“Let’s?” she asks, not saying the word together but thinking it.
He nods eagerly, grabs his phone, and grins at her. “Yeah, we’d better get going.” He strides back over to her. “I’ll even drive.”
She makes a motion for him to follow her out the door, trusting that he will follow. And he does.
By the time they arrive at the Lewis home, the sheriff is there, and the crowd has scattered. Hal York stands in the front yard, an imposing silhouette looking down at a couple of characters. Framed in the doorway, under his porch light, Cordell Lewis watches. The expression on his face is somewhere between fear and shame. Laurel wonders if he can ever hope to have a normal life in this town. She wonders if he is truly innocent in the disappearance of Annie Taft. The timing, anyone can admit, is suspect. Even if he didn’t directly do it, she wonders if he could’ve arranged for someone else to do it.
They watch as the sheriff ushers the men into the back of his car, then briefly speaks to Cordell Lewis before leaving. Laurel cannot hear what he says, of course, but she can’t help but wonder if he is apologizing on behalf of the town. She hopes so. Cordell Lewis goes inside, closes the door behind him. Sheriff York gets into his car and drives away. Laurel and Damon sit in silence for a moment before she speaks up. She is bone tired, but she’s not ready to go home yet. There is something in her that does not want this night to end. Maybe it’s the excitement of all that has happened; maybe it’s that she and Damon are actually getting along. Whatever it is, she wants to stretch it out just a little longer.
“Wanna go see what’s happening at Faye Wilkins’s house?” she asks.
He gives her an inquisitive look. “Faye Wilkins? Why?”
She gives him a knowing smile. “Because something is always going on at her house.”
He glances at the clock on the dashboard at the same moment that he turns the key in the ignition. “Faye Wilkins’s house, huh?”
She nods.
“You’re in luck,” he says. “I just happen to know the way.”
The clock reads 1:48 a.m. when they turn in to the cul-de-sac where Faye’s house is located, the headlights sweeping across two figures embracing in the driveway. As they drive past, Laurel peers through the dark glass to get a better view. She makes a noise that is somewhere between a squeal and a shriek when she sees who it is. “Pull away! Pull away!” she says, and Damon guns the engine in a hasty retreat. Laurel looks back to see the two figures, separate now, scurrying up the sidewalk, heads tucked in shame, as they try to escape inside the house.
Damon drives for a bit, then pulls over and kills the engine. He looks over at her. “Was that . . . ?” he asks, his eyes wide.
She starts to laugh. She doesn’t realize she is going to until the laughter bubbles out of her, a hysterical force that has been building inside her over these last few days, destined to emerge at an unspecified time in an undetermined way. It could’ve been a cry or a scream, but instead it is laughter. She covers her mouth to try to stop. She knows this is inappropriate. Not to mention unprofessional. Damon is the one who’s supposed to be acting this way. Not her.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s not funny.” She closes her eyes to center herself. This is a missing person investigation. She is covering this story. Two people making out in a driveway is not a laughing matter, especially when those two people are the best friend and fiancé of the bride. But then the image of the two of them turning around in shock, their eyes round like cartoon characters, reenters her mind, and she starts laughing all over again.
Damon gives her a quick, sympathetic smile. He almost looks like he pities her. She is about to say something about how he of all people should not be judging her when their eyes meet, and his effort to keep a straight face fails. He starts to laugh, too. At first it’s just a chuckle, followed by another chuckle, but he quickly lapses into an outburst of uncontrollable laughter. Every time they try to get it together, one of them looks at the other, and they collapse into hysterics again. It dawns on her, as they laugh, that she’s not sure they even know what they’re laughing at anymore. They’re just laughing. By the time they collect themselves, her sides are hurting and her jaw muscles ache.
They are silent and still for a moment. When she looks over at him, Damon playfully shields his eyes. “Don’t you dare try to get me going again,” he says. He exhales. “Man, I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.” He scrunches up his shoulders and makes a mock-serious face. “Always working, being so busy and responsible. Being an adult.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, and rolls her eyes. She thinks about it for a moment. “It wasn’t even that funny.” She pictures their shocked faces one more time, the matching surprised looks frozen in place as the headlights exposed them. “Well,” she amends, “it was funny. But not that funny.”
He looks toward the roof of the car, thinking. “Eh, it was pretty funny. They were busted, and they knew it.” He shakes his head. “Plus I think that we both needed to laugh. Things have been pretty . . . intense lately.”
He looks at her, and something in her face makes him amend his statement. “I mean, with the case and all. The missing bride and the competing outlets wanting the story. You know, intense with that.”
He stops talking and swallows, and even though it’s fairly dark in the car, her vision has adjusted enough to see his eyes imploring her for reassurance that he hasn’t crossed some line. A thousand thoughts swirl in her mind, mostly that she wishes she could just be out of this car and inside already, away from this moment in this dark car with the guy who used to be a pest but is now her boss but tonight has felt more like a friend.
She finds herself thinking about the small space between them, how easy it would be to lean forward and cross it. If one of them just moved even a few inches, the other could move, too, and then it would be them kissing like the couple they saw moments ago. It would be them acting on something that wouldn’t happen in the light of day. It would be something wonderful and awful, wrong and right at the same time. It would be—
Headlights go past them, illuminating both their faces. She feels as though the thoughts she has been entertaining have been exposed and is suddenly self-conscious. She makes herself speak, and with the sound of her voice, her silly fantasy disappears, back to the recesses of her mind where it belongs. As the car goes past, she realizes it is the sheriff in his truck.
“Wow, this is a busy place tonight,” she says, gesturing to the vehicle.
“Maybe something’s going on,” Damon says.
“Do you think . . . ,” she begins, but she doesn’t finish the thought, doesn’t say, They’ve found her. She hates thinking it, can’t bring herself to utter it. She’s been constructing the happy ending in her mind every day since the moment she realized Annie was truly missing. She’s prepared to write that story, the one that fits. Annie deserves a happy ending. Laurel can’t imagine accepting anything less.
She is coming to understand a truth about journalism: no matter how much her mind wants to rush ahead to the resolution, she must wait for the rest of the story to emerge. To start writing the end before you know the middle will lead only to bitter disappointment. She has no control over any part of the story because, though she may be reporting it, she isn’t the one writing it.
JUNE 1
WEDDING DAY
Laurel
She pauses at the edge of the area where the searchers have gathered. They are anxious to receive instructions and fan out to look for Annie. Laurel only half listens to what the sheriff is saying as she surveys the crowd. She is still bleary-eyed from her late night with Damon, but she couldn’t miss covering this story. He has said he will catch up with her here after he’s had a shower. She does not wait on him, though. There is work to be done. She knows the other news outlets will be here, too, and she is using her hometown advantage to coax some quotes out of Ludlow citizens. She’s already off to a good start, getting input from Annie’s childhood Sunday schoo
l teacher, an old friend from her Girl Scouts troop, and the boy who took Annie to the high school prom.
From the looks of things, the whole town has shown up for the search party. In spite of the reason for the gathering, the scene has the feel of an outdoor festival. Local restaurants have sent over doughnuts, biscuits, and coffee for the searchers. The police circulate within the crowd, watching, surmising, and conferring with one another, moving and pausing, moving and pausing. They are, she knows, keeping a lookout for anyone who seems suspicious. If Kenny Spacey isn’t guilty, then there is a possibility that the person involved with Annie’s disappearance could be here. Just across from her, Laurel can see several search and rescue dogs. Their handlers cinch their leashes tighter, to keep control.
She has heard they’ve already done some searching with the dogs and come up empty. But this is a very large, very wooded area, and Annie could be anywhere or nowhere. They are hoping that, with the extra man power, untrained though these people are, they can cover more ground. The sheriff has cautioned that just because Annie’s car was found in the area doesn’t mean she will be. And yet, there is anticipation in the air. The dogs tilt their snouts up and sniff, as if they can smell the anticipation, too.
A woman standing nearby catches Laurel’s eye and gives her a tight smile, polite but tense. Laurel takes the overture as the opening she needs and walks over to the woman. “Hello,” she says, giving her warmest, most reassuring smile. She extends her hand. “I’m Laurel Haines, and I’m a reporter with the Ludlow Ledger. I’d love to get a quote from you about the search. And, maybe, about Annie Taft. Do you know her?”
The woman’s politeness turns to wariness. Instead of meeting Laurel’s gaze, she scans the perimeter as if she’s searching for the nearest exit. Not finding a way out, she stutters a response. “Oh—oh, I j-just . . .” She throws her hands up. “I just came because I felt bad for her, you know, and for the family.” She lowers her hands and her voice. “I mean, they’re supposed to be having a wedding today.”
She pulls a miserable face, then rearranges her features to look merely sorrowful. “I don’t know them or anything. I mean, I did go to Faye’s shop to get my hair cut a few years ago, but that’s as far as it goes.” She shrugs. “I just wanted to do what I could to help.”
She looks at Laurel, and her eyebrows go from two arches to one straight line of concern. “You didn’t write anything down,” she says. “Is that not what you wanted?” She looks like a student concerned about her test grade.
Laurel stifles a smile and taps her forehead with her index finger. “I’ll remember it,” she tells the woman.
For a moment, the woman forgets the seriousness of the situation and gives Laurel a relieved laugh. “Well, I’m glad you will, ’cause I have no idea what I just said.”
Laurel pulls out her notepad, holds up her pen with an official stance. “Tell me your name so I’ll be sure to get it right.”
“Oh, well, I don’t know if I want my name in the paper . . .” Her voice trails off as she looks around at her fellow townspeople. “I mean, it’s not like I have any connection to the bride.”
Laurel also surveys the crowd. The atmosphere has become more frenzied as more people have arrived. Some have brought their older children, who are happily stuffing their mouths with the doughnuts that have gone uneaten and are now glassy-eyed and hyper from the sugar. One of the search dogs rises up on his hind legs and paws at the air like a rearing stallion. There are so many men here, she thinks. And any one of them could be the man who took Annie. The sheriff grips the pistol on his hip and looks tense. At that moment, his eyes meet hers across the crowd of people, and he gives her a nod of recognition.
“I really should go,” the woman says apologetically. Laurel can see her consider something. She holds up a finger. “You know who you should talk to . . .” She stops speaking as she scans the crowd again. She points surreptitiously and lowers her voice. “See that lady right over there?” She indicates a woman standing by the coffee table, holding an empty cup as she waits for her turn. Laurel could use a cup of coffee herself.
“Yes,” Laurel says. “Who is she?”
“Her name is Sue Quinn. She was Annie’s mother’s best friend.” She lowers her voice, which makes it hard for Laurel to hear her with all the noise. “You know about her mother, right?”
Laurel nods.
Nearby, a frazzled-looking mother runs through the crowd calling a boy’s name. “Daniel!” the beleaguered woman hollers, her eyes darting to the right and left as she takes in the crowd, as if she is surprised to find them all there. Laurel watches for a moment as the woman runs over to Sheriff York, grips his arm, her face pleading. Something’s up over there, she thinks. But she is not here to find a new story. Annie’s story is national news. This is just another kid who wandered off. She turns back to her interview subject.
The woman hasn’t even noticed that Laurel’s attention momentarily strayed. She is too busy shaking her head at the misfortune that hangs over Annie Taft. “So sad,” she says. “And now this.” She sighs and looks heavenward.
Laurel needs to wrap up this particular interview. The search parties will soon head into the woods, and then her interview subjects will be harder to find. The woman looks back at Laurel, remembering herself. She raises her eyebrows. “Sue always maintained that they sent the wrong man to prison. She said the police were protecting someone, but no one would listen to her. She just gave up and shut up after a while. But I know she’s happy about Cordell Lewis’s release. The wheels of justice turned slowly, but they turned.” She smiles and points at Laurel’s notebook. “You can write that down if you want.”
Obediently, Laurel does. When she looks up again, the woman has walked away, slipping beside a man who puts his arm around her protectively. She gives Laurel a little wave as if to say, We’re done talking now. Laurel never got her name. But she did get another name: Sue Quinn. She’d read about Lydia’s best friend in her research about the murder, tried to locate her to interview when she wrote the initial story about Cordell Lewis’s release. But she’d had the name Susan Reed, not Sue Quinn. She must’ve gotten married, changed her name, tried to move on—move past—what happened to her best friend.
Laurel walks quickly, grateful that the coffee line is long. She slides in behind Sue Quinn and gives her the same disarming smile she gave the other woman. It worked before; maybe it will work now. But Sue only presses her lips into a thin line, giving her an obliging smile before she turns her back on Laurel.
Laurel waits a few seconds. Then says, “A great turnout today.” She hopes that Sue Quinn will respond. But she doesn’t. She tries again. “I wonder if they expected this many people.”
Sue turns and scans Laurel’s face with a dismissive glance. She shrugs in response to Laurel’s question and turns her back again. Laurel musters up her courage and taps Sue on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” she says, her voice hesitant. “You’re not . . . Sue Quinn, are you?”
Sue looks over her shoulder and squints at Laurel. “I don’t believe I know you, honey,” she says.
“I tried to find you,” Laurel says. It is not what she intended to say, but it’s what comes out. Sue’s eyes widen in confusion. She takes a step away. But now that it’s out there, Laurel goes with it. She fumbles for an explanation. “I’m—I—wrote the article about Cordell Lewis’s release a few days ago?” She extends her hand, gambling on the fact that Sue’s good southern upbringing will oblige her to respond in kind. She’s bet correctly. Sue grips her hand briefly, then lets go. “I’m Laurel Haines, a reporter for the Ludlow Ledger.”
Sue Quinn nods, seemingly unfazed by the news that the woman she’s speaking with is a reporter. “I know your people,” Sue explains. “We go way back.” Laurel wonders if perhaps she should’ve pressed her mother for more about what she remembers from when Lydia was murdered. But Glynnis claimed not to know anything at all.
Now Sue Quinn is standing in front of her. L
aurel goes for broke, fudging on the next part. “In my research, I saw something that said you believed that Cordell Lewis wasn’t guilty. I would’ve liked to get your feelings about his release,” she says. She acts as if the story is over, no longer news, so it’s just girls chatting after the fact.
Sue Quinn eyes her as if she is not sure if she can believe her. And Laurel sees in that moment that so much time has gone by and so much has changed that Sue simply doesn’t care anymore.
“None of that matters anymore,” Sue says. “Cordell might finally be free. But Annie is missing.”
“Yes,” Laurel finds herself agreeing.
It is Sue’s turn in line, and she thrusts her cup under a nearly empty urn. Laurel helps her tip the urn forward to get the last of the coffee out. Sue thanks her and starts to walk away.
“Could I get a quote from you now?” Laurel takes a chance before Sue can disappear into the crowd. She hears the note of hope in her voice, how childish she sounds. But in the moment, she thinks, it doesn’t matter. It is childish hope that has brought them all there. Innocent optimism that happy endings are still possible has drawn them all to these woods. They will holler Annie’s name over and over, their voices startling animals and echoing off trees, hoping against hope that one of them will get a response.
Sue turns back. “A quote?” she asks, her eyebrows forming two matching arches over each eye. She is a beautiful woman. Laurel bets she was something else twenty-three years ago. She and Lydia were probably quite a pair, turning heads wherever they went. In her mind, she can picture them, pushing baby Annie in a stroller, pretending they don’t see the men’s glances as they talk and laugh, their heads inclined toward each other. The only thing that could distract the two of them, Laurel imagines, was Annie.
“About Annie,” she says. “About the search.”
Sue lowers her coffee cup. The steam does a little dance as it lifts toward the sky and dissipates into the air. Laurel waits, knowing not to rush her. But then a whistle blows, rushing them both. They turn in unison to the source of the whistle. The K-9 officer is waving that it’s time to get into groups, to fan out, to look for Annie. Sue looks over her shoulder at Laurel.
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