Setting the phone to the side, I try to decide how best to go about learning whether my mother’s accident was real. Atlas suggested that like the words being taken away, hundreds, quite possibly thousands, of people have been removed from the city by those who work for the government. Well, accidents are reported in the news, right? My mother’s accident was, of that I’m certain. Maybe there is a detail in that article that I missed before, one that can help me now.

I grab my tablet, type my mom’s name into the search field, and hit Enter.

Links appear for dozens of articles discussing the accomplishments of the City Pride Program—most I’ve never thought to look for, much less read, before today. My heart squeezes as I click through the various articles that praise the parks and murals and buildings in sections of the city that once were plagued by gangs, violence, crumbling buildings, and homelessness. Atlas’s voice whispers in the back of my head that not a single article mentions what happened to the gang members, criminals, or homeless who had been there before. Only that the revitalized areas sparked a renewed interest and pride in community, which led to lower crime rates and better living. Something I believed with my whole heart to be true. And now? Now part of me wants to shut off the device and ignore it all. But I can’t, because I need to know if my mother died in an accident or if she was deliberately killed.

Taking a deep breath, I do another search for the article I read the day before my father and I stood in the cemetery and watched my mother’s coffin being lowered into the ground. The article was about the accident. It referenced the unseasonable snow and the driver losing control on the black ice—all facts the police officers shared with me on the night it happened. Only, the online column that I once read through tears doesn’t appear. I search again and get the same results.

I must be doing something wrong.

I move to my desk and turn on my computer to find the bookmark that I created for that column. I click the link and get an error message telling me the page I am looking for no longer exists.

My phone signals I have a message from an unknown number.

WILL BE AT YOUR HOUSE THIS AFTERNOON. BE READY AND DON’T DO ANYTHING STUPID BEFORE I GET THERE. —A

Atlas.

Part of me wants to call him and ask what he knows about my mother’s accident. The other part knows I won’t be able to trust anything he tells me. Not without learning it for myself.

Frustration simmers as I shove the phone aside and try several more searches using different key words. Finally one link does appear—Mom’s obituary. It cites a car accident as the reason she died. But that’s the only reference to the accident that I can find. The rest has vanished, which only strengthens my need to know the truth.