talk.”
“Don’t you have to go?” I asked, trying to move things along.
“It’s fine. I’ll make sure I only speak to her in declarative sentences.”
“I’ll get Abby,” I said. “The three of us can talk on the porch.”
The late afternoon was warm, unseasonably so, and a light breeze rustled through the trees. It felt good on the porch, like we were doing something normal.
“Is she doing better?” he asked.
“We bought her some new clothes today,” Abby said. “We’re adjusting.”
“What did you think of Dr. Rosenbaum?”
“It was fine—”
“What are you here for?” I asked. “Did you make an arrest?”
“No, we didn’t. Can you tell me how things went with Rosenbaum?”
“We learned that our daughter doesn’t like to talk to shrinks,” I said. “And we learned that she doesn’t like being with us as much as she liked being gone.”
“Tom . . .” Abby said.
“Okay, he told us a lot of things, things a parent wouldn’t really want to hear.” I kept my eyes on Ryan. “What did you learn today? There must be something.”
He reached into his inside jacket pocket and brought out a small spiral notebook. He wet his index finger and started flipping through the pages while he talked. “One of the benefits of Caitlin’s recovery is that it puts her story back in the public eye in a big way, even more than the composite sketch of the suspect.” He licked his finger again, turned a few more pages, and stopped. “In the last twenty-four hours, we’ve been getting a lot of calls about Caitlin’s case, and we’ve only just begun to wade through them. But a picture has started to emerge.”
“A picture of what?” Abby asked.
“A number of people have called and told us that they saw Caitlin during the four years she was missing.”
“You mean people who thought they saw Caitlin and were mistaken?” I asked.
Ryan shook his head. “No, they saw her. Not all of them, of course. Some of them are crackpots, but there’s a consistency to the sightings that makes us believe them.” Ryan looked down at his notes again, and I sensed a reluctance on his part, a hesitation about what he was about to tell us. “People saw Caitlin out in public in the company of the man from the sketch. The stories are similar to the one you heard from the young woman at the Fantasy Club. Caitlin and this man were seen in out-of-the-way places. Strip clubs or diners. Always in rural or isolated areas. Never here in New Cambridge. Never in town or near the campus.”
I felt a sickness churning in my lower gut, a slow roiling, as though I might at any moment have to run to the bathroom to relieve it.
“I don’t understand,” Abby said. “What does it mean that Caitlin was out with this man? She must have tried to get away or asked for help.”
“No, she didn’t. At least not that any of our witnesses saw.”
I leaned forward in my chair, hoping to ease the pain in my gut. I didn’t think I could say anything.
“How can that be?” Abby asked. “Some strange man takes her, and she doesn’t run away. He must have held a gun to her or something, right? Tom? What are you doing, Tom? Are you okay? Are you hearing this?”
“We don’t know if there was a weapon involved or not,” Ryan said. “We’re looking into that. But in cases like this, it’s not unusual to hear that the victim was intimidated into not running away.”
“She has that bruise,” Abby said.
“We don’t know what that’s from,” Ryan said, “but it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that she was physically assaulted by whoever took her.”
“Why are you telling us all of this?” I asked. I shifted my position on the chair.
“I’m really just trying to keep you informed. This is going to somewhat change our approach to this investigation,” Ryan said. “Caitlin was a child when she disappeared. She’s still a child in the eyes of the law. We need to remember that. But this information could suggest a different and potentially more complicated relationship with whoever took her.”
“Let’s not use the word ‘relationship,’” Abby said.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “That was a poor choice of words. But Caitlin may very well be seeing it as a relationship.”