Natalie barely got six hours of sleep before it was time to go to work again. She took a shower, got dressed, gulped down her coffee, and drove across town to the police station. Luke had put Detective Peter Murphy in charge of the search-and-rescue mission. The more she got to know Murphy, the more she liked him. In his midforties, he had slick dark hair, a dour sense of humor, and heavy, Muppetlike eyebrows. He was insatiably curious and knew a lot of trivia.
“Sometimes they show up, Natalie,” Murph said by way of a greeting. “You never know. Last year a hiker went missing in the park, and we searched for three days before discovering he was at home in Alabama with his family.” He shrugged. “You have to think positive.”
“How many volunteers showed up?” she asked.
“Thirty-five so far, including a retired veteran of the National Park Service and the vice president of a volunteer SAR organization from Vermont. The phones are ringing off the hook. We’ll probably have a hundred more by this afternoon.”
“Good,” she said. “Where’s the starting point for the operation?”
“The Hadleys’ farm, the point last seen. We’ll be increasing our range concentrically,” he explained. “We’ve also got searchers stationed at the ten containment points—all of the places Bunny was known to frequent, like the A and P. They’ll remain in those positions while the search is ongoing, in case she shows up. We’re also going door-to-door, asking about potential sightings and handing out missing person posters. We’ve got a separate hotline for any new leads.”
“What can I do?” Natalie asked.
“We’re looking for volunteers to replace our guys in six to eight hours … we’re doing rotating shifts.”
“Okay, I can put in a few hours later today.”
“Bunny’s gonna be just fine,” Murphy said.
“Those are comforting words, Murph.”
“You have to learn to relax, Natalie. I’m reading this book called Zen Anus. It teaches you how to relax your asshole. It says that if you can relax your asshole, then everything else will fall into place.”
She laughed. “Don’t let this define you.”
“I’ll try not to. See you later.”
She headed for the elevators and rode one down to the first floor. The station was crowded with volunteers and off-duty officers. On her way out the back entrance, Jimmy Marconi came strolling over.
“Natalie, how are you doing?” he asked.
“Thanks for volunteering, Jimmy.”
“No problem. Samuel and the guys are here, too. We’ve got our people going deep into the woods, checking out clearings and creek beds that are off the main hiking trails. We’ve got dogs, but no helicopter—too sunny out.”
Natalie nodded. Helicopters were not only expensive, they were less effective on sunny days like today, which cast too many shadows on the ground, obscuring the target.
“I hear Bunny’s disappearance is connected to the Missing Nine?” Jimmy said, rubbing a red spot on his chin. “Is that true?”
“We’re trying to tease out the details, but we recently found an unmistakable pattern to some of the old cases.”
“What kind of pattern?” Jimmy asked.
“We need to dive further into it, but there were clues we’d managed to overlook.”
“Clues connecting the nine cases? Like what?”
“Come on, Jimmy. I’m not willing to make any judgment calls yet.”
He nodded, always courteous and respectful, but his face was tense with curiosity. “Sure, Natalie. I understand. But it might be helpful to the team if we knew this was the work of a serial offender, since they tend to be highly organized and forensically aware.”
“All I can say is … it’s a possibility.”
“Okay.” He nodded, crossing his arms. “Good to know.”
“Thanks again, Jimmy. I’ll be joining the search later on.”
“We’re doing group text messages to keep in touch with the volunteers,” he said, taking out his phone. “Do we have your number?”
“I think so.” She gave it to him again anyway, and they parted ways.
Natalie got in her car and drove over to St. Paul’s Church, where half the town had shown up for Daisy’s funeral. Every available officer who was not on the SAR mission was tasked with crowd control. It was their job to ensure that the church parking lot wasn’t blocked by the army of satellite vans, and that the mourners weren’t ambushed by obstinate news crews. They were also supposed to note down any suspicious-looking vehicles slowly driving past the church, or any oddly behaving funeral attendees.
An audience of 250 people was packed inside the church, with a spillover crowd of 200-plus mourners outside. Natalie’s assignment was to develop a behavior profile of those in attendance—specifically Ethan Hathaway, Brandon Buckner, India Cochran, and her closest friends, along with Kermit Hughes, Owen Kottler, and Benjamin Lowell.
The mayor greeted Natalie at the church door as if he were campaigning for his next election. He wore his navy-blue Chamber of Commerce jacket and shook hands vigorously. Ms. Agatha Williamson played a moving “Amazing Grace” on the pipe organ. Brandon was surrounded by friends and family in the front row. His lawyer was in attendance, taking up valuable real estate. Natalie couldn’t get anywhere near them.
Pink roses, lilies, and white orchids covered the chrome-handled oak coffin like a parade float. Daisy’s parents moved with halting steps down the aisle toward their pew. Jasmine Forester wore a black dress with a white lace collar. She steadied herself by clinging to her husband’s trembling arm.
Grace and Ellie were seated in one of the middle rows. Grace wore a subdued dove-gray outfit and kept a tissue pressed to her lips. Ellie had tamed her wild black hair, combing it behind her ears and securing it with a pink headband. Lindsey Wozniak sat next to Grace. She wore a Christian Dior dress and gold jewelry, unafraid to flaunt her success. Bunny hadn’t shown up—a faint hope on Natalie’s part.
Ethan Hathaway sat in the back row, looking shell-shocked and isolated. A few rows in front of him, India Cochran sat next to her dad, who kept checking his phone messages. Berkley and Sadie were nearby with their families. None of Riley’s friends had shown up to honor their dead teacher.
Natalie stood in back and observed them all, taking mental notes.
The service was straightforward. The Reverend Thomas Grimsby gave a heartfelt eulogy. “Daisy is with God, for … surely, if there’s a waiting room in heaven, then she’ll be the first in line.” There were tearful remembrances. “Today we celebrate her life.”
When it was over, Brandon and five pallbearers slow-walked the coffin out of the church toward the waiting hearse. A solemn parade of mourners followed, and then everyone got in their cars and joined the funeral procession across town toward the cemetery.
Forty-five minutes later, hundreds were gathered beneath the sprawling oaks of Pioneer Memorial Park. Everything shimmered in the stained-glass sun. The burial mound was at the top of a hill. There were heavy bulldozer imprints on the grass. They stood among carved limestone markers, granite headstones, and ornate brownstone urns with Gothic and Egyptian motifs. Between two large floral arrangements was a propped easel displaying an airbrushed photograph of Daisy.
“She looks so happy,” everyone agreed.
People kept their voices low and their tissues handy. There were anguished faces and lowered eyes. Carved into Daisy’s brand-new marble headstone was an angel, her wings spread protectively over the hole in the ground. Natalie held back and observed relatives and family friends closest to the grave site. Brandon stood as rigid as a monolith. Grace was sobbing silently into her tissue. Lindsey and Ellie were trying to comfort her.
Daisy’s students and fellow teachers were holding heart-shaped balloons, which they planned to release at the end of the ceremony. The reverend spoke at length about Daisy’s accomplishments, and then others stepped forward to eulogize her.
Jasmine Forester’s good breeding showed in her comportment—head held high, chin thrust forward, breathing rapidly through her nose. “Daisy used to light up a room,” she said. “Why would anyone want to harm such a beautiful human being?” She ended by saying, “We’ve been through hell. We need closure.” She glanced at Natalie. “We want to know what happened to our precious girl.”
Next, the pallbearers placed the coffin on a contraption that painstakingly lowered Daisy and her unborn child into the ground. Natalie listened to the mechanical hum of the lowering device and watched the casket disappear behind the stacks of sod.
Feelings welled up, threatening to overpower her. She recalled Willow’s razor-straight bangs and her long ashen hair catching the sunlight and blowing loose around her shoulders. Elegant, articulate Willow used to keep junk food in the trunk of her car, an old Chevy Nova they called the Snoozemobile because of its lousy acceleration. Joey had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday, and Willow used to love cruising around in that thing. She’d taken Natalie, Grace, and Daisy for rides in the mountains, and they’d crank the radio and sing along to Laura Nyro’s “Wedding Bell Blues.” Whenever they stopped to explore a hiking trail, Willow would take deliberate, delicate steps across the rocks, as if it was a decision she’d made to be graceful.
Now prayers were said. More tears were shed. Finally, the mourners took turns scooping handfuls of dirt onto the casket, and the students and teachers released their balloons. Silver hearts filled the sky.
After it was over, Natalie tracked down Reverend Grimsby. “Now’s probably not the time,” she apologized, “but Daisy made an appointment to see you about an urgent matter, I understand.”
“Yes,” he said with warm gray eyes.
“Do you know what she wanted to discuss with you?”
He pursed his lips and glanced around. “I couldn’t possibly share her confidences with you, but I can say she wanted to speak about spiritual matters.”
“Reverend, please. This is important.”
“The good news is … she was coming back to the church. She admitted she’d been drifting away. But the baby was drawing her back to God. I saw it as a positive sign. Now if you’ll excuse me…”
“Anything else you can tell me?” Natalie asked.
“No, I’m sorry. Now if you’ll excuse me, Detective.” He disappeared into the crowd.
There was a commotion behind them. Natalie turned to face the Revolutionary Monument, beyond which Dominic Skinner and a few friends were stepping out of their four-wheelers onto the cemetery access road. She hurried toward them. Dominic and his crew weren’t dressed for a funeral—he wore camouflage pants, an Incubus T-shirt, a backward baseball cap, and a ramped attitude. The others were dressed in a similarly disrespectful fashion.
“Dominic, what are you doing here?” she said in a hushed voice.
Pent-up fury roiled behind the ex-con’s eyes. “My son’s still in a coma. They don’t know if he’ll ever come out of it. Brandon used excessive force. He acted like a thug, not a law officer. He needs to pay for what he did,” he said angrily.
“Let’s wait and see what the internal investigation says,” she told him, a contraction of muscles pushing an acrid taste into her mouth.
“Oh, right. I’m supposed to buy that? The police investigating the police?” he spat, maintaining his menacing posture, feet firmly planted on the cracked asphalt. The three other men stood mute and immobile behind him, like a primitive diorama of alpha males.
“I’m not going to argue with you,” Natalie said. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
“He should be locked up in jail,” Dominic said in a tortured voice. “Riley was trying to get away, and Brandon went after an unarmed child, and you know it.”
“Quit spreading rumors. You’re only making things worse.”
“Look at those reporters back there,” he said through gritted teeth. “Nobody wants to talk to me about my son, who’s also a victim.”
Her hands were shaking. She felt a sharp, sympathetic pinch. If Riley died, then Dominic would enter another dimension, an alien world where he’d spend the rest of his life imagining what could’ve been. Parents of murdered children spent their entire lives with their hands pressed against a thick, impenetrable membrane, trying to see through to the other side.
Above their heads a canopy of leaves quivered in the breeze, but despite the brilliance of the sky, today felt as oppressive as a dungeon.
“You need to go home, Dominic,” Natalie told him gently.
He shook his head stubbornly. “I have every right to be here.”
“Think of the Foresters,” she pleaded. “They’re also grieving. They lost their daughter—at least your son has a chance. Let them bury her in peace.”
He looked stunningly worn-out.
“Think of Daisy’s mother,” she pleaded. “This is her time. Please, Dominic.”
After a tense moment, he gave a reluctant nod, and he and his men slowly retreated, unwinding their hostility and saving it for another day.
Natalie’s limbs felt rubbery as she stood her ground, waiting for the four-wheelers to take off. She watched them drive toward the cemetery gates, past row upon row of headstones stretching off into the distance. Harriet Truitt, Ezekiel Pastor, Clementine Leacock. Every Halloween, Pioneer Memorial had to hire extra guards to patrol the park so the kids wouldn’t vandalize the graves. The cemetery gates were locked at night, but there were gaps in the ornate, wrought-iron fence where a skinny teen could sneak through.
Her phone buzzed. It was Augie Vickers.
“The court order came through for Riley’s phone service providers. I sent you the link—did you get it yet?”
She checked her emails. “Yeah, got it.”
“Subscriber billing and account information, call-detail records, cell tower locations, plus all stored voice-mail messages, photographic and video images. We’ve been combing through the data, and the only thing of significance so far are his locations for Wednesday afternoon.”
“Tell me,” she said anxiously.
“Bear in mind, this is only accurate to within about three hundred feet, but it appears Riley was en route to the cabin at three fifteen P.M. when he made a pit stop at the supermarket. Looks like he left the cabin at around four oh-six and drove to the east side, where he stopped in the vicinity of Berkley Auberdine’s house between four twenty-eight until five oh-two. Then he left at five thirty-five, heading north, at which time he must’ve turned off his phone, or else the battery ran out of juice.”
“What about the rest of the evening?”
“Nothing. That’s it. We’re still sorting through the data. Anyway, the lieutenant wants me to reinterview Riley’s buddies about Haymarket Field, exactly what they talked about that night, what was his frame of mind, et cetera.”
“Okay. Thanks for the update, Augie.” She hung up and sensed a shifting of the wind. Her hands were trembling from caffeine withdrawal. Above her head, the spring leaves quivered in the breeze. The burial service was over. Everyone was dispersing. She searched the crowd but couldn’t find Grace and Ellie anywhere.
Then she spotted India’s silver Lexus gliding along the access road toward the cemetery gates. She would have to hurry if she wanted to catch up.