I know every stitch of Mendocino but haven’t spent much time on Cahto. Only four houses run along it, counting Gray’s, a simple shingled bungalow behind a plain low fence lined with trash cans. We get out and begin to walk up the street’s slight incline, around muddy potholes and asphalt patches, over the word SCHOOL painted onto the street in what’s now a cracked, rain-slick yellow. The air smells heavy and sweet, like wet bark.

I’m trying to imagine Cameron here, to put myself in her shoes. The night she disappeared she studied first, after school, with Gray. She walked past these houses on her way home to dinner, thinking what? Did she already know she’d be meeting her abductor later that same night? Or did they somehow cross paths between Gray’s house and home? Maybe he suggested a meeting then, promising Cameron something of value to her. But what?

“Did you canvass these houses to see if anyone remembers a suspicious vehicle?” I ask Will.

He nods. “Nothing.”

“If Cameron was here a lot, you should look more closely at the neighbors. What about Mr. Benson?”

“He’s out of the picture as I understand it. Moved to New Orleans when Gray was young.”

“That must be another reason Gray and Cameron connect. Losing a parent changes you, no matter how it happens.”

—

The front gate of the Bensons’ house is open and tipped on its hinge from wear, with clematis vines clinging along the anchor post. In the side yard, I take in the messy vegetable garden sprouting from long planter boxes, neglected tomato plants bowing over wire stanchions, and think of how simple and real all this might have looked to a girl like Cameron, stranded on the bluff in a glass box while her famous mother pruned bonsai trees and pretended not to know what she knew about her husband’s indiscretions.

Di Anne Benson answers Will’s knock. She’s plump and pretty, in her midforties, with crimped auburn hair. Behind her, the kitchen smells like jarred spaghetti sauce. “Sheriff Flood.” She holds out her dish towel. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Sorry to bother you again. This is Detective Hart. Is Gray home? I promise we’ll be brief.”

She nods, leading us through the entryway and up a narrow flight of carpeted steps, a tan life-stained Berber. Lopsided botanical prints hang at intervals, the frames lightly painted with dust. Walking behind her, I notice the tag has flipped out of her loose-fitting navy sweater, and I resist the urge to tuck it back in.

“Gray?” Di Anne’s voice stretches tentatively through the door before she opens it, moving to one side. Her movements have the feel of concern, I think. As if she knows her son has become fragile and wary. Vulnerable.