Then the man went back to the lady. She had on a blouse with a bow by her neck. The man pointed at the door, and the lady looked up and waved at me. I didn’t wave back.

“Maisy?” She was on the other side of the screen now. Her face got close to mine. Her eyes and hair were brown, the same as her skirt. Her face looked like Jenny the Head, without the bite marks, though. “I’m Susan,” she said. “Can we talk a bit? Detective Aiken says you’re a very bright little girl. With an excellent memory. And we’d really love your help to find your big brother.”

I nodded.

“Is there a quiet place we can chat about the man you met, Carl? I have photographs.” She lifted up the envelope.

I went into the kitchen, and she followed me. We passed Gloria. She was sitting in Telly’s television chair staring at the screen. But it was turned off. Maybe she was sleeping with her eyes open. She did that sometimes, so she could still see everything.

The Susan lady sat down. I sat down, too. Her two hands were on the envelope. Her fingernails were full of skin hitches, just like mine, but she didn’t hide them the way I did.

“So you and your brother like to explore the woods in the summer, hey?”

Not really. Rowan did. I just followed him by accident. On purpose.

“I used to love that when I was a girl.” She picked at the corner of the envelope. “How many times did you meet Carl?”

“Once,” I said.

“Under the bridge?”

“Mm-hmm. He was there with Girl.”

“Girl? He had a girl with him?”

“His dog. Her name’s Girl.”

“Dogs are nice.” She smiled. Her eyes got even prettier. “What sort of dog?”

I swung my feet under the chair. “Sort of orange or brown. And big. But not fluffy like Chicken. Girl got a whip-around tail. A little bit of her fur on her back sticks up straight and some around her neck is all gone. Sometimes she snap-bites at the flies, but she doesn’t catch them. She’s a good dog. She wears a rope around her neck with three beads. Carl wears beads too. Kind of. In his beard.”

“Wow. Detective Aiken was right. You’ve got an amazing memory, Maisy.”

I shook my head. I don’t got a good memory. It was always making things up. Putting the wrong pictures in there, or mixing them around. But I didn’t tell her that.

“Is Carl a nice man?”