by Sara Shepard
“But that’s good,” Madison said. “The sister is real. Maybe Viola knows something.”
“They could be working together,” Seneca said cautiously, explaining how Chelsea said Brett used to talk to Viola behind closed doors. “We need to reach her.” Anxious, she composed a new message to Viola, piggybacking on the one she’d sent only an hour before. I know we don’t know each other, and I apologize for all these e-mails, but seriously, we need to talk to you about your brother. It’s very important.
Her phone made a whoosh as the e-mail was sent. “I wish there was another way to contact her except for this random e-mail address,” she sighed. “For all I know, these messages are going to her spam.”
Madison snapped her gum. “If we could access Brett’s phone records, maybe we could research all the numbers he called and find Viola that way.”
Maddox’s eyebrows shot up. “Chelsea saw Brett talking to Viola on his landline in his condo. Do we know anyone at the phone company?”
“I’ll check one of our channels at CNC,” Seneca said. The site was filled with crime-solving junkies, many of whom had careers in law enforcement, medical examination, and private investigation. “I think RedBird94 might be able to access phone records.”
“Sweet,” Maddox said.
Seneca felt better, too. She could still hear Brett’s voice echoing in her ears—teasing, laughing, totally in control. But if she had her way, he wouldn’t be in control for long. She was going to find him. And maybe, just maybe, this would all finally be over.
“THAT’S IT, MADDOX, I’m never going on a road trip with you again,” Madison grumbled as the Jeep pulled into a parking lot in Catskill, New York, the following morning. “Since when did you acquire such road rage?” She slid out onto the blacktop. “I really thought you were going to drive over that Fiat on the highway.”
“He was in the passing lane going forty-five,” Maddox snapped. “Who does that?”
He felt so off today. It was because of all the running he’d skipped. His head felt murky and messy, and he could almost feel his legs tugging on him like a bored dog, asking why they couldn’t go out and play. It hadn’t felt quite right to go for a jog this morning, though—running was such a life-affirming activity, with all those big strides and his filling lungs and pumping heart, and it felt like a slap in the face to poor, cooped-up, traumatized Aerin. He worried Seneca would find the activity petty, too. Like he wasn’t taking things seriously.
Except now his teeth were gnashing and he couldn’t stop digging his nails into the fabric of his cargo shorts—he probably should have logged a couple miles. Running had always kind of been his Prozac.
He opened his car door. The air felt crisp and cool, like autumn had already arrived. Green mountains rose up around them, and every half mile there was a marker for another hiking trail. Unfortunately, earthy, woodsy places like this would forever remind Maddox of Camp Spruce Creek, where he’d gone between the ages of nine and twelve. The experience had been dreadful: rodents scurrying in the cabin walls all night, rumors about fingernails in the food, and he’d gotten lost on a hike once and had spent an hour walking around the woods in circles, freaked by every twig snap and strange shadow, panicked that he was never going to make it out alive.
Seneca’s phone beeped. She pounced on it, hope on her face, but then she scowled. “Not from Viola, I’m guessing?” Maddox asked.
“No,” Seneca mumbled. “Or from RedBird. But if anyone wants a fifty-percent-off card from Barnes and Noble, I’m your girl.”
“RedBird will get in touch,” Maddox assured her. Last night, in the room they all shared back in the Reeds Hotel in Avignon, Seneca had run down every lead they had on Brett…but she’d found very little. How could a person just dissipate into molecules? There had to be a trail of Brett somewhere.
On the other hand, Madison and Maddox had looked into Damien Dover and found a ton. They’d created a whole profile and timeline for Damien’s disappearance. In Maddox’s Google-stalking, he’d found out that the Dover family ran a place called Catskills Adventure; it sat at the mouth of a river, offered mountain bike and kayak rentals, and had ropes courses and a zip line that reminded him way too much of the one he’d nearly fallen off at Camp Spruce Creek. Now here they were. Two hundred miles north of Avignon. A whole different state. Tracking a missing kid that wasn’t Aerin.
The parking lot was mostly empty, but the place opened at eight a.m., which meant the Dovers were probably already here, getting ready for the Saturday tourists. Maddox peered at the place’s enormous wooden playground, giant water flume in which kids could pan for gold and other minerals, and retro ice cream stand. Had Sadie surreptitiously watched Damien here, biding her time until she could kidnap him?
“My heart goes out to the kid,” Maddox had told Seneca last night, as they both lay on the king-size bed—though many hand widths apart, two remote, lonely islands. He didn’t dare make a move until she said it was okay. He’d showed Seneca a recent picture of Damien. “I was just as skinny as he is when I was nine. Even had the same cowlick. And look! He’s crazy for Legos, and his favorite video game is Civilization—I loved that game. And you know what? I bet he’d love that What candy are you most like? game.” It was an inside joke from their web-chatting days—Seneca used to liken people in her life to brands of candy, which Maddox found adorable.
A slight smile appeared on Seneca’s face. “Maddox, we’re going to look into this case, okay? You don’t have to try to win me over with Damien details.”
“I just want you to want to look into it, too. I mean, just think—maybe looking into Damien will give us some insight into who Brett is. And don’t forget that while searching for Chelsea was a distraction, we did find her in the end. What if we get Damien and Aerin back? Wouldn’t that be a double win?”
“I know. I really do. It’s just frustrating doing Brett’s bidding, that’s all.” But then she placed her hand on Maddox’s shoulder. “We’re all on the same page, I promise.”
Now Seneca pointed to the only building on the property, which bore the establishment’s name and a sign that said Check in for your epic saga here! “Let’s do this.”
They walked toward the entrance. On the way, Maddox noticed a girl with dyed-pink hair and wearing an army surplus jacket sitting on a small hill between two pines. There was a huge camping backpack in her lap, and her hiking boots were held together by duct tape. He recognized her from some of the photos online, although her hair had been brown then.
He nudged Madison. “Is that Damien’s sister, Freya?”
Madison paused, looking the girl up and down. “Yes, I think so.”
Inside the building, big fans circulated the wood-smoke-scented air. An X Games pop-punk anthem played over the speakers, and signs listed the various services and rentals. Maddox noticed a man in a Crocodile Dundee hat and a red tee that said Catskills Adventure standing behind a counter. He had the same caterpillar eyebrows and tufty cinnamon-colored hair as the man in one of the video clips he’d watched, begging Damien’s captor to bring his son home.
“Help you?” Mr. Dover asked the group, giving them a watery smile.
“Um, hi.” Maddox stepped toward him. “We’re from a group online that investigates cold cases and often comes up with insights the police missed. You’re Mr. Dover, right? We heard about your son. We want to help.”
The man’s thin lips twitched. He glanced toward the snack bar. Just then, a woman Maddox recognized as Damien’s mom appeared from a back kitchen. Her Catskills Adventure tee pulled across her ample stomach. Strands of graying hair had fallen out of her ponytail.
“These people want to talk about Damien,” the man said to her in monotone.
Mrs. Dover went stiff. “No. If you want information, go to the police.”
Maddox shifted his weight. “But we heard the police don’t have any leads.”
Mrs. Dover glanced helplessly at her husband. “I told you to keep people like this o
ut of here, Harry.”
Mr. Dover held up his hands. “I didn’t tell them to come!”
Maddox noticed a flash at the window. The girl with the pink hair stood there, watching.
“Please go.” Mrs. Dover’s voice trembled as she turned back to them. “Please.” She pointed to the door. At that exact moment, an eager family who looked as though they’d bought out the REI store stepped inside. They stared at Maddox and the Dover parents apprehensively, as if they’d just walked in on a robbery.
Maddox backed out of the building. The sun was too bright on the sidewalk. A waft of manure-scented mulch assaulted his nostrils. This wasn’t a good start. Maybe Seneca was right—maybe they should just concentrate on Brett and only Brett.
But then he noticed a bolt of pink disappearing through the trees. Freya. “Hey!” he called. The girl didn’t turn. “Hey!” He started after her, then glanced over his shoulder and motioned for the others to follow. “It’s Damien’s sister. Come on!”
His sneakers slipped on the dewy path. Just inside the canopy of trees, the world darkened. Maddox shivered in the sharp, sudden drop in temperature. Freya’s pink hair flashed over a small rise in the trail, but when Maddox and the others made it over the hill, she was gone. He halted, looking around. Where the hell was she? The air was so silent and still. A shadow shifted to his right, and he jumped. Leaves rustled. Seneca cocked her head, an uneasy look on her face.
“This is the part in the movie where the aliens pop out and abduct us,” Madison whispered.
As if on cue, Freya emerged from behind a tree. Everyone jumped. Madison let out a scream. “What part of please leave don’t you people understand?” the girl yelled.
“It’s okay,” Maddox urged, his heart pounding in his ears. “We just want to talk to you. We want to help with your brother.”
Freya stared at them, nostrils flaring like some kind of wild animal. After a beat, she took a few steps back down the trail, then darted to the left. Everyone followed. The trail opened into another clearing, and there the group saw a large tent. There was a little stone campfire in front of it, and from a clothesline hung a bunch of rusty bells and tin cans.
Freya noticed Maddox studying it. “That’s to keep the bears from eating my food.”
Madison made a freaked-out eep, but Maddox stood his ground. “Why won’t you let us help you?”
Freya waved her hand dismissively. “The police thought they could help, too. But guess what? They didn’t find shit.” Her expression hardened. “Get out of here.”
She was about to scramble into the tent, but then Seneca cried, “Wait.”
Freya turned.
“I know how it feels to be left in the dust by the authorities—when my mother was killed, the cops acted like assholes, mishandling evidence, not following the right leads, basically dropping the ball left and right, and we never brought the killer to justice.” Seneca paused a moment, letting Freya take this in. The girl’s mouth twitched, but her eyes were still cold. “We’re from Case Not Closed. It’s a real site with real people who solve cases the police have abandoned. We really do get results.”
Freya looked them up and down for a few long beats. Finally, she groaned. “God. Fine, okay?”
Seneca sank into one hip. “Are you going to actually talk, then?”
“Are you going to actually help?” Freya shot back.
“Tell us about what happened to your brother, and we’ll see what we can do.”
Freya flopped down outside the tent and motioned for the group to sit on a few logs strewn around the campfire. “One day Damien was here; the next day he wasn’t,” she droned. It sounded as though she’d given this speech many times. “They think it was our piano teacher, but I’m guessing that if you’re such experts, you already know that.”
“We do,” Maddox said quietly. “Sadie Sage.”
Freya wrinkled her nose. “It sounds like a fake name. That should have tipped me off.”
“Did you know her?” Seneca asked.
“Uh, yeah. I took lessons from her, too. Maybe I should have seen this coming.”
Maddox cocked his head, intrigued. “Why?”
“Well, she was…weird. Really into Halloween. Celebrated it all year round. She taught piano in this music facility a few towns over, and all the rooms were just generic classrooms with, like, instruments in them. But she decorated hers. It looked crazy. You’d be playing Beethoven beneath a large gargoyle and a skeleton wearing a witch’s hat. She had other weird stuff in there, too—a bunch of birdcages with no birds inside, tiny doll shoes all lined up on a windowsill, old surgical tools.”
Madison’s eyes widened. “What kind of tools?”
“Nothing harmful—they were behind glass, and nothing was sharp, but it was just…odd. Though when the cops first made the connection that Sadie had disappeared the same time Damien did, I was like, Oh, they only suspect her because she’s goth. They’re just judgmental, narrow-minded old people.”
“But maybe they were right?” Madison guessed.
Freya picked up a pinecone, peeled off its layers, and flicked them to the ground. “The cops told us that child predators often offer something tempting to kids, something they can’t resist. Which made me remember.” Her expression closed off, like she didn’t want to go on.
“Remember what?” Maddox asked.
Something rustled in the underbrush nearby and a bird let out a lonely cry. “Sadie talked about how she wanted to take her students to Orlando to visit the theme parks,” Freya said. “Damien was dying to go to Orlando, too—he used to watch all these YouTube videos about Universal Studios. He asked our parents if we could go, but it was too expensive. Maybe Sadie picked up on that. Maybe she surprised him with tickets.”
Seneca frowned. “Would he have just left with her, though? Without asking?”
“I guess, because he’s gone now, isn’t he?” Freya looked like she was either going to burst into tears or punch one of them.
Maddox cocked his head. “Why do you think Sadie kidnapped him? Did he fight with your parents a lot? Maybe that’s Sadie’s angle—she thought that by taking Damien away, she was ‘saving’ him from a bad situation?”
Freya rolled her eyes. “That is such a cop question.”
Maddox felt a twinge, wondering if Thomas had rubbed off on him. He made a mental note to call the hospital soon to see if Thomas had woken up yet.
“I don’t think she was trying to save him,” Freya went on. “I think she took him for another reason.”
“Which would be…what?” Seneca asked.
Freya pressed her lips together. “She really loved kids. Maybe wanted some of her own. And she seemed to really love my brother. I would catch her looking at him in this sort of marveling way, you know? Like she couldn’t believe he existed.”
Madison looked uncomfortable.
“It wasn’t, like, freaky,” Freya said quickly. “I didn’t get a vibe that she was one of those teachers who want to sleep with their students. It was more of a spiritual thing. It’s hard to explain.”
There was a long pause. Somewhere above the trees, Maddox heard an airplane. The wind shifted, and he caught the scent of Seneca’s coconut shampoo.
“I’m guessing she didn’t take him to Orlando?” Seneca asked.
“Nope. They took a bus to New York City. I guess they could have gotten on another bus to Orlando, but the bus company has no record of it. Maybe that bitch used a fake ID or stole someone’s car. Before the cops decided we weren’t worth it, they scanned tons of surveillance images from Universal, Disney, Six Flags—any park we could think of. Nothing came up.”
“Could they have stayed in New York City?” Maddox suggested.
Freya wrinkled her nose. “I hope not. Damien hates the city.”
“It would be hard to hide someone in New York City,” Seneca said. “There are so many surveillance cameras and cops. He might be somewhere more remote.”
“Or he’s dead.”
Freya’s voice had a daring, I-don’t-give-a-shit edge.
“I doubt it,” Maddox said.
Seneca’s head shot up. She shook her head ever so slightly. No.
But Freya was already turning to him, her expression one of begrudging hope. “Oh yeah? And how would you know?”
Maddox swallowed hard. He shouldn’t have said that. It’s not like Brett offered any proof. “I—I just meant that according to the profiling we’ve done, it doesn’t seem like she’s the type who’d kill him,” he stammered. “It’s of our opinion that she took him somewhere—but that he’s okay.”
Freya’s sarcastic frown was back. “Because you’re such the expert.”
Seneca drummed on her knees. “The police reports say she didn’t send any ransom notes.”
Freya shook her head. “She never reached out to us.”
“Is there anything they found out about Sadie that we could investigate ourselves?” Maddox asked. “Did she have friends we could talk to? People in the town who knew her well?”
“The cops told my parents that she had no friends.”
“She never got any phone calls during your lessons?” he pressed. “You never saw her out in public with anybody?”
“I don’t even remember her having a phone, and I never saw her out in town at all.” Freya smirked. “Now do you see why the cops dropped the case? There’s nothing to go on.”
Maddox gritted his teeth. “There has to be. People don’t just appear out of thin air. Sadie has to have a history. She has to have family, friends…from somewhere. The police could use that for leads.”
“Nope.” Freya smiled like she was about to get to a punch line. “Sadie’s records go back just three years, when she moved here. Before that, she doesn’t exist.”
The world went still. When Maddox looked up, Seneca was staring at him, probably thinking what he was thinking—that sounded a hell of a lot like someone else they knew.
They asked Freya a few more questions, mostly about what Sadie Sage was like during piano lessons—like a freaking piano teacher, what else?—and whether kids ever took lessons in her house—nope, and I have no clue where she lived, though I’m pretty sure the police know because I heard they searched her place and found it empty. Finally, Maddox stood and stretched his arms over his head. “Thanks for talking to us.”