Without any further transcripts from Cora, Colin could only assume whatever else she’d told the police didn’t shed any further light on where Caleb went after the party. If Cora and Caleb had gotten together after the party, that would likely have made her the last person to see him alive. That fact would certainly have been noted in the cold-case file, which it wasn’t.

Caleb wasn’t reported as seen by anyone else after he left Ron Finch’s house. He was reported missing by his parents around eight the following morning. Twelve hours after that, the search parties commenced. Over the following weeks, volunteers—many of them high-school students—searched parks, fields, and the vast woods that encased large swaths of the town. Divers from a search-and-rescue team checked the Bury reservoir. Flyers printed and posted. Nightly TV coverage from the Manchester network affiliates. Caleb’s case even earned a segment on America’s Most Wanted.

But nothing.

Not a single clue. Not a substantive lead. Nothing.

Caleb Benner vanished as completely as if he’d never existed in the first place. Four months later, the police announced they would be keeping the case open but suspected the teen was more likely a runaway than a victim.

After all his research into the case, Colin didn’t necessarily agree with the assessment. Usually there was a telltale sign of a runaway. Kids talk, and at least one of Caleb’s friends would have known something. But every single person expressed genuine shock at Caleb’s disappearance.

Colin checked—Caleb’s parents still lived in Bury, though they’d moved to a different house. Outskirts of town. What an awful thing, Colin thought. All those years. Just wondering. Waiting. Hoping for as long as you could, then losing hope along with your child.

Through all his research, Colin kept coming back in his mind to Cora Yates. And that made him think of Rose Yates.

These two.

Sisters of Bury.

Their protective father.

A disappearance twenty-two years ago.

A possible homicide four months ago.

All connected by the Yates name.

Without too much difficulty, Colin had been able to download the advance reader’s copy of J. L. Sharp’s upcoming book, The Child of the Steps. This was the only one of Rose Yates’s books he hadn’t read, and he planned to start reading it on his Kindle that night.

Step, Colin thought.

The word made him flash back to the end of Cora’s transcript, where Logan Yates mentioned having parts of the wood flooring and stairs refinished. It made him remember his brief time in the sprawling house on Rum Hill Road and how the energy inside its walls unsettled him, like a low wave of radiation.

Then he thought, Who only refinishes part of a floor?

Thirty-Five

Bury, New Hampshire

November 6

I’ve reached enough of a buzz to calm my nerves. It’s taken almost two whiskeys. Alec is still on his first beer.

A half hour ago, I walked into Rust, a tapas bar on the west side of Bury. Such an ugly name. Rust. Especially when combined with Bury.