Claire had not turned on the news, or read the news online, or listened to the car radio, or even read the updates that rolled across her iPhone. If there was any news any of them needed to hear—if Lisa Bellow was found, however she was found, or if there was a suspect and it was necessary for Meredith to become involved, Claire was certain they would hear from the police. After Meredith’s abrupt departure from the van at the crowded town square and her reappearance ten minutes later, hand in hand with her brother, Claire wanted to believe that their part in the drama was finished, and believed it so much that for a few hours on Saturday evening she forgot the story that was whirling around out there, the work that was being done, the leads that were being followed. “I just want things to go back to normal,” Meredith had said at breakfast. She had said those exact words, of her own accord, not been fed them by anyone, had thought and spoken them herself. So that’s what they would strive for: normality. All day Saturday they’d heard nothing from the police. But on Sunday the police detective, the woman, called and said they’d like for Meredith to look at some pictures.
“We can come to you,” Detective Waller told Claire. “To your house. But we’re at a point where we do need her help.”
“You have a suspect?” Claire asked.
“We’re at a point where we need her help,” Detective Waller repeated.
It was not Detective Waller who arrived at the house but the other detective—the tall man with the mustache. His name was Detective Thorn. He appeared with five thick books, photo albums of suspects. On each page there were four pictures, hundreds of men in all, maybe thousands. Could all of these men possibly be suspects in Lisa Bellow’s abduction? It seemed to Claire that perhaps they should just take a picture of every man on the planet and get these giant books out whenever anything happened. Maybe that was what they did? Everywhere the police went, everyone they talked to, maybe they automatically brought the books of men who might take you.
Meredith sat at the dining-room table and flipped through the books slowly. She looked at every man. Claire sat beside her. They were mug shots, mostly, and a lot of the men looked defiant and a lot of them looked broken and a lot of them looked, well, normal. And then there were a few who looked unhinged, sporting the crazy psychotic smiles you imagined when you heard a sound at night, alone in a house. And a few more who looked like they just didn’t care, the Logan Boones of the world, their names on the board still meaning nothing to them, their walk still the easy swagger of the superior. She imagined in jail that would come to an end. She imagined that a week in prison was not unlike having a dentist hurt you with her tools.
“If you see anyone that even looks a little bit familiar,” Detective Thorn said, “we can get another picture.”
“I hardly saw him,” Meredith said. “The mask . . . ”
“I know,” the detective said. “But it’s worth a try. Try to imagine him some other place, not at the Deli Barn. Imagine you see him across the street when you’re walking somewhere. It’s cold out so he’s wearing a ski mask. He’s just a man taking his kids sledding.”
Detective Thorn turned to Claire. “That helps sometimes. Distance it from the event. Take the anxiety out.”
Claire thought this idea—imagining the kidnapper, on the sidewalk, taking children sledding—would likely cause more anxiety rather than less, but she didn’t say so.
Meredith’s face was blank. She turned another page, then another, and all the men looked back at her. It could be any one of them, Claire thought. She could be looking right at him and not even know it. What was she supposed to recognize?
Meredith closed the last book.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No apologies necessary,” he said. “We’ve got some more books. One more today and then maybe another couple tomorrow. If you’re up to it.”
“Sure,” Meredith said.
Detective Thorn reached into his bag and took out the Parkway Senior High School yearbook. “I’d like you to take a look through this. Just in case.”
“That’s a yearbook,” Meredith said.
“It is,” Detective Thorn said. “You remember at the hospital, what we told you? Most people are abducted by someone they know. We don’t know if that’s the case here, but we have to look at every possibility.”
“This isn’t even our yearbook,” Meredith said. “This is the high school yearbook. The middle school yearbook is—”
“We know Lisa spent time with high school kids,” Detective Thorn said.
“And he had a car,” Claire said. “The . . . the . . . ” she fumbled, forgetting what to call him. “The . . . abductor.” She was relieved, absurdly, to realize that the abductor could not be an eighth-grader because he had to be at least old enough to drive.
“Her boyfriend’s in high school,” Meredith said.
“That’s right,” Detective Thorn said. “Do you know him?”
“No. I know he plays lacrosse.”
“It sounds like she interacted with several people at the high school. So we thought a look at the yearbook couldn’t hurt.” He cast a glance at Claire. “Kids, you know . . . ” he said sadly. He shook his head.
Know what? she wondered. Know that kids sometimes abducted each other? What message was the detective trying to send her? Did they suspect something and weren’t letting on? Did they think this could be a joke of some kind, a senior prank gone wrong? It didn’t make any sense. What about the unconscious employee? The safe? The gun?
The detective had bookmarked the yearbook so that Meredith was able to skip all the candids and go straight to the headshots. As she flipped through Claire recognized boys from the baseball team, boys that had been Evan’s classmates for years. Meredith stopped on the O’s in Evan’s class.
“That’s my brother,” she said to Detective Thorn.
Claire looked at the photo, taken a few months before the injury. Her son looking confidently with both eyes toward the future. Meredith flipped the page and Claire looked away. All these boys, not yet the men in the official books of suspects, but fixed forever now in their own book of suspects, the preface to the ongoing series of men who might take you.
Meredith closed the book. “Sorry,” she said again.
“We’ll keep trying,” he said.
“Can I go now?”
“Sure. We might do it again tomorrow.”
“Okay.” She left the room and went slowly up the stairs, dragging her hand along the banister. Claire wondered if she had paused partway up to listen, sat down soundlessly on what they called the Christmas Step, the spot where the stairs turned and there was a mini landing large enough for two kids to wait until they were summoned downstairs to see what Santa had brought them.
“Are there any leads at all?” Claire asked.
Detective Thorn frowned. “Lots of tips. People call the line, say they saw a man driving with a teenager. Most of the time it ends up being a girl and her dad. But that’s how we do it, how we find people. We follow every tip.”
“Do you really think it might be a student?”
“We have a lot of ideas.”
“But nothing solid.”
“Not yet,” he said. “But someone will see something eventually. We’re fortunate. Lot of people are invested in this. Lot of community support. Social media. Posters. People putting together search groups and the like. Ribbons. Fund-raisers.”
“Fund-raisers for what?”
“Help out her mom,” the detective said. “Single mom, not a lot of resources. Just people want to lend a hand.” He cleared his throat. “Speaking of her, I think she’d like to speak to you.”
“Who-what?” Claire asked.
“Lisa’s mom,” he said. “Colleen’s her name. I think she’d like to speak with you.”
“Why?” Claire asked quickly, then considered, too late, how it might look to ask why, to question anything. She was the mother who had won; Lisa Bellow’s mother was the mother who’d lost.
“She’s distraught,” he said flatly.