“I guess so.”

“Think, Anna. What makes a blind spot?”

He meant like when we were driving. “Someone being right on your shoulder, too close to see.”

“That works for people, too. Anyone under your nose just disappears. That’s the danger zone, right next to you. Whoever it is you trust the most.”

I was listening to him, listening hard. For as long as I could remember, people had been telling me that I should trust them, social workers and teachers and total strangers, all of them saying a version of the same thing, that I should let my guard down and open up. But the world had been showing me the opposite, and now Hap was, too. “What’s the secret then?”

“There’s no secret, just keep your eyes open. Open all the time, but especially when you think you can’t be surprised. That’s when you learn to pay attention, to listen to your own voice.”

“What about other people?”

“They’ll either earn your trust or they won’t.”

He meant himself and his wife, Eden, too. Some other type of ten-year-old girl with a different set of experiences might have felt nervous hearing this, but I was relieved. He didn’t trust me yet, and I didn’t trust him. Finally someone wasn’t trying to pretend any of this was easy. Finally someone had decided to tell the truth.

—

The café’s name may have changed, but the message board hasn’t. I comb through the postings slowly, bright snatches of colored paper hawking guitar lessons and palm readings and garden soil. Someone is looking for an artist’s model. Someone else wants free firewood. I take my time reading the messages one by one until I come to the missing girl, her lost lovely face under the words Have you seen me?

Cameron Curtis

Age: 15

Last seen: 9/21

Red flannel shirt, black jeans

5'4" 105 lbs

Long black hair, dark brown eyes

Tips: 724-555-9641

Substantial reward offered

September 21 was yesterday, the day Brendan had finally had enough and asked me to go. The timing makes me feel shaky as I look at the girl again, her dark serious gaze, the spill of hair to her waist, all of her too beautiful to be safe anywhere for long. Something in the curve of her mouth tells me that very wrong things have happened to her, even before she disappeared. I’ve seen too many like her to believe otherwise. But this isn’t San Francisco, where missing teen flyers are plastered on every Muni kiosk, a sight so familiar they become transparent. In a small place like Mendocino, I know all too well, any act of violence is personal. Everyone will be feeling this. Everyone will be affected.