“He wanted to surprise you with a trip. He thought I might have some ideas.” Hayes is our most well-traveled friend. He and Alice have toured the world, bringing back all manner of souvenirs for me and Jay. Teacups from London. Woolen blankets from Ireland. His and hers kimonos from Japan.

“Oh.” Tears start to collect in my eyes again. Jay and I liked to travel too, but we hadn’t had a chance to do as much of that as we would have liked. A week in Paris two years ago was the highlight of our travel thus far. I dab my eyes with a tissue, sip my tea.

Hayes pats my hand. “We’re all here for you, Molly.”

CHAPTER 18

Rita

FORBIDDING GRAY BUILDINGS TOWER OVER THE LANDSCAPE, TUCKED behind concrete walls topped with razor wire. The surrounding fields are winter bare, and a steady wind tosses the skeletal branches of trees as we approach the prison.

Dr. Bradley had asked and been granted permission to talk to an inmate named Tyler White. He’s twenty-six years old and has been at the facility for three years. Prior to his present incarceration, he had an extensive juvie record that included drug use and theft, but nothing violent or disturbing that anyone knew about. When he was twenty-one, his mother had him committed to a psychiatric treatment center, claiming he was delusional and had threatened her and had hit her on several occasions. He was treated for six months and released. He went back to live with her and seemed to be, according to the records, adjusting well. On a warm June day, when she returned from work, Tyler told his mother that their dog, a blind lab named Lady, had gotten out and had run off into the forest behind their house. While Louise White traipsed through the wooded acres, calling for her dog, her son tracked her until they were deep in the forest. He called her name, and when she turned to face him, he shot her with a bow and arrow, killing her. He returned to the house, where Lady was sleeping soundly in his bedroom. Tyler lived happily for six days, ordering pizza and playing video games, before police found Louise White’s body resting against a pine tree, one arrow protruding from her chest, another wedged in her right eye.

It turned out that Tyler had also killed two teenage runaways who’d disappeared four months earlier and whose bodies were also found in the same woods.

I don’t know that we’ll get anything useful from him, but so far, we’re not getting anywhere in the investigation, and that makes me antsy.

The room is built from cinder blocks and painted an institutional gray. There are no windows, just a scratched metal table with three chairs. A paunchy, blond guard escorts a handcuffed Tyler White into the room, where he sits heavily in the chair opposite us. He’s thin as a rail with bony arms covered in homemade tattoos. His dull blue eyes gaze vacantly at the wall, and I figure he’s medicated. One eye looks off to the side, as though it has wandered of its own accord. His hair lies thin and lank, a nondescript brown that doesn’t look like it’s been cut in a few months.