“It’s not as though I’ve stopped looking. The PI is working on this every day, all day—monitoring her credit cards, social security number, passport—he’s going state by state contacting train and bus stations, airlines.”

And yet, Nic thought, he ordered that sandwich. Then he went home. Went back to work. He walked the dogs and went to the gym and fucked his mistress and then came home to watch TV in the same bed he had shared with his wife for twenty-four years.

“You want me to get over Annie and get over Mom and go to college, and now I want you to get over me looking for her. I guess that’s a draw.”

He said nothing for a long moment.

And then, finally, just, “I love you, Nicole.”

When the others failed, there was always this last layer of shit in the box. Even if he meant it.

“I love you too, Dad.” Then she hung up.

Nic went back to the bed, under the covers. Her father’s words lying right there beside her.

She unlocked her phone again and sent a reply to Evan.

I’m fine. Don’t be worried.

Where ru?

At the Inn.

And then, something strange.

The one with the fence?

What fence?

Nic got up and walked back to the window. She couldn’t see a fence.

Dad said he saw it when he was out searching for Mom. He said it was creepy. He said they had to stop when they got to it.

IDK.

Nic stared at the woods. They went on forever.

U ok?

I guess.

She wondered then what he really thought about their mother. Was it easier for him to believe she’d left them? Was he relieved that she was gone? They had never talked about it. They texted, mostly, about everyday things. Nic asked him about football. She’d promised to make it to watch the playoffs, though being there without their mother was an emotional hurdle she wasn’t sure she could clear.

Dad wants me to come home.

The reply came quickly, and without a hint of the banter that was normally part of their conversation.

No. You have to find her.

And there was the answer to her question. She wasn’t alone.

She replied, Promise.

Chapter Seven

Day two

I stand with Alice by the window in the living room. She doesn’t understand why I’ve run to watch the man drive away.

Drive away with my purse inside.

The truck kicks up dirt from the driveway. It’s dented in the back. A taillight is broken.

“Do you know what happened to his truck?” Alice asks me.

I don’t care about the truck. I am thinking about my purse, and now the fence—the one that attaches to the gate at the end of the driveway. The gate that is chained shut. The fence with the coils of barbed wire.