Chapter 23

Rich is cutting his grass,pushing the mower back and forth across the portion of that backyard that hasn’t been taken over by Amy’s garden beds. He’s all for her gardening. More gardens means less grass to cut. As he mows, he listens to Maisy’s interview with Kristy through the big over-the-ear headphones the kids gave him for his birthday. It’s not his first listen, and when the podcast reaches the portion he’s most interested in, he turns up the volume so the drone of the lawn mower doesn’t drown out his sister-in-law’s voice.

Kristy: When Heather went missing, I went through her room before the police did. I wanted to see if her diary had any clues. I was deep in my Meg Mackintosh Mystery Series era then. I honestly thought I could solve the mystery of what happened to my sister. I was such a little goofball.

He smiles at the memory of her reading those books. When he started dating Amy the summer after Heather disappeared, he’d go to the house to pick her up, and Kristy would inevitably be up in the old elm tree in the Ryans’ front yard wedged into the V-shaped trunk with one of the mysteries balanced on her knees. He figured the books and the tree were a good escape from the misery that blanketed her home.

Kristy: I couldn’t find the diary at all. I’d, well, I’d read it before. It was this white faux leather book with a gold lock and gold script that read ‘My Diary’ on the front. The lock was a joke. I could pop it with a bobby pin. She kept the diary wedged between the back of her vanity table and the wall, but it wasn’t there.

Maisy: Do you think your parents or one of your other sisters removed it?

Kristy: No. I know my sisters didn’t because I asked them about it once years later and they didn’t even know she kept a diary, let alone where she hid it. And if it was my mom or dad, they never mentioned it, and we didn’t find it in their things when we cleaned out the house.

Maisy: So as far as you know, Heather’s diary went missing with her.

Rich turns off the stream before he has to hear Kristy’s voice cracking as she spins out a fantasy of Heather living the ski bum life. He finishes mowing, uses the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat from his eyes, and takes a long swig of ice water from the tumbler Amy sent Ava out with earlier. As the cool liquid works its way down his throat, he glances around the empty yard.

He’s home alone this Saturday morning. Evan’s at work, Owen’s at fencing, and Amy and Ava left twenty minutes ago to go shopping for stage makeup for Ava’s upcoming performance. He finishes the water and returns the tumbler to its spot on the waist-high brick wall beside the patio before taking the lawn mower to the shed.

The shed is cramped but not cluttered. He returns the mower to its spot along the wall then moves deeper into the dark room. The sunlight streaming in through the open door guides him to the far right corner where three heavy-duty plastic storage bins are stacked against the back wall next to the wall-mounted fishing rod holder. He removes the top two bins from the stack and places them aside. Then he crouches and lifts the lid from the bottom bin. The bin is filled with old buckets and shovels from a sandbox they’d gotten rid of years ago, bubble wands, and deflated beach balls and pool toys. It’s a relic, really, a time capsule from when the kids were little. It’s also the last bin anyone in the family would think to open. He swims his hand through the assorted junk until it connects with something hard and square.

He pulls out a small blue tackle box, pops it open, and slides out the top tray to access the bottom tray and the white, fake leather book with ‘My Diary’ embossed across the front. He runs his hands over the cover, then returns it to its hiding spot.

Memorial Day, 1994

Rich waitsaround the corner until he knows the Ryans have left. They’re headed to Dead Man’s Hollow to meet the search and rescue team. Once Mr. Ryan’s car turns off their street, he slips into their backyard, careful to close the gate behind him, and creeps along the side of the house. He’s hidden from the street by Mrs. Ryan’s big rose bushes. He hews close to the thorny wall of blooming roses, trading scratches for concealment. To get caught now, doing this, would be beyond stupid.

He’s spent two sleepless nights staring up at the slowly rotating ceiling fan above his bed wondering if Heather mentioned him in her diary. He knows enough from his brother to understand that if she wrote that they were sleeping together, he’ll be the prime suspect in her disappearance. And even if it doesn’t make him a suspect, if she did write about him, nothing good will come out of the police getting their hands on it. His relationship with Julia is on its last legs, but there’s no reason for her to know he was cheating on her. And he definitely doesn’t want Amy to know he was banging her little sister. It’s better for lots of reasons if Heather’s diary never sees the light of day.

He runs from the back corner to the patio, grabs the spare key hidden beneath the stone frog that sits next to the kitchen door, and lets himself into the dim, quiet house. He skulks through the kitchen and dining room and climbs the stairs to the second floor stealthily even though no one would hear him if he stomped.

Upstairs, he eases the door to Heather’s bedroom open with a soft creak. He’s never entered the room from the interior of the house, but he’s been inside it plenty of times. The big elm in front of the house has a long, sturdy branch that extends up to Heather’s window, and he’s scrambled up that tree in response to a late-night page more than once.

“Not the time for a walk down memory lane,” he reminds himself. “Get in, get out.”

He crosses the room past her unmade bed and the pile of laundry on the floor. He slips his hand between the white dressing table and the wall and feels around until his fingers make contact with the diary. He grabs it and shoves it under his shirt into the waistband of his shorts. The fake leather is cold against his bare skin. Then he races down the stairs and lets himself out the way he came in.

Back home in his own bedroom, he buries the diary at the bottom of his footlocker before hurrying to the hollow to join the search for Heather before anyone realizes he’s not there.