Yet there was a sliver of hope.

She picked up the three photos of Ricky’s room—obvious because it was all boy. Baseball pictures—his team was the Astros—a signed ball under a glass dome, though she couldn’t make out who had signed it. The room was messy—clothes tossed randomly in a corner, books stacked every which way on the lone floor-to-ceiling shelf. The top of his dresser overflowing with comics and Legos and Army men. His desk covered with his schoolwork.

Wait.

She straightened. “Nate, his books.”

Nate looked at where she pointed.

“Yeah?”

“This is a math book. A schoolbook. And a binder. A pencil box. This is…” She squinted. “This looks like a grammar book, I can’t quite make it out.”

“Okay.”

“There’s no backpack.” She flipped through the other photos and showed him that two backpacks were in the laundry room. “The notes say these were Tori’s and Becky’s backpacks. Ricky’s backpack wasn’t found in the house.”

“Didn’t we agree that the killer likely grabbed him when he was coming home from the Youngs’?”

“Yet his books are here. Books that he would have had in his backpack.”

“He could have left his books at home that day. Especially if he didn’t need them.”

“But there’s a binder and pencil box. We need to talk to the Young kids again. Find out if these items were in his backpack when he left.”

“Would the kids remember something like that?”

“They might remember if Ricky didn’t have his math book in class,” Lucy said. “It’s a long shot, but his backpack is not inventoried and neither is his bike. But if these books were in his backpack that Friday, that meant he came home when he left the Youngs’, then disappeared again.”

“The killer could have returned and found him. That’s why he wasn’t buried with his family,” Nate said.

Nate was right. But still … it seemed odd. Because why would the killer dump out the books and then take Ricky’s backpack and bike?

“We both think there’s a chance he survived, right?”

Nate nodded. “The call to his grandparents. It’s something.”

“We can’t overlook this.”

She frowned.

“I’m with you, Lucy. I want Ricky to be alive, too, but we don’t know where to look.”

“He went home,” Lucy said. “After he left the Youngs’ house, he went home. He packed a bag to leave … he went somewhere. But he was nine years old. He couldn’t have gotten far. Where would he have gone? I think back to the Youngs’.”

“I don’t think that JJ Young was lying to us,” Nate said. “And if we accuse his son of lying, he won’t let us through the door.”