Rich Olsen helped conduct what he called a thorough sweep of all Concordia County. Mothers and fathers, electricians, plumbers, teachers, jacks-of-all-trades came out in full force to look for Reagan and Ota in the woods, in the nooks and crannies between houses, in the ass cracks of life where you would never want your child to be in the first place. The lake shed its black smile as if mocking us. The evergreens glowered at us, their branches spread like dark wings.

“I call bullshit,” I say, trying to hold back my rage as Rich stands in our living room three days later delivering the sorry news that there was not much more they could do.

His eyes drag down like perfect ovals. “Allison, if those girls were out there, we would have found them.”

“What?” The word jackknifes up my throat like a razored claw and I don’t wait for a response. Instead, I proceed to pound the shit out of his chest.

“Easy! Easy!” Charles plucks me off and I take the opportunity to backhand him while making it look like an accident. Damn asshole. Walking around my house whistling some hippy-dippy tune while my kid is out there with who knows who, having who knows what done to her!

“Come here.” James pulls me in, his eyes just as rage filled as mine, glaring from his father to Rich. “I’m about to go wild myself. Don’t ever say those words again. She is out there, and we are not doing enough.”

Marilyn McCafferty, a short brunette with a severe bun, eyes that say I’m watching you, I don’t believe you, I’m out to get you, readjusts her notepad. Of all the bullshit I’ve seen during this investigation, she and her prehistoric note taking methods top the list. She claims to have notified the entire state school system and yet has come up empty. Really? I’d like to know how the hell she notified them. Smoke signals? Sanskrit?

“I’ve set up a press conference for tomorrow afternoon.” Her thin-lipped smile expands and retracts like a rubber band. “The national media will be present and accounted for. You’ll both dress the part of responsible parents.” She dips her chin as if admonishing us. Something in the pit of my stomach pinched when she said it. “You’ll look your best. The media, though helpful at times—well, it could turn on you. People turn on you.” She looks to James. “On each other.”

A throbbing moment stumps by, and I can’t help but think they’re having a private conversation all their own. Does she know something that I’m not aware of? Has she really dug deep enough to find that closet filled with dumb blonde bimbo corpses? Yes, James is no saint. I think just about everyone in this room can agree on that. But I’m certain he has nothing to do with Reagan’s disappearance outside of the fact he’s the stupid shit that let her out of his sight to begin with. As soon as my baby is back in my arms, divorce proceedings will begin the next day. It’s something I probably should have done eons ago but was too stupid, too naïve, too blindsided by his dark wavy hair, those white picket fence teeth. Over and over again my sister tried to warn me, and over and over again I was insistent that he would love only me.

James clears his throat, his cheeks slap red. There might as well be a neon sign that reads guilty branded across his forehead. “We will most certainly dress the part. Where do you want us?”

“Right here,” McCafferty pipes up. “I’ll have everyone arrive at noon, and we’ll hold the event in front of your home. I have the composite artist scheduled for this afternoon, and that way we’ll have pictures of both girls.”

Another moment of silence ebbs by.

“So no one’s called in about a lost little girl?” This shocks me, and I can’t help but feel betrayed.

Both Rich and McCafferty shake their heads. Their somber faces say it all.

“So Ota was part of it.” A breath hitches in my throat, and I can’t seem to catch it. James wraps his arm around me in an effort to keep me on my feet.

“Let’s sit down.” He helps me to the sofa and I don’t protest.

“Yes”—Rich pulls his pants up by the belt loops—“it’s looking like maybe she was somehow connected. But we’re going to treat her as a missing child nonetheless. If they are together, it might be best people are on the lookout for her, too.”

“Yes, of course.” My heart thumps so loud my entire body throbs in rhythm to it. Damn little bitch. She knew. She knew they—whoever the hell they are—were going to steal my precious baby. Yes, she’s young, but so help me God, I would drown her in the bathtub if given half a chance.

“They probably threatened her into playing along with it,” Rich tosses it out there as if he understood my desire to murder the girl. “Could have been gypsies. Irish travelers. Immigrants. You never know.”

“What about a biker gang?” I’m not sure why that flew out of my mouth. “I remember hearing rumors of abductions of young girls.” My mind reels for something to quantify this with but comes up empty.

“I don’t think so.” McCafferty helps herself to a water bottle James set out once they arrived. “Bikers get all the girls they want just clamoring to be a part of their world. And I’m pretty sure when they said young girls they meant of a sexual age. Reagan is a child. It’s most likely a vagrant band, pedophiles and the like.” She brings her lips to the bottle and I leap over the coffee table and tip both her and the Barcalounger onto their backs.

Pedophiles. A primal scream comes from me as she baptizes herself with the water bottle, coughing and twisting as she struggles for air.

“Allison!” James barks as he pulls me off her. We roll over the carpet, grinding our noses in its fresh from the factory scent while Rich helps bring McCafferty to her feet.

“I’ll send a doctor over and see if we can’t get some sedatives to settle your nerves,” she huffs, staggering her way to the door. I watch from the floor, from this upside down world as Charles escorts her out, rife with apologies.

“I’m taking off, too,” Rich announces. “Deanna wants to bring dinner—says fast food isn’t good for you. I think she’s got a meal train organized so you won’t have to worry about a hot meal for a while. Call me if you need anything.”

“We need our damn daughter!” My voice jags through the air like a cat on fire and I watch as the door closes behind him. “Who the hell is Deanna?” I sob into the carpet and James picks me up and pulls me onto his lap.

“His wife.” He cradles me like a child as Charles excuses himself and takes off as well.

“And then there were two,” I mumble. The room turns bleary through my tears and I don’t stop the deluge from coming. James and I hold one another, crying rivers, crying out to God, screaming, shaking, trembling, burning with heat and fury.

How could this have happened?

Who the hell has our child?

---

In the shadow of the day, the cursed hours between three and five is when the composite artist is set to arrive. Cursed because the darkest moments of Reagan’s life occurred within that interval. I force myself to splash some water on my face and sit next to James on the corner of our mattress while he calls my parents and relays the horrible news to them.

“I know,” James sobs silently as my mother’s voice pitches through the receiver. With every panicked cry my stomach pinches with dread, tightening the already impossible coil twisting inside me. I told James I couldn’t do it—too emotional. In truth, I was too much of a coward to face my mother’s wrath. My mother worked her whole life as a part-time bank teller, my father a high school English teacher. I came from a good family with a good standing, but behind closed doors my mother’s wrath was something delivered straight from the devil himself. She had an in with Satan because she was him.

“Let me talk to Allison.” Her voice peaks.

My body solidifies as I shake my head at him.

“She’s too distraught right now.”

“Put my daughter on the phone, dammit!”

James passes the phone my way and I reach over and press the small red button.

His eyes round out in horror. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“I’m sorry!” I bury my head in my hands a moment. “I don’t know. It was a gut reaction. You know I can’t speak to her. She’s degrading and belittling, and I don’t have time for that kind of bullshit in my life right now.”

My first memory of my mother was of her holding up a wooden spoon, one of her many choice weapons, and that smile she shed before it came crashing down over my tiny head. By the time I was eight, she graduated to pouring uncooked rice over the floor and having me kneel on it, bare skinned, facing the wall for hours. She once held my head under water in our family swimming pool until I blacked out because I had talked to a boy on my way home from school. I couldn’t get out from under her clutches fast enough, and when the day came for me to leave for college, I gifted her the finger once she left my dorm. I never looked back, but I maintain contact with her. We see one another during Thanksgiving and Christmas and she calls a few times a month. Bygones were bygones, and I had put her prehistoric parenting skills out of my mind. I was never going to be that kind of a mother, nor was I that kind of a mother. No. I was worse because I couldn’t keep track of my child.

The phone buzzes in his hand and I take it from him. “I’ll handle this.” I head to the guest bedroom, pick up, and hang up. Instead, I pull out my own phone and dial the correctional facility that holds my sister. Welders Correctional Facility in Northern California is about as anti-prison as you can get. It’s more Club Med meets Camp Lockdown, and Jane has never been happier. I know this because those were her exact words once she was transferred over from a state-run facility. Jane Greer never took her husband’s name, but she took his life. That was a part of the prosecution’s closing argument. I secretly thought it was a cute play on words—cute being the irony, of course.

“Jane Nicole Greer, please,” I say as the operator at the facility picks up the line. “This is her sister, Allison Leigh Price.” I’ve never understood the rationale of adding the middle name, but the correctional facility insists we use them as some sort of code to verify who we really are. Jane is my older sister by four years, same face, same dark head of hair, same general distrust of the world—a parting gift from our mother.

“Is this a family emergency?”

“Yes, it most certainly is.” I wait patiently as the operator cues my sister and moody rock music from the seventies fills my ear. James steps in and I mouth the words my sister before he heads back out. It feels like a relief when he’s gone. Like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I know that I haven’t been an angel in this legal contractual obligation of ours, but besides that, it has always felt as if James and I were warring with one another long before Reagan arrived on the scene.

The music stops abruptly. “Ally from the valley,” Jane chirps on the other end. She’s not worried for me in regards to the family emergency because it’s the same excuse I use to speak with her on a regular basis.

“Reagan is missing. She’s gone.” My voice hurtles before my thoughts like machine gunfire. The bullets hit you before you know what’s happening. That about sums up this nightmare. “She disappeared three days ago. I don’t know who’s taken her. There was a girl and she was evil. She was in on it and there was no house at the end of the damn street!”

A dizzying conversation ensues between the two of us with her volleying emotionally charged questions at me and with me adding more confusion to the situation by way of convulsive sobs.

“Did you tell Mom?”

Ironically, it’s the mention of my mother that quells me enough for me to regain my composure. “Yes. She knows the facts.”

“Shit.” Jane’s voice is huskier than my own, hardened like tires on gravel as if she were a longtime smoker, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just her way. Life has always made her a little rougher around the edges than it did me. As much as I put up a front that everything was fine and dandy at home, Jane took my mother’s abuses and wore them like a badge with pride. She rode around with the bad boys as soon as she was old enough—as soon as she figured out how much it pissed off our monster of a mother.

It wasn’t poor Jane’s fault. My mother had carved her existence out in stone with each crash of the wooden spoon. In Jane’s mind, danger had linked itself to excitement and she sought after men who would treat her ten times worse than our mother ever did. But finally, her patience wore thin and so did her twice broken arm. The third break was the charm—her attorney coined the phrase—and she snapped. Jane pulled a butcher knife from the kitchen and slit her husband’s throat in bed. The prosecution argued he was asleep, but Jane insisted he was watching television, a show about an Alaskan family who lived in the wild. Poor Donny wanted to live in the wild far away from civilization and his stark raving mad wife. But he was an abuser, and in the end, he suffered the ultimate abuse. Jane later told me he really was sleeping, but that was the only way she knew for sure she could pull it off. He was stronger than she was by over a hundred pounds. And now she gets three hots and a cot for the rest of her life. Her words, not mine.

“I need my baby.” I moan as I rock myself over the floor. “Help me, Janey. Help me, please.”

“You better believe I’m going to help you.” The line goes silent, and I can practically see my sister’s wheels spinning. “You don’t think this has anything to do with the Cronelle family, do you?”

“No.” I’m emphatic about it. Martha Cronelle was our neighbor back on Walker Avenue when we lived in Woodcrest. Jane and I were in elementary school when we witnessed Graham Cronelle bash his wife’s head into their built-in barbeque. Jane and I were prone to spy on any and everyone, and this was one time it bit us in the ass. Once Martha Cronelle turned up mysteriously dead, we confessed to our father the heinous thing we had seen and he marched us right down to the police department and had us relay every grizzly detail. He was not tolerant to men who beat their wives, just wives who beat their children. “I don’t think so. It would be weird.”

“No, it wouldn’t. His boys tortured me for years in school. Garret and Ginger.”

I blink to the ceiling, suddenly regretful I ever called my sister. “I don’t think his name was Ginger. That’s just what you called him.”

“He was a shit. They both were. And they’ve always been bitter that we took away their father.”

“I know.” It’s true. They cornered us one day and told us off. Their aunt had to raise them. She denied them the video game trance they were accustomed to and cut off their supply of dirty magazines that their father kept them fresh in. “They were shits, but they didn’t do this.”

“How about that idiot that made your life miserable?”

My blood runs cold. She doesn’t even have to say her name. I don’t want her to. I don’t want to think it. She’s like a demon, easily conjured to life and hard as hell to get rid of.

I clear my throat as another painful knot begins to build.

“Heather Evans,” she whispers.

A jolt of electrocution runs up my spine at the sound of her name.

“Shut up.” I pull the phone back and eye that little red dot that can end this conversation in its dizzying tracks.

“Do not hang up on me!” Her voice bites through the line. “You always bail when the going gets tough—not this time!” Her words are sharp as she doles out the reprimand. “When did you last hear from her?”

Heather and I met in high school. She was a pregnant teen with no friends, and I quickly became the best of them. She loved me to the point of obsession. She came over every day after school, followed me home like a puppy and my mother would laugh, accusing me of picking up a pregnant stray. When Heather’s child arrived, she named her Allison, a tribute to our friendship. But as kind as the gesture may have been, it made me uncomfortable. Soon Heather wanted to match outfits, hairstyles, even talked her father into buying a beat-up old Honda—a matching red to mine. It creeped me out. The boys I dated she wanted to date and often did. It was a disaster. When I went away to college, she didn’t have the grades or means to follow me there. I was thankful for the reprieve until one icy fall night she tracked me down in my dorm.

“October fifteenth—my roommate’s birthday,” I whisper. “She found me in my dorm, and I told her to leave, to never come back.” I hated Heather. She ate my sanity for breakfast when we were in high school, and I couldn’t afford to let her steal my precious college years, too.

“Shit, Ally. October fifteenth was three days ago. Isn’t that when you said Reagan went missing?”

A breath gets locked in my throat. “It’s just a coincidence.” My mind reels trying to make the connection seem less important than it is. “I’ve tracked her a few times on Facebook. She’s happy now.”

“A little stalking in reverse, huh?”

“I don’t know. I was bored. It was over two years ago. Anyway, she has her hands full with her own kids. I doubt she wanted another.” My body seizes with a spasm of heat. What exactly do her kids look like? Could Ota have been one of them?

“You know you’re thinking it. I’ll look her up during free time before lights out. But if that bitch is documenting a road trip through Idaho, I’m calling out my girls to do some damage.”

Jane has long professed to be involved in some intricate network that links to the outside. Usually, I roll my eyes at the mention of this girl gang she’s able to rustle up on a moment’s notice, but my body is pounding like a pulse and the room feels as if it’s shifting, elongating. Anything seems possible in this nightmare of mine.

She breathes hard into the phone. “And lastly?”

“What?” I coil my finger around a loose thread on my sweater, cutting off the blood flow to the tip. I like the pain. It lets me know I’m still living, that this numbness I’ve been thrust into isn’t impervious to it. A missing finger might just be what I need to get me through this.

“You know what—or should I say who.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God. I hit the red button on the screen and end the call. That’s enough of that.

---

The police artist arrives at four thirty, a tall, stalky man with a face full of stubble. His name is Dan and he lays out his portfolio before us so we can peruse his previous work. Each of the faces he’s rendered all have the same cartoonish eyes, elongated noses, and this portfolio field trip in which he was hoping to win our trust does just the opposite for me.

He asks James to leave the room so I can give him my description while he sketches away on an oversized sketchpad. He asks vanilla questions about Ota throughout our time together and I try my hardest to describe her right down to the last molecule. When we’re through, he asks James to do the same, only this time I’m allowed to stay in the room.

“It sounds as if you both saw the same girl,” he jokes, offering a flippant smile our way before regretfully digesting it. “Sorry. I’ve never been in this situation before. That was distasteful and I apologize.”

“No need to.” James lands his hand on my knee. “We’ve never been in this situation either. Hope to never again. I have a strong feeling we’ll find her—our Reagan.”

My heart lurches unnaturally as I eye my husband. A strong feeling? Are those just words, or does he mean them? How can he have a strong feeling we’ll find her when I don’t have any damn feelings at all? Reagan took all of my feelings, all of my heart, and I’m bleeding out from the inside while slowly losing my mind. I don’t have a strong feeling we’ll find her. I wish to God I did. The butter knife lying next to the pile of unopened mail catches my eye, and the urge to cut a line along the inside of my forearm grips me. I might feel something then.

“How’s it going?” I try to peer over at his work, but he carefully tips the board up.

“It’s going well. I’ll show you the picture in just a moment. Yours first.” His brows wrinkle as his hand moves frenetically across the page. “You know, I’ve done this before, interviewed several people while sketching a suspect.” He blows hard over the page. “I’ve never had this happen before, though.” He turns his sketchpad around and there she is. “This is from the description you gave me.” He nods my way.

“Wow.” It’s all I can manage. “That’s uncanny.” There she is, little lying Ota staring back at me with those black alien eyes, that eerie grimace on her face that I once thought adorable—and yet I could never quite put my finger on what was wrong with her. Too clean, too pressed, too Eastery. All of it felt unnatural, inhuman.

“And this”—he takes the sketchbook back and flips the page—“is yours.” He blinks a smile at James while resting the board on his knees.

“Holy crap.” James shakes his head.

The image staring back at us is identical with the exception her eyes look beadier, too inset, her jaw cut and defined in a way that gives her an evil flare.

“Scary,” I whisper.

“I thought so, too.” Dan shakes his head. “I’ve never drawn a kid before, but this one creeped me out. Marilyn filled me in on your case. It sounds right out of a horror movie.” He mimics a knocking motion. “Some kid comes by weeks on end, says she lives in a house down the street. Come to find out there’s no house, just dense woods. That’s something else.”

James touches his fingertips together over and over, something he’s been known to do when he’s overwhelmed. A silent applause for his own insecurities. “What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know, man.” He folds his sketchbook over and shoves it neatly into an oversized bag. “Obviously, she’s too young to do this on her own. But why help out an adult?”

“But what if her parents were threatening her?” The words trill right out of my mouth. “There are abusive parents out there who can get their kids to do just about anything.”

James shoots me a quiet look.

“I don’t think so,” Dan says as the zipper on his bag gives a sharp sizzle. “I’d imagine the last thing a kid who’s being abused wants to do is drag another kid into their misery.”

“Unless she thought it would spare her a little pain. Misery does love company.” I should know. I thanked God for Jane, especially when she was the one being beaten.

He tips his head back and blinks into the idea. “I guess I never thought of that. But in all honesty, the kid sounds creepy. Something about it.” He shudders as he makes his way to the door. “I’m keeping you in my prayers. I’m a big believer things happen for a reason.”

He’s met with blank stares. Odd words from an odd man. But it’s understandable. People don’t quite know what to say at times like these.

“It’s okay.” James pats him on the back as the young man struggles to remain composed.

“I’ve got a kid, man. I can’t imagine the things that are going through your heads. I’m so sorry.” He sniffs his way out the door as if holding back emotions. “I’ll send the composite to Marilyn first thing.”

We wave him off and stand on the porch long after his car disappears into the night.

“What are you thinking?” James keeps his gaze trained toward the woods at the end of the street.

“I’m thinking we need to figure out a way to crawl to heaven and beg for our daughter’s safe return. You really think we’ll find her?”

The whites of his eyes cut to mine. “Yes, we’re going to find her.” His arms glide around my waist once again. I don’t think in the entire history of us James has ever held me so much. “I know we will. I’m certain of it.” His grip gets a little bit tighter.

And I wonder.

How can he be so certain?

---

At one o’clock sharp, James and I step out onto our porch to an audience of thousands. Bodies congest our keyhole street along with camera equipment in every shape and size, cropping up like mushrooms along the periphery.

“Holy shit,” James mutters as we ogle the swelling crowd.

Odd thoughts go through your mind at times like these, but the words break a leg keep circling my brain.

James has donned a suit that I helped iron this morning. I’m wearing a blue and white polka dot dress with a belted waist, patent leather heels, looking every bit the average 1955 Stepford wife. James slicked his hair back and shaved. His skin is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. I went through the trouble of putting on foundation and a swath of red lipstick. We look psychotic, deranged, like skittish wild animals pinned against a wall.

McCafferty waltzes up with her dismal sense of style, that constant frown of disappointment she wears just for us. “Keep calm.” She pulls us both along like children to the lawn where twin giant posters stare out at the crowd, Reagan and her innocent toothless smile. Her school picture was taken back in California, but the photographer sent the proofs to the police department as soon as Rich filled him in on the details. Marilyn thought it was pertinent to have her latest picture available to the public. The charcoal sketch of Ota stands proudly by her side, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from running over and tearing it down, scratching that little terror’s paper eyes out in front of the rabid crowd.

Rich introduces us to the waiting throngs, does a little police department tap dance regarding how they are doing everything in their power to bring our little girl home, but my eyes keep flitting to the camera crews, CNN, FOX to name a few, including all the local channels, and some cable outlets I’ve never even heard of before. My body shakes right down to the core. This is real. This is happening. Reagan is gone, and we are now that family. This was something that happened to other people, and now we were those people. The shit had hit the fan. The other shoe had dropped, and every other shitty euphemism was taking shape and coming to life in my worst nightmare.

James steps up to the mic. “Thank you for coming out today.” He nods into the crowd as if he were the pastor of some monstrously large congregation. The Church of Missing Children. An apostate church, and we are the heretics that run it. “My name is James Price, and this is my wife, Allison.” He pulls me in and nods to the crowd, stunned to have so many prying eyes staring us down at once. “My wife and I are grateful that you’ve come to help us find our daughter. She’s a good girl.” His voice warbles and he pulls back to swallow down his pain. “She has the best personality.” His voice cracks when he says best. “We would give anything to have her back. Please, if anyone knows anything. We would—” James gets distracted by something to his left and I notice a woman in a fur coat rocking herself side to side. “We would give anything to have her back.”

My eyes cut to the woman again. I recognize her from the Boys and Girls Club. The hugger. She’s eyeing James as if he were her favorite dessert. Not that I could blame her—most women do. But something about the way he paused alarms me. What if someone else picked up on this? It’s bad enough I noticed.

“What would you like to say to the person who has her?” one of the reporters from the front row shouts.

He leans into the mic. “I would say please for the love of God return my baby. Bring her to a safe place, a grocery store, a fire department, a library, anyplace. Just bring her to safety and let her come home.”

Another reporter waves over at us. “What about the other girl? Who is she? Why hasn’t anyone filed a missing person’s report on her?”

“She was friendly.” The words come from me numb.

Rich comes up and we voluntarily step aside as he takes over and fills the crowd in on the meager details we do know before fielding questions.

After twenty uncomfortable minutes of standing behind Rich, listening to him say we don’t know over and over again, Marilyn McCafferty pulls James and me to the side.

“ZNet and FOX both want to do an interview—this is evening television, the widest market to the nation. You’ll have to do it.”

“Yes, of course.” I shiver. “Anything.” I glance back at the burgeoning crowd and feel the sting of people craning their necks to get a good look at us. We had offered ourselves up to the public like creatures of interest, a novelty. We were on exhibit and the house was our habitat.

James and I are shuttled off to the living room where ZNet comes in first with its oversized cameras and takes the better half of an hour to set up. A makeup artist powders my face before adjusting a microphone down my cleavage and pinning one to the lip of James’ shirt.

The interviewer, a woman named Gretchen MacAfee, with short red hair, a country twang, and an overall irate view of life beaming from her eyes, sits across from us.

“Welcome to the show, Mr. and Mrs. Price. I’m so very sorry about the situation brewing around your daughter.” Her sentiment feels about as genuine as Naugahyde.

James and I exchange a quick glance. Situation brewing around our daughter?

“I’d like to start by asking you both to tell me exactly what happened that day your daughter went missing.” That curt tone, those accusing eyes. Each of my nerves catches fire like dominos.

“I’ll start.” My voice hitches and McCafferty pushes a glass of water my way. “I was out running errands. I’m usually the one that picks up Reagan from school. But that day James stepped in. By the time I came home, she was already missing, only we didn’t know it at the time.”

“And you, Mr. Price?” Her dark eyes shoot their venom at us as if we were the perpetrators.

“Yes, Allison is right. I was home. I’m the one that approved Reagan going over to Ota’s house. That’s the name of the little girl who was with her. She mentioned she lived down the street. I had seen Ota around the house ever since the day we moved in, and I thought it would be okay.”

“But it wasn’t okay, was it?” Her strangulating demeanor sharpens like daggers. A flashback of me hurdling furniture to tackle McCafferty comes to mind and my thighs twitch as if readying for the effort. “Where were you during the hours your daughter went missing? What were you doing at home while she supposedly went over to this friend’s house?” She stabs an accusing finger at him, her thumb in the air as if she were mock shooting him.

James expels a choking sigh. “I thought—I was at home cooking dinner for my family. Allison showed up, and that’s when the panic started.”

“I see.” The redheaded devil gives a sharp look to the ceiling. “How long have the two of you been living in Concordia? It’s my understanding that you were new to the area.”

“A couple of weeks,” I offer. I can feel my anger boiling over at the way this woman has chosen to treat us. “I met Ota that first day we moved in.” A vision of that patch of dying grass where her feet stood pulses through me. “She seemed like a normal child.” Lies. She was anything but and I sensed it from the start.

“And did she ever tell you anything about her family outside of the fact she mentioned she lived down the street?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head at the man holding a sound stick looking for sympathy. For God’s sake, I need to feel like I have a friend in the damn room. “I baked cookies for her family once, but she said her mother wasn’t feeling well and that I couldn’t take them over.”

Gretchen MacAfee sniffs at the thought. “And that didn’t set off any internal alarms in you, Mrs. Price?” Her lips contort until those viciously white teeth are visible.

“Not exactly.” Hell yes, it did. Everything about that little beast set off a damn alarm.

“It shows here”—she glances to her notes—“that there is no record in the state of Idaho at any school, public or private, of a kid who goes by that nickname—granted you did say it was not her full name. Has anyone outside of the two of you ever seen this child, Ota?”

My jaw goes slack at what she might be implying. “I don’t know, maybe the movers.”

“Funny you should say that.” She points a fiery red fingernail at me. “The police department did contact the movers, and not one of the young men who was present that day had any recollection of a second child around the premises.”

Holy shit. “They wouldn’t. She was in the backyard. She never went through the house.” My chest thumps wild like a herd of pigs begging for a lake to drown in.

James flinches and Gretchen must sense the fact that fight-or-flight has set in.

She takes a deep breath as if James and I had somehow exasperated her. “Let’s go to the phone lines. I believe we have some callers. Who do we have first?” A cue card is thrust her way. “Jessica from Phoenix. Hello, hon. How are you doing tonight?”

The audacity to shoot the shit with Jessica from Phoenix. I want out.

“Good, I’m doing great. How are you doing, Gretchen? I just want to say quickly that I love your show. I never miss it.”

Gretchen winks into the camera and it feels like treason. “That’s sweet of you to say. What can we do for you tonight?”

“My question is for Mrs. Price. First, I’m so sorry for your loss.” My stomach bottoms out because it sounds so final, so very morbid. “You mentioned that you were usually the one at home, but that you went out running errands. Why on that day? Do you think that whoever did this was prepared to take your daughter whenever the moment arose? I mean, if they meant to kidnap her, couldn’t they have lured her to the street and took her whenever they felt like it? It sounds like you were pretty loose with your daughter.”

My heart ratchets up my throat and into my ears as my entire body turns into one big pulsating bomb ready and willing to go off on whoever necessary.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say.” I clear my throat in lieu of vomiting up an expletive. “I had to run a few errands, much like anyone else. We’re a normal family. My husband sometimes picks our daughter up and cooks dinner.” Liar. I can’t remember the last time James Price cooked me anything, let alone picked up our daughter other than that fated day. It was a day of firsts. I try to remember back to that morning. He distinctly told me I should take some time for myself—that I work so hard as a mother and wife. My lids snap open wide as I look to him with the realization. Does James know? Does he know what I’ve worked so hard to keep from him for the last six years? Maybe the only one not buying this we-are-a-normal-family bullshit is James.

He leans in, his dark brows sit over his eyes like a caterpillar. “My wife ran errands. I picked up our daughter. It was nothing out of the ordinary.” It wasn’t really. Only that it was.

“Why don’t we move along.” Gretchen takes the next cue card. “Next caller is from Nevada—Heather Evans. Let’s hear your question.”

I freeze. My body solidifies in fear and hate as every mixed emotion runs through me at once. Damn Jane for summoning her to life like the devil she is. Heather Evans can’t speak. Some people should have a muzzle welded to their faces, and she happens to be one of them.

“I’m feeling a little heated.” I give a quick tug to my mic, but not a body moves my way.

“Hi! Am I on?” The disembodied voice swims from the speakers. “Allison Greer is one of my best friends! Oh, heck—I guess it’s Price now.” You can hear the enthusiasm in her voice as if I were auditioning for Ms. America and she was here to cheer me on.

James gives my foot a slight kick without making eye contact with me. I hadn’t told him about Heather. Some psychotics are best kept under lock and key.

Gretchen leans into her mic. “Best friend.” She nods my way, amused. “I guess you would know her best. Can I ask—what kind of a person would you say Allison is? How would you describe her personality to someone you just met on the street? We’ve got a lot of viewers, and some of them are making hard judgments about her. What would you like to say to them?”

“I would say Allison Price, nee Greer is a guarded person.”

“What the hell?” I mumble to myself.

“Yes, she has her secrets. But, heck, we’ve all got a handful of those, now don’t we?”

Crap.

James looks over so fast I can hear his vertebrae cracking. “Who the hell is this chick?”

“We went to school together.” I clear my throat. “Heather and I were friends in high school. I’m pretty sure she means silly little high school boy crush secrets.” Shit. Shit. Shit.

Heather’s voice pitches before rising an octave. “Like I said, everyone’s got them. I’ve got mine. I’m betting that handsome husband of hers has his fair share, too. Not long after the two of them got together, they broke right up.” Holy hell—she is singing like a bird. “But look at them now!”

“Yes.” I inch my body to the edge of my seat. I need to rein this crazy train in before we collide with her big fat mouth again. “James and I are as happy as can be.” I can feel the sweat beading on my upper lip. And try as I might, I can’t catch my breath. “We’ve been very happy for a very long time. The focus here is on our daughter, Reagan. We love her very much and she loves us, and I know that she’s very, very frightened.” I jump forward, demanding the camera’s attention. “Honey, if you’re out there—please know that Daddy and I love you so much. We’re looking for you every moment. We will never give up!” Heather’s voice comes in faint and I see Gretchen swipe her hand at some tech guy sitting to the side. Good. I will keep talking and we will cap that shithole Heather calls a mouth. I look to Gretchen. “We’ve been so happy for so long we’ve even thought about another baby before this horrible thing happened.” James offers another tap to my foot, this one much stronger, a what-the-hell kind of a tap. “We’ve had some trouble and a friend referred me to IVF.”

“Shit,” James mutters almost indistinguishably. “Look, we just want our daughter back.” He leans into the one-eyed monster looking voyeuristically into our lives for ratings. “We are onto you and your stupid, silly little games. Whoever you are, you sick fuck, bring back our baby!”

Gretchen gives a pantomimed slit of the throat, and just like that, the lights go out overhead.

One interview down, one to go.

James pulls me upstairs in haste while the electronic switch out occurs in the living room. It feels clandestine, as if we were teenagers running up to my bedroom to hide our lust from my parents. My mother would have Bobbitted him if she caught us in the act of fornication. Lorena Bobbitt was as close to a deity as you could get in my mother’s eyes.

James lands us in the bedroom and slams the door shut with a kick. His eyes are wild with rage, his breathing uneven. “What in the hell are you thinking? Talking about more children? And we have never talked about IVF.” His voice is sharp as barbed wire and my ears pinch just hearing the pain in it. James has always wanted a brood—of his own, I would add, but he doesn’t really know the facts.

“I’m sorry. I panicked. She was some woman from my past and I just—I was spooked.”

He grinds his palm into his eye. “I get it. We’re exhausted. This can’t go on. We’re going to get through this. We’re going to get Reagan back, and then we’ll have lots and lots of babies together.”

I wrap my arms around him and pull him in so he doesn’t see the terror in my eyes. So he doesn’t see the fact I’d rather die than have Heather Evans and her frightening epiphanies showing up on my proverbial doorstep—and God, I pray that’s all it’ll be.

Heather was right. I have a secret.

James would like to have lots and lots of babies together.

And what Heather knows is that we’ve never had a single one.