I had memorized most of the words in my redundant search for a clue that would help me find her. The scribble was full of typical teen grievances, heartbreaks, friend woes, and first loves…except for one. One entry that shook me to my core. One confession that meant she was running for her life, or had died trying. I took the journal out of the box and reread one of the early entries that lingered long after I heard Oliver put the house to bed for the night, doors shutting and deadbolts clicking:

Today Nana told me the story of my great-great-grandmother Alvera Fields, the woman I was named after. It’s pretty crazy, actually. She was basically forced into marriage to some rich guy, even though she wanted to be a women’s rights activist. But then she had a baby, and a couple months later on April 16, 1910, she disappeared. Her family and the cops thought she was kidnapped and murdered by a group of men who used violence to try to stop the suffrage movement, but it makes me wonder what really happened to her…and it makes me worry about what might happen to me because of what Mom did.

Oliver’s family history took a dark turn back then, and all these years later the darkness returned for Vera. It was a haunting, chilling thought—first Alvera disappeared, then her namesake Vera. Both on April 16.

Holy hell. I had never noticed the date until now. Both disappeared on the same exact date, one hundred and eleven years apart. Certainly that couldn’t be coincidence. But there was no possible way they could be connected…could they? Whoever had been alive back then was long dead now.

Several entries later Vera mentioned someone named BS. The writing was furious, angry slashes across the page. Though the initials didn’t ring a bell, I needed to know who this BS person was that deeply affected Vera. Maybe a friend turned foe who had threatened her.

“No, please tell me you didn’t.”

I snapped the book shut and hid it behind my leg as if Oliver, standing in the doorway with arms folded judgmentally, hadn’t already caught me red-handed.

“I had to hide it from the police,” I replied. “You know I did.”

“Why, Felicity? You’re only going to make things worse by keeping secrets from the people who are trying to find her.”

“How can it get any worse, Ollie?”

There was nothing worse than what I had already done before our daughter disappeared.

The Pittsburg Press

The Pittsburg Press

Pittsburg, PA

Monday, October 17, 1910

HUSBAND OF MISSING WOMAN THINKS WIFE WAS SLAIN

As a result of the visit that Robert Fields, husband of Alvera Fields, paid to District Attorney Whitman late Sunday night, the district attorney dropped all of his regular duties and confined himself to running down a clue that Fields gave him.