The Leaving(81)

“We really don’t have to watch.” He started to navigate away.

“Play it.” She nodded, and leaned back into her chair, into his arm. He felt the connection like a lifeline.

A reporter shouts out, “Has the school made an official statement? Has the bus been traced?”

Another man steps up to the mike. “We’re doing everything we can to help with the investigation. We have every expectation that the children will be returned safely.”

“Everyone looks so naive,” Lucas said. “They had no idea what was actually happening.”

Avery’s whole body stiffened, cold like a corpse, and he couldn’t think of what he’d said wrong. “Avery, are you—”

“‘It was only supposed to be for a few hours,’” she said, like reciting a line, in a trance.

“What?” He paused the video.

Again: “‘It was only supposed to be for a few hours.’”

“What does that mean?” He felt irritation at not understanding.

“He’s still alive.” Her eyes lit like fireflies.

“But—” How could she have figured that out just now? How could she know? “Max? How do you—?”

“Not Max.” She pointed at the screen, tapped twice. “The principal.”





AVERY



Only the whole world coming together and cracking open.

“He’s been calling the tip line.” Avery got up and paced. “Saying all these cryptic things. Except that maybe they’re not that cryptic once you know who he is?”

“We need to call Chambers,” Lucas said. “He needs to review the calls.”

She reached for her phone, then remembered. “I don’t have his number in here.”

They buried the body in his backyard.

Was that what he’d said?

“I left mine in Ryan’s car,” Lucas said. “I got out in a hurry. Come on.”

Avery followed Lucas and they peered into the backseat of the car with cupped hands at their eyes, but it wasn’t there. As they walked up toward the house, Chambers’s car appeared, rolling loudly over gravel.

How on earth—?

How could he have—?

“What are you doing here?” Lucas asked Chambers when he got out of his car.

“Your brother called me,” Chambers said. “Said it was urgent.”

“We were just going to call you,” Avery said. “We’ve been watching old news reports and—”

Ryan opened the front door of the house.

Scarlett appeared beside him.

“What’s going on? What are you doing here?” Lucas asked Scarlett.

“You have to find Miranda,” Ryan said to Chambers.

“She was with us,” Scarlett said. “She’s been here watching us.”

“And she took off,” Ryan said.

“The principal is still alive,” Avery said, and even though she felt like she was screaming, no one seemed to hear.

“Everybody inside,” Chambers said. “Now.”

In the living room he said, “One thing at a time. What’s this about Miranda?”

Scarlett showed everyone Sarah’s sketch, and Chambers turned to Ryan. “Anything at all that seemed off about her? Anything at all she may have said that might be a lead? She ever say anything about her family?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Ryan said. “She said her childhood was boring. That her parents were control freaks. She said they want ed her to get a real job. That kind of stuff, the stuff everyone says. I never met them.”

“Any suspicious phone calls?” Chambers asked. “Habits?”

Ryan looked bewildered. “No,” with a sad emphasis that made Avery want to throttle him.

“I need her address,” Chambers said. “Her friends’ names.”

“I don’t actually know any of her friends.”

“What is wrong with you?” Avery screamed. “How could you not have seen?” She rushed at him, pushed him on the chest.

“Avery, please,” Chambers said, touching her arm. “I’ve got this.”

She clenched her teeth so hard that her jawbones shifted.

Chambers let go of her arm and turned back to Ryan. “What did she do for work? Did she go to school?”

Avery couldn’t stand to listen—some Etsy/eBay nonsense. If they’d figured this out sooner, maybe they could have found and rescued them all months ago. They could have known the truth about Max and been done with it.

“So I’ll look into it,” Chambers was saying. “And we’ll have a team come here to dust for prints.” Then he turned to Scarlett. “You said there was another sketch?”

Scarlett nodded—“A house”—and held her phone out to Chambers again. “Maybe it’s near Anchor Beach.”

“I need you to send me both of those,” Chambers said.

“Can I talk now?” Avery said, not hiding her impatience well and not caring.

“Yes,” Chambers said. “Of course.”

“The person calling the tip line that everyone wrote off as crazy is actually the principal. I recognized his voice.” She was running out of air, slowed down. “He said they were blackmailing him, burying a body in his yard. And how it was only supposed to be for a few hours that they were gone. How the place where you found that body wasn’t the right place. He sounds terrified. He said they’re watching him.”