Jenny had kept a journal, it turned out, which was discovered when the authorities searched her room. The pages were primarily filled with cryptic poems and song lyrics, but there were a number of entries in the months before her death about wanting to leave home the way her mother had, by vanishing without a word. Things were intolerable. She couldn’t stay. Couldn’t take it anymore. That was the general tone of what she’d written, but there was nothing specific about pressures or fears, or why she felt so desperate now, on the verge of leaving home anyway, for college. Whether it made sense or not, the general theory was that Jenny had meant to run the night she vanished, but instead of a helpful ride, she’d crossed paths with her killer. As for who that person might be, there were no real leads. He might have been a drifter, passing through, or he might still have been here among us, hidden in plain sight.

Neighbors stopped lingering to talk on the street. Hap and Eden had never even locked their doors at night, but did now like everyone else. Hap’s service weapon, the one he usually kept locked in his truck, regularly sat at the ready on his bedside while we slept. Did I feel safer for it? A little, maybe, but the surface of the world had shifted overnight, changing form—and not just for me. The sheriff’s office began enforcing a nine o’clock curfew for anyone under eighteen. No one wanted to be out after dark in the village, anyway. Those days seemed gone for good, like the bonfires down at the beach, and flashlight tag on the headlands. Just when I’d started to believe I could count on them.

—

At the far end of Kelly Street, the Ford house is a weathered brown-shingled saltbox with a detached artist’s studio, both buildings canted toward the headlands and the sea. Caleb once told me that it was built by one of the original founders of the village, and that one or another of his descendants has lived there since 1859, which isn’t hard to believe, looking at the place. While he was alive, Jack Ford never made any effort to keep things looking nice, and now, so many years later, the effects of his neglect are still visible everywhere, in the peeling paint on the eaves and shingles, the battered-looking garage door, and the yard tangled with tall weeds and thistle. Almost as if he’s still here, making sure nothing ever grows or changes or flies free of him.