I fish my headphones from my back pocket and jam them into my ears and play the rest of the song. It’s Roxy’s voice, so seductively rough and full-bodied, that makes her music. Iron-clad. So not-delicate, so everything-in-the-room that sometimes she barely sounds like a girl at all – but she’s only nineteen in this recording, just two years older than me. It’s almost impossible to believe. Even then she never called herself a girl. Rightfully so; she had the voice of a thousand lifetimes lived. I can’t get enough. Neither can the rest of the cult following.

Neither could Celeste.

She’s lost

Oh, when they all learn that she’s lost

They’ll pick out the letters that she crossed

out when she gave them her name

Though even Roxy’s not enough to totally quell the crackle of nerves in my gut. Stimulus.

On my phone I navigate on to Twitter and I search the hashtag for How to Disappear.

The announcement of my hiatus dropped like a bomb. The podcast doesn’t have the biggest following, but enough people listen to justify it as a semi-fruitful endeavour.

I’d posted a short screenshot-explanation before I left yesterday. Melodramatic, sure, and it was all very in the moment so I hadn’t read it back, but it got the point across.

When I started creating these accounts, I was doing so in pursuit of truth. Now, looking back at the years of episodes – I’m not sure I’ve accomplished anything I set out to. What’s the point of any of this if there aren’t any answers? Any conclusions? Who am I even talking to? Who am I helping?

What is the point? … Is anyone there?

This summer I’m taking on my biggest story yet. Episodes will halt while I dedicate the next three months (maximum) to uprooting my life to reanimate the cold case of someone whose disappearance has interested me for a long time. I ask that you be patient with me until I’m back.

Basically: please know there’s no universe where I come back with nothing. I’m going to find out what happened to her. An entirely new experience for us all. Isn’t that something!

See you at the end of the summer.

Thanks, CAP

When I checked my phone at the first gas station in Ohio I hadn’t expected the excitement online. People were buzzing. Unusual, I assumed, for a so-called amateur crime writer to go to a scene themselves; amidst all this false, detached and saccharine empathy, I was going to do something real and good.

I couldn’t tell anyone why, though, of course. Why it was this case specifically. Too close. Too personal. I hoped no one would question it.

I scroll through the hashtag.

Maybe it’s someone she’s already covered?

this is LOW-KEY scary and real i hope she’s gonna be OK