SENECA STARED AT the gun. The woman holding it was tall and pointy-chinned, and though her hair was red, she could be Sadie Sage. She aimed the gun at them with the ease of someone who’d practiced using a weapon. Her nostrils flared in and out. As if on cue, the wind whipped through the trees. Branches cascaded from the sky, one narrowly missing Seneca’s head.

“Get the hell off my property!” the woman roared. “Leave or I’ll shoot, I swear!”

“Wait a minute!” Maddox’s voice was steady. “Let’s all just calm down. We know what you’ve done. People are looking for you. If we just go calmly, no one will get hurt.”

The woman looked livid. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She raised the gun higher. Seneca felt woozy. This was a terrible idea. Sadie Sage was a maniac. Of course she wasn’t going to go quietly. Of course she was going to shoot anyone who tracked her down.

Seneca glanced toward the trees. Could they run for it? Maybe they could go back to the strip mall, find a phone, and call the cops. But what if Sadie chased them? What if she shot Damien hiding inside?

Was this Brett’s endgame? Maybe he knew all along that Sadie was crazy and murderous. Maybe he wanted to lead them straight to her so she’d just kill them.

“He has a family,” Maddox said, his eyes still trained on Sadie. “Please think of how scared he is. He just wants his mother back.”

The woman waved the gun slightly. “I’m his mother. I’m their mother. What, did Gerald tell you I wasn’t? What kind of bullshit is that?” She pointed the gun directly at him. “I’ll kill you before I let you take them from me. I swear.”

Them? Seneca blinked hard. Something about this didn’t feel right.

Suddenly, the sliding glass door opened, and a small head poked out. “Mom?” The boy’s face went sheet-white. “Mom! What are you doing?”

“Go away!” The woman’s gaze was still trained on Seneca and the group. “Get back inside, Marcus!”

Marcus? Seneca dared to stare at him. The boy was nine or so, but he wasn’t wearing glasses, and his hair was curly, not poker-straight, as Damien’s was in the pictures. Actually, he looked nothing like Damien at all.

As she watched, two more kids appeared. The girl looked to be about seven. She held the hand of a towheaded toddler who was wearing a T-shirt and a diaper. Both kids stared at the scene with wide, watering eyes.

Seneca’s eyes darted from the children to the woman. She could tell the others were registering this, too—Madison gasped, and Maddox took a small step backward. Suddenly, the boy shot out from the glass door and threw his arms around the woman’s waist. She let out a wail, and the gun clattered to the ground. Madison scrambled for it, held it in her arms for a few scared seconds, and then tossed it across the driveway, where no one could reach it.

“Okay,” she said, turning back to the group. “Let’s all just chill.”

But the woman wasn’t listening. She and her son were a puddle of tears. The other kids came out too and whimpered at the woman’s side. They clung to her desperately, their little nails digging into her back. “I don’t want to go back, Mom,” the oldest boy wailed.

“I know, honey,” the woman murmured. “I know you don’t. And I won’t let that happen. I promise. Remember how I promised?”

Seneca’s heart twisted. No kidnapped kid would hug his captor like this, would he? This couldn’t be Damien. This didn’t fit at all.

“Uh…” Maddox whispered, sensing the disconnect, too. The lump in Seneca’s throat expanded. Whatever they’d walked into was bad, but it didn’t feel like a kidnapping.

No one knew what to do while the woman and the kids calmed down. It felt rude to leave, but it also felt rude to stay. Seneca wished she could just dissolve and reappear somewhere else on the island, pretending this had never happened. Finally, the woman lifted her head and gave them a supplicating stare. “Well? What are you going to do?”

Seneca shut her eyes. “I’m so, so sorry. We’re looking for a woman who kidnapped a child—just one child—from Upstate New York. We thought it might be you.”

“I didn’t kidnap any of them,” the woman pleaded. All three kids watched them with big, scared eyes. “If Gerald’s telling you that, he’s lying.”

“We don’t even know Gerald, we swear,” Maddox explained. “This was all a horrible case of mistaken identity. Gerald doesn’t know you’re here. We promise.”

“And we won’t tell a soul you’re here,” Madison piped up.

The woman studied them suspiciously, still clinging protectively to her kids. They were clearly all one another had. “For real?” she asked after a beat.

“For real,” Seneca said. “Honest.”

“We get it,” Maddox said gently. “You’re just protecting them. I’m guessing Gerald kept saying he was going to change, but he just kept doing the same things, over and over.”

The woman’s eyes were bloodshot, full of fury and shame. She didn’t confirm what Maddox said, but she didn’t deny it, either.

“Some people are just evil through and through.” Maddox’s voice quivered. “They will always be bad. They will always do bad things. Of course you had to leave.” He looked around. “This place is safe, as far as we know. No one is going to hurt you.”

Seneca watched Maddox, proud at how wise he sounded. The woman’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. Saying nothing more, she grabbed her children’s hands and pushed them through the screen door. “Get out of here. If I see you here in two minutes, I’m calling the cops.”

They jogged down the driveway. Once on the road, Seneca suddenly broke down, letting out the terrified tears she’d been holding in. Maddox grabbed her and hugged her tight, and then Madison piled on, too. Never had she felt so close to death as what she’d just been through—and considering their run-ins with Brett, that was saying a lot. No one said anything for a long while.

Maybe this was getting too intense, just like Maddox said. And even worse, they’d followed a false lead. They’d found a scared, sad woman and her son who were obviously running from an abuser…not Sadie Sage.

After a while, Maddox cleared his throat and checked his watch. “Unless we want to sleep on the beach, we need to get back. The last ferry leaves in a half hour.”

The bell was ringing for the ferry when they reached the dock, and they had to rush to the gangplank before the boat pulled away. Once they were on board, Seneca fidgeted awkwardly, needing something to do with all of her excess energy. They’d wasted a whole afternoon on this island. They only had a few more days to figure this out, and they were no closer to reaching the answer. Every time they advanced, the target shifted, and suddenly they were far away again.

She reached to check her phone for a response from Viola, until she remembered there was no cell service here. Who could live in such a place? Then she pulled out the old ticket book they’d found in Sadie Sage’s basement and glared at it. Was this even a clue? Maybe Sadie had just come here to do some sightseeing. Maybe she was into whale-watching tours or whatever.

The boat rocked back and forth as it pulled away from the shore. Overhead, the clouds were getting even darker, threatening rain. The tickets made a riffling sound as Seneca flipped through them. “Where’d you find those?” a voice said above her. “A flea market?”

The conductor stopped at their seats. It was the same man from the ticket booth, and he smiled with recognition. “Sorry?” she asked.

He pointed at the ticket book. “We haven’t used old-school punch books since 2005. Everything’s digital now.” He stared at the ticket book fondly. “There wasn’t much of anything on the island back then. It’s only gotten touristy in the past seven or eight years.” And then he moved to the next customers, two tourists wearing fanny packs speaking another language.

Seneca turned to Maddox. “I guess that means that if Sadie came here using the ticket book, it was prior to 2005.”

“Yeah.” Maddox made a face. “A zillion years ago. And I don’t want to imagine what this place was like before it was touristy.”

As the boat rocked and creaked, this new piece to the puzzle vibrated inside Seneca. Why was Sadie visiting an island before there were any tourist attractions? Did she know someone here? Or maybe she had lived here, long ago? But how would they find out if that was true? After all, she wouldn’t have gone by Sadie Sage. She would have been someone else.

Something pinged in her mind. She looked at the group. “Sadie Sage used this ticket book almost fifteen years ago, back before she changed her identity. We haven’t really thought about why she changed her identity, though. Maybe we should.”

Madison shaped her hair into a ponytail. “People change their identities for all sorts of reasons. I bet that woman we just met changed her name so she could get away from Gerald.”

“Yeah, but come on.” Seneca held on to the rail to brace against a particularly bumpy wave. “An abused woman doesn’t turn into a kidnapper. Sadie’s like Brett. Isn’t it more likely that she changed her identity to escape something bad that she’d done?”

Maddox nodded. “Yeah. I would think so, actually.”

“So let’s assume in her past life, she was doing bad things. Maybe she was doing some of those things here.”

“Okay…”

Water droplets splashed the side of Seneca’s cheek. She pulled the sleeves of her hoodie over her hands and shivered. The words Maddox had spoken swirled in her mind: I’m guessing Gerald kept saying he was going to change, but he just kept doing the same things, over and over. It had struck her, reminded her of something she’d heard before. Suddenly, she knew why: In the hospital, Chelsea had said that when the news story broke about Gabriel Wilton being a person of interest, Brett was barely fazed. Maybe this wasn’t the first time he’d done this, Chelsea said.

Old habits died hard. What if Sadie Sage was in a toxic rut, too?

Goose bumps rose on Seneca’s arms. “Maybe Damien isn’t Sadie’s first victim.”

Maddox blinked. “You think?”

“It could fit. It could be why she changed her name a few years ago. It also could be why she was able to steal Damien without a trace—she’s good at it. She’s done it before.”

“But how does that connect to Tallyho Island?” Madison asked. “Why did she come here? What was in it for her? Does it connect at all?”

Maddox scrunched up his nose. “Could she have taken a kid from here? The girl in the ice cream shop said that more kids did live here once….”

Seneca nodded gravely. “Bingo.”

But Maddox just shrugged. “That’s interesting, but it doesn’t help us find Sadie now.”

“We don’t know that.” Seneca stared down at the dark, rippling water. “Another kidnapping could give us some information on Sadie’s patterns. It’s interesting that she saved the ticket book. Maybe she’s holding on to old mementos of past crimes. That picture of those other kids could be a memento, too.”

Seneca had never been so thrilled to get a cell signal when the boat pulled into shore. After quickly checking if Viola had written—nope, and nothing from RedBird, either—she typed Kidnappings, ­Tallyho Island into Google. The search page loaded, and an article caught
her eye.

She let out a weak cry. “Here. A boy was kidnapped off the island in 2002.”

Maddox leaned over the screen. “Jackson Jones, age nine, went missing from his home on Tallyho Island, New York, on June 5, 2002,” he read.

Seneca stopped in her tracks. “Wait. Jackson?”

Maddox looked confused. “What’s significant about Jackson?”

The passengers behind her nudged Seneca to keep walking down the gangplank, but her legs felt wooden. Her heart was pounding, and her head felt scrambled. She took a breath. “Remember that shack in Jersey we thought Brett was hiding Chelsea in? The one Aerin and Thomas went to, though it ended up being a dead end?”

“Yeah…” Maddox narrowed his eyes.

“Aerin found a paper crane there. It had the name Jackson on the bottom.”

“Meaning…?” Madison sounded spooked.

“I don’t know,” Seneca said quietly. With shaking hands, she consulted Google again. Jackson Jones, she typed into the search box. ­Kidnapped boy, Tallyho Island, 2002.

Slightly different hits popped up. Seneca clicked on the first one. Jackson Jones had been nine years old when it happened. He had lived all his life on Tallyho Island. It was suspected that a woman named Elizabeth Ivy kidnapped him. She’d been his piano teacher—Jackson had traveled to see her on the mainland for a lesson and had never come back.

Piano, just like Damien. And he looked a lot like Damien: In a picture, he had similar brown hair, the same sort of nondescript features, round, Harry Potter glasses, and an impish but unremarkable smile. In fact, he looked like that boy in the photo they’d found in Sadie’s basement. The one that looked like Damien…but also didn’t.

Hands shaking, Madison pointed to a line at the bottom of the story. “Look at Jackson’s middle name.”

Seneca looked at her phone. But even a split second before her eyes took in the name, she knew what it was going to be. The photograph they’d found in Sadie’s basement sizzled in her brain. She pictured that young, scrappy-looking boy, the generic smile on his face. When she aged those features forward, when she took a few mental leaps, the answer was right there.

Brett.

She grabbed her phone and dialed the scrambled number at the top of her call list.

“Your real name is Jackson Brett Jones,” Seneca whispered when Brett answered. “Sadie Sage kidnapped you, too.”