She had to find another way to get answers.
She’d been ignoring texts from Emma all morning: Any news?
You okay?
What’s going on?
Maybe you lost your phone?
It had started to feel like a game: IGNORING EMMA’S TEXTS.
FOR 1 PLAYER. AGES 14 AND UP.
Like, did Emma’s brain have the capacity to think of maybe trying to call the landline or do anything other than keep texting?
The last text had been the one that really irked her.
Poor Sam.
Poor Sam?
That was her takeaway?
This morning there had been a text from Lucas, too.
How are you holding up?
Did that mean he understood how she felt?
Because he hadn’t said “Relieved for you” or “Happy for you.”
Or was she reading into it?
She knew the cops were taking them all there.
So she’d texted:
Good luck today.
He’d written back:
Thanks.
They were here now with coffee and donuts, to say thanks, as well—to the tip line staff.
Yes, thanks, tip line.
Thanks for nothing.
Avery was eating a too-sweet jelly donut when she was cornered by a nerdy-looking woman in her forties with a long black ponytail.
“I remember you,” the woman said. “I remember it all. And you, so little. On the news.”
“Yeah?” Avery said. “I guess everyone who was around then remembers.”
“Who could forget,” the woman said—seemingly without any awareness at all of how ridiculous a statement that was. “I felt so awful for all you families. I joined a search party and everything.”
“Well, um”—this was too weird—“Thanks, I guess.”
The woman smiled sadly.
“So who was the tip from?” Avery asked, sounding upbeat. “Who made the call? Are they collecting the reward?”
“Oh.” The woman waved a hand. “It was anonymous. When there’s a dead body involved, they usually are.”
Avery cocked her head. “You do this a lot? This kind of work?”
“Nine-one-one operator.”
“Ah.” Avery nodded. “Well, I’m glad it turned up a good lead. I’m glad they caught the guy. My father thought it was just all going to be crazy people.”
“Well, we have those, too. They’re still calling.” She looked at her watch. “Speaking of which, I should get back to the phones.”
“What are they saying, the crazy people?”
“Oh, you know. The crazy things.” She smiled and walked off.
Scarlett
The color matching of memory and reality was striking.
The stripes, if measured, would have been equal down to the millimeter.
You couldn’t see Scarlett.
Or anyone.
The photo had been taken from the ground, looking up at the balloon.
But she knew she was there in that dangling basket.
F l o a t i n g.
“This is it.” She stepped closer to the large framed photograph on the wall of a big lodge-like room.
A singular cloud in the distance had the shape of an elephant mid-sneeze.
Felt calm just standing there.
Hypnotized.
“This is the puppy.” Sarah broke the spell.
Scarlett turned to the voice, saw the puppy photo.
Beside that, a horse in a meadow.
Then . . . the crisscross hill of a roller coaster going up, up, up to the sky.
And a carousel horse in close-up.
Five large framed photos.
“This is the horse,” Kristen said.
“This is the roller coaster,” Adam said.
Lucas stood in front of the carousel horse, transfixed. “So we’re remembering photographs?” he asked.
/
/
“Not necessarily,” Chambers said. “These could be photos from things that you actually did. Just without you in them.”
“These prints are big,” Adam’s father said. “They had to have been printed specially.”
Chambers nodded. “I’ll send people out to print shops. See if anything pops.”
“Wouldn’t they just do that online or something?” Kristen asked.
“It’s not exactly the kind of place where you’d get deliveries.”
Scarlett turned back to her photo.
Her photo?
But something felt . . .
She took in the details of the room.
Lantern lights hanging from wooden beams.
A round window high on one wall, like a porthole.
Nothing but the photo familiar.
“I don’t understand,” Scarlett said. “This isn’t anywhere near Anchor Beach.”
“I know.” Chambers nodded. “But the evidence is overwhelming.”
“Did anybody near here ever see us?” she said. “Remembers us?”
“The nearest town is Everglades City and it’s not much of a town. We’re asking around.” Chambers scratched his head. “This happens, this kind of stuff, and it’s a shock every time. Women held in basements for years—babies being born while neighbors were only just fifty feet away—and no one around knew or even suspected anything was wrong.”
Scarlett went back to staring at her hot air balloon.
Now that she was here, the memory felt . . . fake.