We sat in silence in the cab of Roxy’s pickup, nursing coffee and fogging up the windows. The safe sat on the floor by my feet. Roxy turned on the defroster to once again clear the windshield, revealing the astronomy building in the blue morning light.
“I hate to ask again, but are you absolutely sure…”
I nodded. “I’d always hoped Anne was Tom’s. But seeing that picture of Steven and that cover photo of William…”
“Lynn, I’m going to say it again: We should be taking that safe to the FBI, or at the very least the local police. I watch enough Dateline. And we should go now.”
“We have no idea what we’re doing, let’s not pretend otherwise. How are we going to explain that we broke into his office and found it?”
“You had a hunch. And you proved to be right. And once the police see it, they’ll agree. So we need to leave this parking lot. The professionals need to see it. We don’t need to put it back.”
“The police aren’t going to buy this. Neither would the FBI.”
“Are you nuts? This seems to me to be the most tangible evidence anyone has come upon since William went missing.”
“But why? Why would he take William? It doesn’t make sense. I know something is wrong, but I can’t believe he would do it. Why he would do it? Steven researches missing people. He wouldn’t do anything to put a family through this.”
“Now we’re calling him Steven? And that’s the other thing,” Roxy huffed. “I don’t get how an astronomy professor is somehow this expert on missing people. If he taught criminal justice or something, I would get it.”
“I had hoped at this point you would figure it out, so I wouldn’t have to say it.”
“Well I’m old and I’m tired, so my usual razor-sharp mind is dulled a bit. He has a map of your property, Lynn. He has pictures of you and your family. He has the magazine with William’s picture. He’s obsessed with missing people. And while it’s hard for me to even say it, he’s likely William’s grandfather. But I get it; I get why you’re afraid to go to police with this, because of the can of worms it’s going to open—”
“You don’t get it. The reason I feel like I need more proof is because if I go to the police now, they will roll their eyes. Because of what Steven does.”
“He’s a professor—”
“He investigates alien abductions.”
Roxy choked on her coffee, then wiped her lips with the Starbucks napkin. “Pardon my French, but what the hell, Lynn.”
“I thought the same thing too, at the beginning. I couldn’t believe it. Who could believe it? Now do you understand? If I go to police and say, ‘I had an affair with a guy forty years ago, who believes in aliens, and I stole a safe out of his office, and he happens to have a lot of articles about me and my family, and I think that’s proof that he abducted my grandson,’ then you can see the problem. Because I don’t think he has my grandson, Roxy. But what if he knows … what happened to William?”
Roxy leaned back in her seat. “I should have gone to Little Rock.”
“Do you know what I remember so vividly about all those cases of missing people? That sometimes there was a phrase repeated over and over again by the people who either claim to have witnessed the abductions, or were the last to see the missing people: ‘The lights took them.’ Or some variation of that. And you know that’s the last thing Brian ever said. Yes, I know I’m desperate. Yes, I know this is hard to believe. It’s still hard for me to believe all the stupid things I did in this town. But I have to do something.…” I inhaled sharply, to stifle the tears.
“Oh, sweet girl.” Roxy reached over to place her hand on my knee. “I’m sorry for being such an ass. I know admitting all this has to be hard.”
“‘It’s the lies that undo us,’ that’s what I tell the girls, what I’ve always told the girls. And look what I’ve done. It all sounds so ridiculous, and I know it sounds crazy. But I thought if I came here and found Steven and begged him to tell me anything he’d uncovered in the last forty years about these missing people, maybe I could feel like I was doing something to help.”
“Lynn,” Roxy said, taking my hand. “Forty years ago you believed this junk—I mean this … research. And that’s OK. Lots of people believe in dumb stuff when they’re kids. Hell, until I was twenty-six, I believed that if I sent Elvis enough mental messages, that he would seek me out and find me on the strength of my love. May I ask, though, what in God’s name were you doing having an affair with some nutty professor who believes in little green men? I mean, all those maps and files? About alien abductions? Come on, Lynn.”
“This is why I wanted to come alone.” I opened up the truck door. “Stay in the truck, I’ll be back.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Roxy muttered, lifting the hem of her denim dress and sliding out her door.
I carried the safe, with a sweater draped over it, into the building, Roxy shuffling behind. The hallway of the professors’ offices was silent, and I set the safe down outside Steven’s door. Roxy grumbled to herself as she once again picked the lock.
I went in and slid the safe under the desk. Roxy looked around with renewed disdain at the maps. “What do we do now?”
“I need to find out where he may have gone—”
“Excuse me, but how did you get in here?”
A young man stood in the door. He wore dark-rimmed glasses and a flannel with a Morrissey T-shirt underneath.
“We’re housekeeping,” Roxy said with a smile.
“This office is supposed to be locked.”
“Perhaps you should mind your own business.” She smiled wider.
“This is my business. I’m Professor Richards’s graduate student. No one is supposed to be in here.”
Roxy sighed. “It is too early to be this annoying—”
“I’m an old friend of Professor Richards,” I said. “I’m trying to find him.”
“He’s not here.”
“Do you know when you expect him back?”
“I think you read the sign on the door before you broke in. He’s on leave.”
“It’s important that we find him. Does he have a cell phone? Or could you give me his address?”
“He keeps an unlisted number and doesn’t give out his address.”
“Are you his student or the head of his security detail?” Roxy asked.
“Could I give you my number? Perhaps you could pass it along to him?” I reached into my purse and quickly wrote it down on an old receipt.
“I suppose. But I need to know how you got in here.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Roxy snatched the paper out of my hands and thumped it against the chest of the student. “Here, take it and stick it in your Velcro wallet. Come on, Lynnie.”
I gave him a soft thanks as Roxy walked me down the hall. “We need to get the move on. Mr. Personality back there seems the type to call campus police. Tell me you didn’t write your full name or phone number on that sheet.”
“I most certainly did.”
“Really, Lynn,” she said, pressing her key fob to open the truck doors. “Why not give them all the proof they need to bust us for breaking in.”
“I don’t care at this point. I need to find Steven.”
“The police can take care of that.”
“I can’t go to police with this yet. You know why now.”
“Well, Google Agent Mulder, then. See where he lives. I’m going to that Shell station we passed to get us farther away from the scene of the crime.”
As she drove down the street, I pulled out my iPhone and stared helplessly at its shining screen. “I know how to use Google, of course, but where’s the symbol—”
“They’re called apps. Jesus, Lynn.” She took my phone. “Don’t go getting all senior citizen on me.”
“We are senior citizens. And thus, you cannot look at that phone and drive. There’s the gas station.”
Roxy parked, took off her glasses, and spent the next several minutes holding the phone a good one to two inches from her face, rapidly punching on the screen until she swore and put her glasses back on. “Well, nothing pops. Not in Google, not in whitepages.com. Mr. Keeper of the Gates back there was right about the unlisted address and all.”
My phone vibrated with the ring tone of chimes. “It’s Stella.”
“You better answer. The texts you sent the girls were uncharacteristically brief.”
I answered the call. “Hi, hon. Yes, I’m fine. We’re having a nice time.”
I responded with genuine interest to the mundane, adding here and there brief statements of where we were supposedly eating in Little Rock’s River Market district.
“Tell Anne that I’ll call her later—”
“Give me the phone for a minute.” Roxy reached for the phone.
“Uh, well, Roxy wants to say hi.” I gave her a warning glance.
“Hi, sweet girl. Listen, when you do all that snooping to find people for your stories, how do you find them? Uh-huh. Well, my brother’s trashy ex-wife owes him some money, and we think she’s invested it in a tanning booth franchise in Hot Springs, but she has an unlisted number. Uh-huh. Really? You have to pay for that? No, you don’t have to do it.” Roxy waved away my gesture to hang up. “Isn’t there another way? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Good tip! Property deeds. Public record. We’ll try that. Thanks darlin’, love you.”
Roxy handed the phone back but covered up the speaker, “Wrap this up, sister.”
* * *
“I’m going to say 1910,” Roxy said, staring up at the Victorian. “See the columns? Gauging by those and that tired old foundation, I’d say early 1900s.”
I hugged my arms, looking at the empty windows and the snow drifting on the stairs. A few neglected newspapers lay on the front porch, still in plastic bags. The county’s home-ownership records indicated Steven lived here. Strange that I felt bold enough to waltz into his office, the very place where it all began, but I was hesitant to even approach the house.
“Well, shall we?” Roxy said, taking the cracked concrete pathway up to the stairs. I hovered behind.
She repeatedly knocked. No lights came on. No one peered through the blinds. “Let’s try the back door.”
I followed her from the porch and around the house. What if he’s here? What am I going to say? I thought of the magazine with William’s picture on the cover in the safe in Steven’s office. My cheeks flushed in anger.
The door under a weary overhang in the back gently opened with the rapping of Roxy’s knuckles.
“Well, someone isn’t too concerned about the crime rate in Champaign-Urbana. You can’t commit breaking and entering if the door is unlocked, right? Hello? Hello?”
“Roxy…” I cautioned as she walked inside.
The mudroom was dark. I blinked, waiting for my eyes to adjust, scanning the glass fronts of a stackable washing machine and dryer, seeing no clothes inside.
Roxy continued to call out as we moved down a hall into the kitchen. Vinyl floors first laid down three decades ago matched outdated appliances and countertops. Mismatched furniture and newspapers littered the house. In the living room, a vintage refrigerator for Coke bottles stood right next to a sixty-inch-screen television.
I looked for photographs, any indication that Steven had a family, maybe even grandchildren of his own. The bachelor-pad vibe was too overwhelming to think he did.
“Well, I’m going whole hog. I’m looking around,” Roxy said. “He’s clearly not here, but I want to see if there’s any other fan mail waiting for you.”
A quick walk-through of the first floor revealed empty drawers left open, paperless file cabinets, and bare closets.
“I would like to sit down, but you know Stanley Steemer has never cleaned that couch.” Roxy pulled up one of the dining room chairs instead, watching me cover my lips with a balled-up fist.
“What are we doing, Lynnie? Do you think he’s crazy? I mean, obsessive compulsive, bipolar, schizophrenic? I mean, he’d have to be—to a degree—to believe that alien stuff—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, just explain this to me: In the last twenty four hours, I’ve learned my best friend, who I say affectionately is the most normal, least-controversial person on earth, had an affair forty years ago, and maybe a love child, with a UFO hunter. So give me a minute to let all this sink in.”
“I believed him. I believed in what he was doing. I reviewed his research, I studied the cases, I talked to the families. I knew all about them, every one of them. I wasn’t just the office manager, Roxy. I was one of them.”
“One of whom?”
“They weren’t the people you see on TV now, talking about alien sightings and conspiracies. Back then, they worked quietly, communicated between universities all over the world.”
“So you’re telling me you were a UFO researcher too? Come on, Lynn.”
“I believed in it as much as I believed in anything.”
“And yet when you came back to Nashville, you decided to never, not even once, share all this with me?”
“Things got bad at the end. The work got too … intense. And when I found out I was pregnant, I knew I didn’t want that kind of life for my child. I knew I had to make a clean break. It’s why I never even went back for Tom’s graduation, why I’ve never come back here at all. Over time, with the kids and Tom’s work and then his political career … it’s been a long time, Roxy. I had no desire to go back to all that—”
My phone began to chime in my purse, and I sighed. “It’s probably Tom, he’s called three times.” I dug it out, my eyes growing wide at the screen. “It’s a 217 area code—I think that’s Springfield. And Champaign.”
“Well, answer it.”
“Hello?”
“Yes, is this Lynn? Lynn Roseworth?”
“Yes.”
“This is Doug Ellis. We met earlier today in Dr. Richards’s office. I knew you looked familiar. You’re married to Senator Roseworth. I also know you’re Lynn Stanson, Steve’s office manager from a long time ago.”
That surprised me. “How do you…?”
“I’ve been Dr. Richards’s grad assistant for five years, and before that I was one of his students.”
“It’s very important that I find Steven. Can you please tell me what happened to him?”
“I had to give you the company line back there at school. I’m not sure if I can trust you.”
“I promise you that you can.”
He paused. “Can you meet to talk?”
“Of course. I have to find Steven. I thought he was still teaching, that’s why I came all this way. I didn’t even know he was gone until I arrived. We haven’t spoken in decades.”
“I’ll have to talk to the others and see if they’re willing to brief you about what they know. But I won’t be able to reach them until tonight, and then they’ll have to travel. How long are you in town?”
“Only for a few more days.”
“Let me make some calls, but I think I can get everyone together tomorrow night. Can you meet at seven o’clock? I’ll text you the address where to meet.”
“Yes, I can meet you. Thank you, and please thank the others. If you need me before then, please call again.”
He hung up without saying good-bye.
“What the hell was that, Lynn? Are we meeting Mr. McCreep? And who are the others?”
“I’m sure they’re academics as well.”
“Academics,” Roxy grunted. “So we’re going to stay in this Midwestern freak show for another day to meet more UFO hunters?”
“They’re called Researchers,” I said softly. “At least that’s what we used to call ourselves. Let’s go, OK?”
“Fine by me. All this tragic bachelorhoodness is making me crave a burger and a milk shake. Maybe I’ll chase it with a Budweiser to complete the image.”
As she walked out, I paused for a moment, looking around. The loneliness of the house was heavy, almost oppressive, as if it were waiting to sigh.
When I stepped out into the sun, my phone dinged. The text came from the 217 number Doug had called me from earlier. It simply read the address where to meet.
I put my phone in my purse, deciding not to tell Roxy yet that we would be returning to Steven’s home.
* * *
Roxy was grumpy most of the next day. I let her stew as we flitted among antiques shops and bookstores. I texted with the girls and had a brief conversation with Tom, who said the interview had gone well, with no surprises. Roxy made little to no comment about anything, which meant she was about to blow. I’d learned over the years to give her space but remain close by when the clouds burst. We ate lunch and then dinner in a kind of understood silence, until she polished off her glass of red wine and narrowed her eyes at me. “So was this some kind of cult?”
“No.”
“Because it sounds like a cult. And we’re here for the reunion. And you said you were one of them? Really, Lynn, you believed in UFOs?”
I twisted my spaghetti with my fork. “I believed in Steven.”
“You speak so calmly about it now. A day ago you nearly had a nervous breakdown even admitting it.”
“It’s freeing, in a way, to talk about it. It hung over me for a long time when I came back to Nashville, but then Anne came, and then Kate, and Tom and I got into a routine. Just as his political career was taking off we had Stella, and our lives were so hectic and full, it became easier and easier not to think about that time in my life. Now, speaking only to you, of course, I feel like I’m recalling some wild phase. Like when someone dyed her hair purple.”
“That was not intentional, and it does haunt me to this day.”
“It was like I was in on a secret, and all these really brilliant and strange and weird and daring people accepted me.”
Roxy began to chew the last piece of garlic bread. “And Tom really doesn’t know anything about it.”
“No, he doesn’t. He never had a clue. He was so wrapped up in his studies that I think he was happy that I had found something to occupy myself, and that brought in some extra money. But that’s Tom; he never means to offend anyone when he’s more interested in his work than he is in them, and I’ve come to accept that. I could blame the troubles in our marriage then on two young people who weren’t ready to play house, but honestly, it was just a precursor to what would be the rest of our lives: him wrapped up in his career and satisfied if I appeared happy in whatever I was doing. It’s only when he knows I’m frustrated or mad about something that he takes a break from whatever he’s working on. If I’m happy, he’s completely detached. I think after the girls were in college, he was more than ready for me to attempt, once more, to write a novel or start my own business. He couldn’t be burdened with having to spend more time with his wife, who suddenly was without a purpose.”
Roxy looked down at her plate.
“Please don’t think I’m complaining,” I said. “I’m certainly not. That’s just how our marriage is, and most of the time I’m fine with it. In fact, I would have never come back here—ever—if William hadn’t gone missing. Can you imagine if I revealed that I used to investigate missing people who we believed were abducted? Everyone would have thought I was having a nervous breakdown. No one would have believed me. And I would have created another problem for my family during the worst crisis of our lives. So I tried to push it aside. Now I can’t seem to stop thinking about it.”
“How could you have ever not thought of it?”
“I had to bury those years. That’s the best way I can describe it. I had to smother them to make my marriage work, first of all. And when the girls came and Tom’s career took off, I had to close the door on that feeling of … purpose? Is that the right word? First, I became a mother. Then a lawyer’s wife. Then a state representative’s wife, then a US senator’s wife, and any ambitions I ever had to do something with my own life were gone. And once you’ve been given that taste of … professional acceptance, it’s hard to douse. It took me years, Roxy, to get past it. But like all things, in time, I did.”
Roxy took off her glasses. “I never knew. Here I am, your best friend, and I assumed you loved the whole mom-and-wife thing. That is, until we opened the shop.”
“I do love it, don’t get me wrong. But I got lost all those years ago, and it’s reminded me that sometimes only by being lost do we find the path to who we are supposed to be. But … instead of staying on that path, I ran. I ran back home and away from everything here. So I never knew … what, or who, I could have been.”
“Why did you run?” she asked quietly.
I looked out the window. “I was scared. I stood on the edge of a cliff to a wild and uncertain life and opted not to jump.”
“And yet, here we are. Are you hoping to find out where this professor is, so you can track him down and make sure he’s not involved with William’s disappearance? Ask him why he had those maps of your property? Or do you honestly think … you’ll find out something to explain where William has gone? If he has been … abducted … that these people will know how to call back the mother ship that took him?”
“I know sitting around Nashville putting Band-Aids on widely gaping wounds wasn’t working. Maybe I’m doing it to convince myself I’m not useless. I can only explain what it feels like to have William missing.… It’s like there’s an elephant on my chest, and I can’t breathe when I think about him being somewhere away from us. And being here, doing this, it’s easier to breathe.”
Roxy reached across the table and took my hand. “I promise to keep my mouth shut. Well, scratch that, we know that’s not going to happen.”
We took our leftovers, uncertain if they would ever be eaten, but knowing it was cold enough for them to remain in the backseat without going bad.
“So where are we having this Tupperware party?” Roxy asked as we slid into the truck.
I exhaled. “Steven’s house.”
“What? But he’s not there and clearly hasn’t been for a while. This is weird, Lynn.”
“Maybe we were wrong. Maybe he actually lives somewhere else and he’ll be there when we arrive. Maybe that’s who Doug intended to be there all along.”
“I’m biting my tongue, I’m biting my tongue,” Roxy said, putting the truck in drive.
The old Victorian looked even drearier at night. No lights were on, but there were several cars parked outside.
“This is the part in the horror movie when the best friend advises the beautiful heroine not to go inside the haunted house. And do you know what happens to the friend in all those movies? She’s the first to get her head cut off,” Roxy said.
“Should we go around to the back again?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
“Nope. If no one answers at the front, we’re not going in.”
We approached the dark house and I knocked on the door. Within seconds, Doug opened the door, his cell phone illuminating his face.
“Come on in.”
“Maybe you should turn on a few lights first,” Roxy said, holding fast to the back of the sleeve of my coat.
“Everyone is downstairs,” he said.
Roxy grunted. “There is no downstairs.”
She rubbed her own forehead head as I turned to her in incredulity.
“I already knew you’d been here, I saw you on the security cameras.” Doug motioned us in.
“You leave the back door open and you have hidden security cameras?” Roxy asked, still clinging to my sleeve. “And FYI, sir. I have 911 on speed dial.”
“Just because a house looks like it has lousy security doesn’t mean it actually does. Steven had to make it look like he left and never intended to return. And when he’s out of town, he turns over the monitoring of his security to me.”
“Is he here?” I asked.
Doug shook his head. “I wish he was, it would make this easier. Come on, I’ll show you how to get downstairs.”
He used the flashlight on his phone to lead us once more through the weary furniture towards the television. His light flashed over the monitor and then settled on the horizontal silver handle of the retro Coke-bottle refrigerator that had screamed bachelor pad to us when we first snuck in.
He pulled out his wallet and flashed what looked like a white credit card in front of the handle. We heard a soft beep, and he opened the door.
Instead of rows of Coke, there was nothing but faint light. Through the hollowed-out fridge was a staircase leading down.
“Clever. Creepy, but clever,” Roxy noted.
“Steven had it custom built and the keyless entry added. We needed to have our meetings in private. I’d say ladies first, but I assume you want me to go down first.”
“Sounds good to me,” Roxy said, waving him on.
We followed him through the repurposed refrigerator and down the stairs that had clearly been reinforced over the years, for they failed to creak as we passed wood paneling dating back to the seventies.
We descended into an unfinished basement with enough patchwork to allow for gatherings for those unconcerned with comfort. Roxy said she felt like she was attending an AA meeting, but the looks on the faces of the people milling below kept her from saying anything more.
We slowed our descent as all the conversations stopped. Most of the people wore glasses and appeared to be roughly around our age. Several were in suits. Doug certainly stood out, and he beckoned for us to come all the way down.
“Let’s everyone find a seat.” He motioned to the scattered chairs and a battered couch, but everyone remained standing, staring at me.
“It really is you,” one man said, taking a handkerchief out of his tweed jacket to clean his glasses. “I guess it’s true: You believe in the little green men just like the rest of us. You look just like you do on TV.”
I bristled at that. A woman walked forward, her long silver hair tied back in a braid. “Rupert, you prove yet again your impeccable skill for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It’s been a long time, Lynn. You may not recognize the few of us who were here back in the day.”
I cleared my throat. “I doubt you would have recognized me, or even remembered my name, if it hadn’t been for my husband.”
“Oh, I would have remembered,” the woman said, smiling warmly. “I would remember the nice girl with the pretty blond curls who listened—didn’t laugh at me, didn’t judge—actually listened to me talk about my brother. Didn’t think less of me when I twisted my hair like a little girl.” She reached up and twirled a strand. “I still do it.”
I tilted my head. “Barbara?”
The woman nodded. “And do you remember my brother’s name?”
Don Rush. Of course I remember. But I don’t know any of you. I could barely tell my best friend about my past. I’m not about to discuss my memories with strangers.
I forced a grimace. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“But I bet you remember his story.”
“I remember wishing I could have helped you more.”
“You did help.” She reached out and laid a hand on my arm. “You made me feel like I wasn’t crazy. You and Steven both. And you gave me this.”
She handed me a small laminated card, frayed and yellowed over time. I smiled at one of the prayer cards Steven gave me to hand out to the families of the missing.
“Do you remember this? It got me through a lot of hard times. I whispered it like a prayer: ‘You are with me. You are in the rain. You are in my tears. You are where the water falls,’” she recited.
I ran my fingers over the words, and Barbara closed my fingers around the card. “You keep it. Maybe it will bring you comfort now.”
“How about me?” asked a morbidly obese man who was leaning on a chair. My heart skipped a beat as I instantly remembered him.
Marcus Burg. You were there for one of the most frightening moments of my life. “I’m sorry, it’s been so long—”
“I wasn’t this fat back then. I was fat, just not megasized. Marcus, the guy with the telescope? Ham radio operator? Trying to pick up the little green men on the radio? We met in a cornfield once.”
“Oh yes, of course, Marcus.”
“Again, let’s everybody have a seat,” Doug repeated. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”
A man in an expensive-looking Brooks Brothers suit frowned at Roxy. “No offense, ma’am, but this is highly sensitive information. I’ve never even seen you before. And I’ve only ever seen the politician’s wife on television.”
“Robert, at one time, this woman knew more about being a Researcher than you do,” Barbara said.
“Prove it,” the man insisted. “What’s the Arthur Crowning incident?”
He disappeared while fishing after a rainstorm, his gear and lunchbox left inside the boat.
I shifted my eyes.
“What about the Doyle Robinson disappearance?”
Doyle Robinson went hiking on a trail in Giant City in downstate Illinois. Hiked the trail all his life. Was never seen again. But if I tell you everything I remember, you’ll assume I’m still one of you. I have no idea what you intend to do with my memories.
I bit my lip. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
“Those are only the most famous abduction cases in Illinois, and you don’t remember them? So, again, we’re here to make a deal with Steve’s old girlfriend, and she doesn’t even remember anything—”
“What about my brother Don?” Barbara asked quietly. “What do you remember about him?”
I will not, however, come off as a flake. “I remember he was your twin, and you were living in … Michigan. You awoke one night to lights in your bedroom. You went downstairs and found the door open, and you went to the window to see your brother standing out in a snowstorm. There were suddenly lights, and your brother was gone.”
The room was silent. Barbara nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s all true. You see, Robert, Lynn didn’t investigate the Crowning or Robinson cases. But she did mine. And she cared, too.”
I cared about all of them. I remember them all.
Doug cleared his throat. “We’re here to talk about Steven.”
“Yes,” I said. “Why isn’t he at the university?”
“The official word is that he was suspended for using university equipment, on university time, for personal use,” he responded. “That’s what Dean Fulton said. The only reason the dean even kept Steven around was because of his expertise. His articles about the gases on Mars alone have given this department a gold-star reputation in the academic world. But, as you may recall, Ms. Stanson—”
“It’s Roseworth.”
“Yes, as in Senator Roseworth, of course. You may recall, Mrs. Roseworth, that Steven is also terrible at playing the academic poker needed to stay ahead at this college. So I wasn’t surprised when I showed up a few months ago and saw his office locked. I was surprised, however, that he left me no message. Nothing. All I had was the official word from the university’s communications department that they severed ties with him, and that information was only supposed to be shared internally, not with anyone else.”
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“End of the summer semester.”
Roxy flashed me a look.
“Has there been no sign of him at all?” asked a woman in a long skirt, pulling her glasses up to rest on her crown of gray hair.
Barbara shook her head. “No, Mary.”
“I don’t understand,” the woman continued. “Steven was so excited this summer. The last I talked to him, he felt like he was making some breakthroughs, especially on the Abel and Notish cases. And then, suddenly, he was gone. We still have no idea why, Doug?”
“As I’ve told you, I came to work to find that the dean had his office locked up. So I came here, and everything had been cleaned out, practically. And that’s it.”
“So he just skipped town? And no one has had any word from him? I know this drips with irony, but should you have filed a missing-persons report?” Mary asked.
The room grew quiet, and Doug shifted uncomfortably. “Can you imagine the questions police would have asked? Once I told them that the dean suspected he was using university equipment for personal reasons, and that all his belongings were gone, they would have assumed he was just lying low.”
“Maybe he is,” Robert said, loosening his expensive tie. “Listen, Steven is a great colleague. An even better Researcher. But there might be some truth to what the university suspects—”
“Bullshit,” Doug interjected.
“—and Steven is trying to sort out his next move. But it’s been three months. Even if he had a reason to disappear like this, we need to find him. Just to make sure he’s OK.”
”Which brings us to why we wanted to meet with you, Lynn,” Doug said. “To see if we could help each other.”
“I’m not sure how I could help. I came here for help myself.”
Doug looked briefly to Robert. “We’re willing to share everything with you. All of the records we’ve stored on thumb drives, or on the cloud, on every case. And, course, the video.”
The room grew quiet and everyone looked at me, waiting.
“I’m sorry, what video?” I asked.
“Of course, you never saw it. It came to us years after you were gone,” Barbara said. “Show her, Doug. Pull it up on your laptop.”
Doug frowned. “Maybe we should finish talking about what we need her to do, first. I don’t know about sharing—”
“Just show her, Doug,” she insisted. “She was a Researcher long before you were even born.”
In a move that was so dramatic that I knew Roxy was rolling her eyes, Doug reached into his shirt and pulled out a simple chain on which a thumb drive was attached. He slid a laptop out of a beat-up satchel alongside of his chair and opened it. After plugging in the memory stick, he huddled over the screen, keeping the keyboard close, so no one could see the passwords he was furiously typing.
After a few moments, he placed the laptop on a coffee table and swiveled it around towards me. “This is part of what we’re prepared to share with you, if we can come to an agreement. But I must strongly warn you—”
“Doug, play it,” Barbara said wearily. “And turn up the volume. It’s hard to hear.”
He reached over the screen to punch the volume key several times, and then hit the space bar. The blue video screen turned black, then the grayish-white image of a man sitting in a chair came into view.
Converted from film on which it was first recorded, the video occasionally flickered, showing the man dressed in all black, his hair slicked over, with the kind of hard part that was so popular when I was a little girl.
“I can’t hear anything,” Roxy said.
“It’s coming, give it a second,” Doug scowled.
“Are you comfortable?” the man in the video said, his voice hollow, recorded on a microphone that was too far away from its subject.
The man leaned forward. “Can you tell me about what you saw?”
The film quality was so poor that I could barely make out that he was beginning to take notes.
“What do you remember about the ship in the sky?”
Doug reached over and snapped the computer closed. He stared at me, holding his chin high.
“What you’ve just seen is the first proof ever recorded of a government operative questioning someone who’d been abducted.”
“That’s your proof?” Roxy asked. “How does that prove anything—?”
“Where did that come from?” I asked softly.
“I wish I knew. Steven obtained it. But there’s much more. And while we only have footage of the operative asking the questions, at the end, the camera moves a bit, and for a second you see whom he is talking to. I’m willing to show it to you, as well as all Steven’s latest findings and research about the missing. It might help you too, because I know you think your grandson’s been abducted too. There’s one thing I’d ask for in return.”
He leaned forward. “Go public. All out. Press conference and everything. Admit your past as a Researcher and how you feel your grandson has been abducted. Say that you’re working with us to find him. The hope is that Steven will see it, wherever he is, and get back in touch with us. Or maybe even you.”
I put my hand to my chest. “I can’t … do that.”
“Why?” Doug asked sharply.
“I can’t.”
“Then we tell you nothing.” He waved his hand. “You once supported our efforts. You believed in it; Steven told me everything. Everything. Now your own grandson has gone missing, and you won’t come forward with support for us? Do you care that much more about your husband’s image than finding your grandson?”
I grabbed my purse. “It was a mistake coming here.”
“Lynn,” Barbara pleaded.
“I won’t be forced into anything.” I stood. Roxy joined me, chewing her cheek.
“Then you leave here with nothing.”
“Doug!” Barbara said.
“Trust me, you want to see this entire film. But not without a guarantee.”
“You are terrible people,” I said, hurrying towards the stairs. Barbara stood, but Roxy held up a warning hand.
“You should be ashamed,” Roxy scolded, wagging her finger. “Giving a grandmother false hope and all that. You’re nut jobs, every last one of you. And don’t think I won’t call the cops on you all.”
“You won’t,” Doug said. “Because it will all be traced back to Lynn, and apparently her public persona is more important than her grandson.”
“Eat shit, you little punk,” Roxy said, catching up with me at the top of the stairs as I stepped through the shell of the fridge.
We hustled through the house and out the door, Roxy’s hand on the small of my back. I heard the truck unlock and practically ran around to get inside the cab.
My face was buried in my hands when she turned the key. “Oh, Lynnie.”
“Drive, Roxy. Drive to the hotel and get our things, and then drive all the way home. Don’t stop.”
“Honey, let’s think about this—”
“No, I want to go home.”
“Of course.”
I heard a rap at my window and turned to see Doug standing outside, shivering. He’d clearly run out after us, for he wasn’t wearing a coat.
“Lynn, this isn’t only about William.” He was practically yelling.
“Back away from the car, you asshole,” Roxy said.
“You’ll never know. You’ll never know the truth—“
Roxy threw the truck in reverse with such force that Doug stumbled back.
Outside, a bit of ice began to fall. It had been spring when I last left Champaign. It was fitting that it was winter now, and the air smelled like a snow. I was right to leave here and never come back. I prayed for the kind of whopper where snow covers the entire town. I could leave knowing everything here would be buried.