I didn’t notice it right away, but when I did it seemed absurdly obvious. There was a road that meandered straight into Alexandria Bay, and where it intersected Cranberry Creek, a patch of green denoted a thicket of trees. It assumed the form of a bird with its beak open. A forest, shaped like a swan. Those woods were six minutes from the center of town, just ten from any number of docks and rocky beaches along the river. The road was called Swan Hollow.

“No show?”

I looked up to see Tim standing in front of me, his scarf flapping in the wind.

“No,” I said. “But I might have something.” I showed him the map.

“Swan Hollow. Swanton.” He lifted his eyes from the screen. Away from the lights the press had set up near the podium, his pupils were as dark and glossy as the feathers of a crow. “It’s a stretch.”

“Got a better idea?”

Tim was quiet for a moment before he said, “Looks like we can rule out the biological mother in Syracuse. Sol called around, and she’s got an alibi for yesterday morning. She works at a nail salon, and the staff and customers all confirm she was on site.”

It pained me to see Tim exploring other angles and working the case as if he had doubts about who took Trey, but had I left him any choice? By holding back my history with Bram, I was also holding back Tim. “I think we need to organize a search,” I said.

“What, now?” He looked up at the cloudy sky, the lack of a visible moon. “A night search in below-freezing temps is going to look like a search for a body.”

Fighting the urge to cringe, I said, “What we’re looking for is a cabin, somewhere for Bram to hide Trey. If he took the kid as bait, as a way to get to me, Bram’s going to need him alive.” But the girls. I tried to ignore the voice in my head that had been chanting their names like a mantra for months. Becca. Lanie. Jess. Bram hadn’t needed them alive. All I could do was hope this time was different.

Criminal investigations take baby steps. They totter, one foot in front of the other, always in danger of falling, failing, returning to the starting line. Whether because of Swan Hollow, or fifth grade, or some innate understanding of my lost cousin’s mind, this felt like the right line to tread.

For the time being, precarious moves were the only kind we had.

FOURTEEN

It was late on Monday night when Troop D’s investigators, a handful of other officials, and a few dozen volunteers set out across the Cranberry Creek Wildlife Management Area on the outskirts of town. Flashlight beams crisscrossed the terrain as voices shouted Trey’s name through the woods. With its mix of wetland and marsh, the maple, birch, and beech trees straight as flagpoles, the environment reminded me so much of Swanton’s own refuge I kept forgetting where I was. It was disorienting, like waking up in a different time zone and finding that whether it’s the smell of the air or the color of the sky, something’s off.