Ignoring him, Ben sifted through the cans, bottles, wrappers, diapers, take-out wrappers and bags, magazines and newspapers, finding a laptop and phone.

Kayla’s laptop and phone.

Ben stared at them as questions swirled.

He cleaned up his mess, washed his hands in the bathroom, collected Kayla’s devices, then left.

His heart was thumping as he drove home along the empty streets, searching the night for answers.

Seeing Kayla and Emma together on the camera footage gave him a measure of relief but it was eclipsed by worry as he glanced at Kayla’s laptop and phone, fetched from the trash.

At home he scoured the internet for tips on how to gain access to Kayla’s laptop and phone, hoping to get an idea where they had gone and why. He read everything he could find, studied videos. Hours went by. It was futile.

He called the twenty-four-hour tech support line of their provider. There was little that could be done because of privacy policies and security safeguards. The tech guy cautioned Ben that repeated attempts to guess a password would lock him out, which he already knew.

Ben then scrutinized his phone and the gas station footage he’d recorded of the cars and people, hoping for a clue as to whether Emma was being followed.

He couldn’t find anything.

Nothing was working and the sun had risen. Ben hadn’t slept. He felt the full weight of the day crashing down on him, his shock, his worry, his jet lag.

He took a cold shower. As water rushed over him, he thrashed in a storm of self-recrimination. The karmic wheel had turned on him. Devoting his life to recording tragedies, he was haunted by Nietzsche’s warning about pursuing monsters and gazing long into an abyss, because “the abyss also looks into you.”

What have I done?

Once he was dressed, Ben made strong coffee.

Then his landline phone rang.

Eighty-One

California
Present day

Morning light pierced the seam of the drawn motel room curtains.

The strange firmness of the motel’s bed, the laundered smell of the sheets, told Kayla that it really happened.

This is no dream.

She replayed yesterday’s events when Emma had picked her up at school.

After saying goodbye to Cheyenne and Regan, Kayla had opened the door to Emma’s SUV, and seen luggage and groceries in the back.

“What’s with all that?”

“Get in, sweetheart. Something’s come up,” Emma had said. “We need to go somewhere.”

“Where? What’s going on?”

Kayla got in, reached for the car’s charger cable, connecting it to her phone. Her battery was low. Then she buckled up. Emma checked her mirrors and drove off without answering. They didn’t go far before they pulled into a gas station.

“We need gas. If you have to use the bathroom now’s a good time,” Emma said.

“Where’re we going, Emma?”