Crissy was frantic. She didn’t want to leave without Abe. Doug suggested they drive to the refuge to discuss the situation with Brett. He took Crissy to the designated meeting spot at the fishing access on Hook Road.

“I figured Brett would go back to the house for Abe, or come up with some other idea,” Doug said. “But we couldn’t find him. His car was there—he’d parked it at the boat launch—but he wasn’t around. I thought maybe he’d gone to take a piss or something. So, we waited.”

“How long?”

“Half an hour, maybe? The more time that passed, the more worried I got, but I kept telling Crissy he had to come back for his car. All his stuff was in there, packed right up to the ceiling. At one point we even searched around the tree line. Meanwhile, Crissy was losing it, going through denial, anger, fear. She was convinced it had all gone to hell. She said she couldn’t go home, not now that the plan to desert Aunt Fee was out in the open. I tried to convince her to come back to our place, but she didn’t trust Mom not to side with Felicia. No matter what I said, I couldn’t get her to leave.”

“So what did you do?” Tim asked.

“I went to get Mom anyway.”

“You left her there?” I said. “Alone?”

“Yeah. And if you’re hoping to make me feel guilty about that, don’t bother. I’ve had nineteen years to stew in my regrets.”

Not knowing what else to do, Doug told Crissy he’d return to the house and try to sneak Abe out. By then, he said, maybe Brett would have returned.

“I got as far as the car dealership on the outskirts of town before I realized leaving her was a bad idea. She was hysterical by then—and I knew about her problem with drugs. She’d been using for a while,” Doug said, “smoking a bowl in the woods, busting out the hash pipe at parties. I did a little of that myself for a while, so we were together pretty often. She never resorted to harder drugs, not as far as I knew, but I was worried she might have some scary shit on her and that she’d do something stupid. I was probably only gone fifteen minutes. By the time I got back, she was gone.”

I blinked at him. “Gone.”

“Brett’s car was gone, too. I thought, okay, so Brett got back from wherever he was and they decided to leave without Abe. It’s not like the man could show his face in town again after what he tried to pull. Felicia could have him arrested. I didn’t like that they blew Abe off. Trust me,” he said through his teeth, “I was very unhappy about that. But what could I do?”

I found myself nodding. What could he do? Brett and Crissy were gone. Only somehow, Crissy came back.

“So Crissy was reported missing the next day,” Tim said. “Did you tell the police what you knew?”