John started back toward his car: it was pitch-black now—it had been dark when he arrived, he realized, but now he noticed it. The streetlamps didn’t go far, the pools of light beneath him swallowed up only a few feet out. His footsteps landed hard; and there seemed to be no way to quiet them. The distant roar of the highway was too faint to provide cover, and the wind was silent for the time being, as though it had temporarily gone into hiding. Something moved a few yards ahead of him, and John stopped dead: coming down the road was another costumed moviegoer, but there was something off about this one. It was heading in his direction, walking in the middle of the road at an even pace. John stayed where he was between two of the tall, thin saplings planted along the sidewalk, his eyes glued to the approaching figure.

As it came closer, a chill gripped John’s spine: The clown’s movements were feminine, but wrong. She walked like something mechanical, yet graceful. His breath caught in his throat as the clown glided toward him like a wraith. The creature was staring straight ahead as it passed; John waited, hoping to stay out of its line of sight. As she grew closer however, her eyes drifted toward him, her head turning only slightly as though to acknowledge his passing.

John stared back, at first admiring the sleek and controlled beauty of her face, split down the middle through some trick of costuming. John instinctively took a step back—he had seen monsters before—and prepared to run, or fight, if necessary. But just as his heart began thudding against his chest, she looked away again and slipped back into the dark as gracefully as she had appeared. John watched for a moment, then continued to his car. He checked his rearview mirror, but there was no one in sight. As he drove home, he checked the mirror more often than he needed to. His thoughts kept returning to those shiny, penetrating eyes: the clown had looked at him like she knew him; like she could see right through him. “Relax,” John said to the empty car. “It was just some weirdo in a costume.” Saying the words aloud, however, did not make them any more convincing.

*  *  *

Clay went back to his office and stopped by the window, drawing aside the curtains slightly to make sure John had made it around the corner and out of sight. Clay sighed; he sat down at his desk, picked up the case file on the second missing child, and began to review it. The information he needed just wasn’t there, but it didn’t stop him from returning to it over and over again. His officers had diligently done their jobs: they’d gone to the right places, talked to the right people, and asked all the wrong questions. They just don’t know what I know.