What Lies in the Woods(45)

Marcus considered me for a long moment. Then his shoulders slumped, his weariness settling more heavily over him. “Is there something you need from us, Naomi?” he asked.

I wished I could say no. It was wrong asking anything of them right now. “I saw something earlier, in Liv’s room. I need to look at it again,” I said reluctantly.

He shook his head. “If there was anything important in her room, the police have it. And if you know something, you should talk to them.” His look had a challenge buried in it.

“If I could look anyway—”

“You should go,” he said firmly.

“Marcus.” Kimiko appeared in the hallway, wearing a terrycloth robe and slippers. Her eyes were red from crying, but her face was hard now, closed off. She said something sharp and short in Japanese, which Marcus answered with a grunt before turning away. She looked at me. “Take off your shoes,” she said, and walked away down the hall.

I decided that was the only invitation I was going to get. I slipped off my shoes and followed her. She walked into the middle of Liv’s room. Half emptied, it had a look of ragged chaos that all her clutter never created. Its order had been disrupted and it hit me in the gut all over again—Liv was gone.

“Go ahead,” Kimiko said. It was clear that this time, she wouldn’t be leaving me alone to my search.

I went to the desk again, but of course her computer and all her notebooks and notes had been taken. The drawer was empty. They had the sketchbook. What would it mean to them? Would they realize Persephone hadn’t simply sprung from her imagination?

“What is it you’re looking for?” Kimiko asked.

I hesitated—could I chance telling her? It was worth the risk, I decided. “It was a set of numbers and letters. Four numbers followed by four letters. She had them written down on a sticky note.”

She nodded and walked out of the room. I stared after her, uncertain if I should follow, but a minute later she returned with a crumpled envelope. “She left this in the recycling,” she said. “She was always taking notes on whatever was nearby.”

There were more numbers on this one, in an exacting column. Two dozen. It must have been before she narrowed it down. The state codes were from all over the place—as far as Oklahoma. If she’d eliminated everything but Washington and Idaho, I had eleven entries to work with. That was more manageable. “Thank you,” I said.

“What do they mean?” she asked. When I didn’t answer right away, she crossed her arms. “Did someone kill my daughter because of those numbers?”

“The police say it was suicide.”

“Do you believe that?” she asked bluntly.

“No,” I said, realizing as I said it just how certain I was. “I don’t know who would want to hurt her. But I know she found something before she died. A—a secret. She wanted to tell me, but she didn’t get the chance. I need to know what it is.”

“You should tell the police,” Kimiko said.

I looked down at the numbers in my hand. All the logic and sense in the world said I should call Bishop right now and tell her everything, even if that made me a suspect. But letting go of these secrets felt like letting Liv go. Letting go of the last thing I had of her that was ours alone. Hers and mine and Cass’s. One last bond. “I can’t,” I said helplessly.

The familiar shame of the lie shivered with new hope. If one of these numbers belonged to Stahl’s missing victim, then I’d told the truth, even if I hadn’t known it. It would be proof that it was him, and that I hadn’t gotten the wrong man arrested.

Kimiko sighed. “You were a good friend to her. But she’s gone. You take care of yourself first. The dead don’t need our help.”

“I need to do this,” I said.

Kimiko only nodded. When I walked out she stayed, running her fingertips over the empty space where Olivia’s things had been, as if beginning to map the shape of her absence.





It was quick work to match the case numbers with names, but from there my progress ground to a halt. The women in the missing-persons listings ranged in age from eighteen to forty-six. There were blondes and brunettes, white, Black, and Latina. None were named Persephone, but I hadn’t expected they would be. Any of these women could have been Persephone—or none of them.

Except that Liv had been sure.

The dates for their disappearances covered a range of almost a decade. If I looked only at that “quiet summer,” two years before the attack, there were four possibilities, but I couldn’t assume that Persephone was Stahl’s victim. Or, if she was, that he’d killed her that summer. No one knew how many unknown victims might be out there or when he might have killed them.

I started searching for the names with various combinations of keywords. Most of them had doppelg?ngers on Facebook and the like, cluttering up the results. Here and there I found articles or posts about the women I was looking for and scoured them for any information that might be relevant. April Kyle was from Spokane and liked the outdoors; she’d run off with an older boyfriend. Marjorie Campion had three children and a dog and was a known drug addict. There were women who seemed made to disappear into the cracks and those whose vanishing had turned communities upside down, and all of them were just as thoroughly gone.

I bookmarked another article and flipped to the next tab I had open, a forum post from a girl trying to find information about a missing aunt. I rubbed my eyes and checked the name—they were all blurring together. Jessi Walker. Nineteen when she disappeared, though her family didn’t ever file an official missing-person report, because she’d packed her bags. A few weeks passed before they realized she was gone for good. The niece writing the post got a Christmas card and a birthday card from Jessi, and then she went silent. They’d been close and the niece was certain that something had happened to her.