“Lucinda,” Jonah said. He wrapped his bathrobe tighter and glanced out at the road. No deputy car or TV van was out there yet this morning. “What are you doing here?”
“I miss her,” she said. Her tiny voice quaked. She was on the edge of tears. Jonah’s own grief now seemed a frivolous indulgence in the face of the girl’s anguish. How cruel these days must have been for Lucinda, whom Jonah had all but forgotten existed.
“Can I come in, Mr. B.?” Lucinda said, chewing her hair.
“I don’t know. I—” He felt nervous bringing her into his home. The place was a wreck with laundry and stale food and strewn newspapers.
“I have to tell you something,” she said.
“Let’s sit out here on the porch swing,” he offered.
The morning air was brisk, but it did little to wake his slumbering and befuddled mind, the dream of Sally lingering. The morning’s glary, soupy gray light seemed to alter his depth perception.
Jonah and Lucinda sat on the swing, each at opposite ends. Her feet did not quite reach the porch floor.
A woodpecker flitted toward the three trees Jonah and Rebecca had planted when Sally was born, a tree each for Sally, Jonah, and Rebecca.
“Did you get off the school bus here?” Jonah said.
“There is no school today.”
“What day is it?”
“Wednesday, Mr. B.,” Lucinda said, giving him a queer look: You’re so silly. She glanced at his bathrobe. “Wednesday afternoon.”
“But there’s no school?”
“School is closed because people are searching.”
“Oh. Of course it is. Of course they are.” Strange. He’d thought somehow it was Sunday morning.
Lucinda stretched her legs from the very edge of the swing and pushed with her tiptoes to rock it, then sat back.
“Sally saw a man in the woods,” Lucinda announced.
Jonah jolted, turned to stare at her. His heart thundered.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“We both saw him, Sally and me,” she said. “In the woods. I know we weren’t supposed to be there. But—”
“What are you saying? The woods? A man in the woods? What man? Who? Tell me. Please, you need to tell me.” Somehow he’d moved closer to her without realizing it and now found her frail shoulders clutched in his hands. She glanced at his hands, winced. He loosened his grip and got up, knelt to look her face-to-face. “You need to tell me,” he said. “And your dad. Everything.” A man in the woods, following the girls. This had to be linked to the disappearances, didn’t it? This was the suspect they needed. The person to find. He needed to know where his wife and daughter were. He needed to know if they’d been taken, or—he needed to know why and how they’d disappeared. Who was to blame.
“I did tell my dad,” the girl said, “but I don’t think he believes me.”
“I believe you. All that matters is that I believe you.”
“I can tell you believe me. I thought you might want to come with me to see her.”
“See her?”
“Sally, in the pit.”
Jonah stood, light-headed; his head swam and his heart skittered, seemed about to give out. “What pit? Sally, what are you talking about?”
“I’m not Sally, Mr. B., I’m Lucinda.”
“Lucinda, right. I know. I know. Lucinda.”
“Me and Sally found it. The pit. Near some of the old mines.”
“But what man? You’ve got to tell me, what man?” Jonah loomed over the girl. Why had he not been told about this? Why had Lucinda kept this from him? Why was he always in the dark, goddamn it, why hadn’t Maurice informed him of this development? “When did you tell your daddy?” he said.
“Last night.”
“Okay.” Jonah needed to call Maurice right now and find out if there was anything to this. “Tell me more about the man.”
“I never saw his face, or much except for his boots, or what I thought were his boots. They must have been. I heard a branch snap. I saw boots. But Sally, she saw him a couple times when she was in the woods alone. It was our secret. He was. And the pit. We knew we’d be in big trouble for being in the Big Woods.” Lucinda continued to prattle on about the man, or what she thought was a man. With each passing second she seemed less and less certain of what she saw, and Jonah needed her to be sure. Certain. Absolutely certain.
“I’m going now,” Lucinda said, hoisting up her backpack. “I packed cheese and crackers and brought a thermos of milk. You want to come find Sally with me?”
“I better call your dad first. Is he out searching or—”
“No.” Lucinda shot up. The swing rocked and caught her in the knees, knocked her down. She popped up, face pinched with a child’s obstinacy. “He thinks I made it up. I know he does.”
“You stay here,” Jonah said and marched inside to use the phone. As he dialed the phone, he glanced out the kitchen window to see Lucinda darting out of the driveway and into the road, beelining for One Dollar Bridge.