She watched Lynn take a deep breath. “You really feel OK?” Lynn said. “No pain, nothing strange at all?”

“I think you know there’s a whole lot strange about me. But nothing unusual. I know you were watching some video about William. Don’t be mad, I just glanced at it on your computer screen when I was looking for you. I promise I wasn’t snooping.”

Lynn’s fist covered her mouth, her other hand bracing her elbow. “I don’t want the shop opening today. I have to call Anne. In fact, we need to leave right now.”

“Anne won’t be here for another three hours to open the shop. You need to take a deep breath and just explain what’s going on. I know this has something to do with that video.”

“I have to know when anything is reported about William. Turned out to be just the same rehashed theories of where he might be. But that wasn’t why I came out here. I was right to be worried.”

As Lynn turned once again to the trees, Roxy followed her gaze. The morning’s humidity swam like a river around them, seeping through the iron fence and throughout the burr oaks beyond. Not a half mile into the trees was the site that prompted Lynn to wall off the woods from the world.

“I woke up with this horrible feeling. You know how it is when you’re supposed to do something important, then you forget it, and when it comes back to you, it hits you like a Mack truck?”

“We turn eighty next year, Lynn. I am well aware of the sensation of forgetfulness.”

“This was worse than that. It was like a neighbor calling to say that smoke is coming out of your house and remembering that you left the gas burner on. Take that horrible feeling and times it by a thousand. I was in a panic. When the video proved to be nothing new, I searched for anything about him or Kate. There was nothing. That feeling, though … of something horrible remembered … wouldn’t go away.”

Lynn continued to look through the fence. Roxy had only been to the abduction site a few times, and that was when William first disappeared. She’d found nothing remarkable about it all those years ago. Just a small grove amidst the trees where, unlike most of the woods, grass actually thrived in places, thanks to gaps of sky amongst the canopy of leaves. That summer, everything the sun encouraged to grow was flattened by the feet of searchers and police. Surrounded by crime-scene tape even in the winter months, it became desolate.

The fence prevented anyone, except for Lynn and the few she allowed to enter, to reach the site. Upon learning its history, tied to the disappearances of so many, Roxy understood her friend’s fierce commitment to conceal it. Privately, she worried how often Lynn returned.