“Horrible,” I agreed. “I know everyone’s hoping he’ll be found soon.”

It didn’t take long for me to select a card from the rack. When I was ready to pay I decided to wander the aisles. Mac had forbidden me from buying her a gift, but maybe I could find a token item too trivial and silly for her to refuse. A jar of mermaid bath salts maybe, or a bag of locally made cheese curds. Everybody loved those.

I was just starting to plot my next move—pay a citizen with waterfront property to ferry me to Heart Island? Gnaw my nails down to the quick?—when I noticed the bulletin board near the register.

It was a community board, the kind papered with homemade posters for teen babysitters and dented cars for sale by owner. There were layers upon layers of them, but a new poster had recently been added to the mix. Crisp, bright white card stock, placed dead center to cover the others. It showed two photos, side-by-side.

“Everything okay, hon?”

Without realizing it I’d taken a step back, straight into a wall of Thousand Islands T-shirts. The hangers clattered as I disentangled myself from the rack. “This poster.” My voice sounded weak. “Where did it come from?”

At the till, Annette craned her neck. “A man put that up, just before you came in. That’s him, the missing boy.” She shook her head. “What is this world coming to?”

I hadn’t seen a picture of Trey, but I knew from Mac’s description Annette had to be right. The kid was smiling, but barely, as if someone was forcing him to. The look in his eyes was pure terror. Next to him there was another face, another smile. This one belonged to my uncle Brett. Above them both, the word MISSING was written in dark ink.

With shaking hands, I pried the pushpins from the corners of the poster and peeled it off the wall.

Maybe I’m wrong, I thought as I clutched the stiff sheet of paper. Maybe this is someone’s sick idea of a joke. But there was no denying what I saw. There was a message on the back of the poster, handwritten in pen, and the words echoed through my consciousness like a scream.

Wanna play?

No, I thought. Please, not this. “What did the man look like?” I blurted out. “Tell me everything.”

The panic in my voice turned Annette’s expression from courteous to concerned. She was guarded now, apprehensive, and I knew what she was thinking. One of us was crazy. Was it the person with the poster, or me? I said, “Listen, ma’am, I’m with the local police. I need to find the man who left this here.”

That drew out a timid nod. Annette’s description was vague: he was tallish, blondish, youngish. His face, I implored, but she couldn’t recall. All she really remembered was his hat, the words Purple Pirates across the front. It was the name shared by the local grade school’s sports teams.