Dad was already gone when Bel woke up. At work, he’d texted. But it was a Saturday, and he might as well have said anywhere but home. Bel knew.
“I’m going out,” she said, grabbing her shoes from the place they didn’t live.
“Where?” Rachel jumped up from the sofa, like she might come too. “Seeing some friends.” Bel shot her down. “Will be nice to do something
normal.” Shooting her farther. They hadn’t talked about last night.
“Oh,” Rachel said, sitting down, covering her wounds with folded arms, because she knew just as well that normal didn’t include her. “I have the day to myself, then. Call if you need anything, Anna. Shit. Bel. I’m trying to get that right, I promise. It’s only been a week since I found out.”
Bel crinkled her face at her, an approximation of a smile. “Bye, Rachel.” She slammed the front door behind her, harder than she needed to.
One news van outside. No sign of any reporters. But there was something else, a police cruiser parked outside Ms. Nelson’s house. Bel could see Police Chief Dave Winter, talking to Ms. Nosy herself at her front door, scribbling in a small notebook.
Bel needed to talk to him, actually. Push the police to work on the reappearance while she looked into the disappearance, trap Rachel in the middle. She crossed the road.
Ms. Nelson eyed her warily. Why? Didn’t like seeing her up this close, or didn’t like when Bel watched back?
“Hey.” Bel raised one hand in greeting. “Everything OK?”
Dave’s head tracked over his shoulder, eyes falling on hers. “Annabel. I was going to stop by afterward. How’s everything going? Everyone settling in OK?”
“Oh yeah,” Bel said, hiding her hands in her pockets. “She’s made herself right at home.”
“Good.” He chewed the end of his pen. “Ms. Nelson was just telling me that she’s seen a man standing on the street, watching your house. Late at night.”
“He was there.” Ms. Nelson pointed, gray flyaway hairs bristling in the breeze. “Hiding under that tree. I saw him at four a.m. when I let the cat out. Not the first time this week. Wears a baseball cap to hide his face.”
“Thank you, Ms. Nelson,” Dave said, the politest way of telling her to shut up. “Have you seen a man like that—Annabel—hanging around outside your house?”
“Yeah, loads of them. They’re called reporters. The news vans.” She gestured to the last remaining one. “This is the first day it’s been quiet.”
Ms. Nelson shook her head. “No, he wasn’t with them. Standing there for hours, watching the house.”
“OK, Ms. Nelson.” Dave closed his notebook. “How about you go inside, make some coffee? I’ll be in in a minute to get your full statement, OK?”
“I only have decaf,” she huffed, padding back inside, pushing the door
to.
“Decaf,” Dave muttered, stepping down to the sidewalk. “Seriously,
though, you seen anyone suspicious hanging around the house?” Oh, only the woman now living inside it.
“Nope,” Bel replied.
“Because that man is still out there. And until we catch him, he still presents a danger to Rachel and your family.”
Didn’t he know—the danger was already inside the house. And that man didn’t exist. But another man did, and Bel was on her way to finding out
who.
“Haven’t seen anything. Sorry,” she said. “Hey, did our DNA tests come in yet? She definitely Rachel Price?”
Dave snorted, stopping when he saw her face. “Sorry, thought you were joking. Yeah, yeah they have. One hundred percent her. But you already knew that, right?”
“Right. I was joking, got me.” She raised her hands, eyeing his gun. “Did you find the tote bag yet? On the road in Lancaster where the man left her?”
David scratched his hair. “Yeah, right where she said it was.” Fuck.
“Anything?”
Dave thought for a moment. “Her DNA is on it, but so far it’s the only profile we can find. No leads to the man who took her yet.”
Because nonexistent men didn’t have DNA. Dave must have read her disappointment as dread.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “we’re exploring every avenue to find this guy.
Tracking license plates. Something will turn up.”
“What about her clothes?” Bel asked. The police were no good to her if all they were doing was looking for a man they’d never find.
“Only Rachel’s DNA on those too. Well, and yours. From when you found her.”
“But what about the labels inside the clothes? Could you see where they were from?”
Dave furrowed his brows, not sure what to make of her. “Long gone, I’m afraid. They’re so damaged and old; she wore them most days since she disappeared. Your mom couldn’t remember where she bought them.”
Fuck again. The labels were conveniently gone, were they? That was because Rachel had bought them from Baa-Baa Boutique a few months ago. She’d certainly covered her tracks for her reappearance, all these little details. If she’d messed up anywhere, it had to be with her disappearance; she must have had less time to plan that.
This had been a pointless conversation, the chief of police wrapped around Rachel’s little finger. Didn’t matter, Bel could damn well do it on her
own.
“I gotta run,” Bel said.
She did run, just a little, to get away from him, down the road past numbers 30 and 28. Crossing to get back to the odd side.
It took another forty seconds before she pulled up in front of number 19; Jeff and Sherry’s house, painted teal on the bottom half, white up top, shutters to match. She rang the doorbell in the way she did, so they’d know it was her, to the tune of “Baby Shark,” which no one found annoying.
“Bel, that’s annoying,” Sherry said, pulling open the front door. Her hair was unbrushed, face plain and harassed, scrubbed free of last night’s TV- ready makeup. “I’m taking Carter to ballet in an hour.”
“Sounds like plenty of time for a visit from your favorite niece.” Bel pushed her way inside the house, winding around to the kitchen.
“Two seconds,” Carter’s voice called from upstairs.
“Take your time,” Bel called back. She meant it. She wasn’t sure Sherry would open up the same way in front of Carter. But it was hard to find a time when Sherry was in the house and Carter wasn’t; she tended to follow her daughter around, even though she didn’t have sixteen years to make up for.
Bel went to the refrigerator, an old photo of a girl in a ballerina tutu pinned there by a SpongeBob magnet. Sherry, not Carter; you couldn’t mistake them. Bel pulled out a Diet Coke.
“So…,” Sherry said, leaning in the doorway. “You spoken to your mom much since last night?”
“Not much.” Bel sipped the foam that erupted out of the can. “She was quiet at breakfast. Dad left early again.”
Sherry nodded. But Bel needed much more than that.
“So last night was interesting,” she said, offering a smile and a raised eyebrow so Sherry knew Bel was on her side.
“Yes,” Sherry said, those snakes hissing in her voice again. “Dinner probably wasn’t the smartest idea. Bit too soon. Emotions are bound to be running high, aren’t they? God knows how you feel, in that house, no escape from it all.”
Well, God didn’t know. But Carter and Ash did. “Yeah,” Bel said. “It’s been interesting.”
“What’s been interesting?” Carter appeared around the corner, sliding in
past her mom.
She held out her hand, silently asking for a sip. Bel passed the can over. “All of it,” Bel said, annoyed she’d wasted those seconds without Carter.
“Since she came back.”
“She’s trying,” Carter said quietly, fingers denting the can. “I think everyone else can try too.”
“Oh, we are, honey.” Sherry straightened up. “It’s not quite as easy as that, when someone’s been gone for sixteen years. Rachel’s disappearance wasn’t just about her, it affected all the people around her. There’s bound to be…” She trailed off.
“Tension?” Bel suggested.
“Yes,” Sherry said. “It’s an adjustment.” That word again.
“Well, it’s—” Carter started, cut off by the doorbell, one long held note. She shoved the can back into Bel’s hands. “That’s my package.” She darted out of the kitchen ahead of her mom. “Dancing stuff,” she yelled back, pulling open the front door.
The low murmur of a voice.
“Yes, that’s me, thank you.” Carter’s, crisp and clear. The front door latched shut again. “Just going to sort these out,” she called, bounding up the stairs.
Perfect, now was Bel’s chance to swerve the conversation, lay pressure on the breaking points.
“Carter always tries to see the good in people,” Bel said, because she wanted Sherry to know she didn’t think Rachel was all good either. And Bel knew she’d been upset last night, Rachel stepping on her toes, using Carter to do it. Although who had Rachel been trying to upset, Sherry or Bel?
“She does.” Sherry sighed, eyes wandering to the ceiling, taking her mind with them.
“I don’t think my dad is happy, you know,” Bel said, pushing just a little harder.
“No?” Sherry looked at her.
“Not really. I think things might be a little more complicated than just starting off where they were sixteen years ago.”
“Well…,” Sherry said, circling it, Bel could tell, the way her mouth twitched, almost giving in. Come on, Aunt Sherry. She needed one more push.
Bel cut straight to it; she didn’t know how long they had alone.
“I think we’re on the same side, Sherry. Dad’s side. We both want him to be happy, right?”
“Right?” Sherry held on to the word, narrowing her eyes. “I heard what you said last night, to defend him.”
Sherry covered her mouth with her hand. “I hope it wasn’t recorded. I shouldn’t have said it.”
“No, you should have.” Bel stepped closer, lowered her voice. “It sounded like you thought Rachel was seeing someone else before she disappeared?”
More a shove than a push. Sherry looked behind her.
“Please, Sherry.” Bel stepped forward again. “I’m not a two-year-old anymore. It’s my family. I want to be there for Dad, he needs me. How can I get to know Rachel if people keep secrets from me? I want to understand her.”
Sherry sighed, the snakes deflating inside her throat. “I don’t know anything for sure. Just something I saw, a feeling I had, back then.”
“What did you see?” Bel said, stepping back now she’d cracked Sherry open, giving her space.
The change in Sherry’s face was instant, voice dropping into whisper- talk. Sherry loved to gossip; her eyes bad at keeping secrets, spilling every time she blinked.
“There was this guy. They were friends, well, Rachel said they were just friends. He obviously wanted more, like a lovesick puppy, honestly. I saw
them together, maybe a couple of days before she vanished. Walking from school to his car, through the snow. Looked pretty cozy if you asked me, like a line had been crossed. That’s all I saw.”
“Who was he?”
“That’s the thing,” Sherry hissed, enjoying this even more. “Why I always wondered if he was the one that killed her. It’s not just that they were friends, saw each other at work all the time. It’s that he was the first one on the scene when she disappeared. The man that found you.”
“Mr. Tripp?” Bel’s throat felt gummy, trapping her breath there. Something that felt like betrayal again. She pictured him, his thinning red hair and tortoiseshell glasses, as he’d asked her: How is she, your mom? Which was a fucking joke, because he obviously knew way more about Rachel than Bel did.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything? Tell the police about Mr. Tripp?
They must have asked you questions like that, right?”
Sherry bristled, leaning against the refrigerator. “The police had looked into him already. Of course they had; his prints were all over the crime scene from when he found you. They cleared him.”
“Still,” Bel doubled down. “Shouldn’t you have told them?” “There can be value in not talking, Bel, honey. Think it through.” Bel tried to think it through, coming up blank.
Sherry sighed. “If I’d told the police what I thought about Julian Tripp, it would have only hurt us, your dad. Given the police another reason to point the finger at Charlie. They were already looking at him as a suspect, and I didn’t want to give them more reason to, a potential motive to have killed Rachel. Family first. Always.”
“Family first,” Bel agreed, grateful that Sherry’s first instinct had been to protect her dad. That was what Bel was trying to do now.
“Besides,” Sherry said, “it doesn’t matter now. Julian Tripp clearly didn’t kill her. Nobody did.”
But Aunt Sherry was wrong there; it did matter now. No, Mr. Tripp hadn’t killed Rachel, but he could have been involved some other way. Maybe he was the reason Rachel faked her disappearance, or maybe he’d
helped her, kept it secret all this time. Either way, Mr. Tripp was the key to unpicking Rachel’s lies, Bel was sure, and so was the knot in her gut.
If you need to talk about anything, Bel, Mr. Tripp had said, you know I’m right here.
Turns out, they did need to talk. And unlucky for him, Bel knew where he lived.
