YOU SEE SOMETHING AND YOU raise your hand.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a cigarette paper or a soda can. You see something and you raise your hand.

Don’t touch it, neither.

Just raise your hand.

The townspeople readied, their feet in the ford. Movement in line, twenty paces between, a hundred eyes down, but still, they held together, the choreography of the damned.

Behind, the town emptied, the echo of a long, pristine summer had been smothered by the news.

She was Sissy Radley. Seven years old. Blond hair. Known to most, Chief Dubois did not need to hand out photographs.

Walk held the furthest side. Fifteen and fearless, his knees shook with each step.

They marched the woodland like an army, cops led, flashlights swept, through the trees was the ocean, a long way down but the girl could not swim.

Beside Walk was Martha May. They had dated three months, confined to first base, her father was minister at Little Brook Episcopal.

She glanced over. “Still want to be a cop?”

Walk stared at Dubois, head down, last hope on his shoulders.

“I saw Star,” Martha said. “At the front with her father. She was crying.”

Star Radley, the missing girl’s sister. Martha’s best friend. They were a tight group. Only one was absent.

“Where’s Vincent?” she asked.

“I was with him before. He might be on the other side.”

Walk and Vincent were close like brothers. At nine they’d cut palms, pressed them together and sworn oaths of classless loyalty.

They said nothing more, just watched the ground, past Sunset Road, past the wishing tree, Chuck Taylors parting leaves. Walk focused so hard but still, he almost missed it.

Ten steps from Cabrillo, State Route One, six hundred miles of California coast. He stopped dead, then looked up and saw the line move on without him.

He crouched.

The shoe was small. Red and white leather. Gold-tone buckle.

A car on the highway slowed as it came, headlights traced the curve till they found him.

And then he saw her.

He took a breath and raised his hand.