Chapter 4

Their voices floatin from the hallway in urgent, indistinct whispers as the Ryan sisters argue amongst themselves. Here and there, a phrase emerges from the sibilant sounds. “We already agreed” is plainly audible. It’s followed by “lost cause.”

And then, a man’s voice, clear and definitive, says, “worried you’re re-traumatizing yourselves.”Maisy knows this can only be Rich, Amy’s husband. Identifying him is hardly a trick. Although Kristy, the youngest sister, is also married, her husband is home watching the kids. Rich is the only male at the meeting.

Jordana’s eyebrows pinch together as she frowns. Her body tenses as she prepares to stand up and stride out into the corridor. Maisy places a hand on her producer’s arm. The Ryans had stepped outside after hearing Maisy and Jordana’s pitch for the season. If they’re meant to investigate Heather Ryan’s disappearance, the women in the hallway will come to the right conclusion. If they don’t … well, Maisy isn’t sure what they’ll do then. But she’s not going to pressure the Ryans. They have to want this.

“Have a little faith, sugar. Let them work it out.”

Jordana looks like she’s about to protest but she doesn’t. Maisy gives her a reassuring smile.

She”s about to flip through the research file again when the door swings open, and the three women return to the conference room. Diana’s in the lead. Rich holds the door and then trails behind the sisters. They retake their original seats across the table, lined up by age. Diana, the oldest, then Amy, then Kristy. Heather, if she were here, would slot in between Amy and Kristy. As he did earlier, Rich sits in the leather chair in the corner rather than at the table.

Maisy turns up the wattage on her smile, fixes her gaze on the sisters, and waits.

Diana clears her throat. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. Y’all need to be on the same page if we move forward. Better to hash it out now than once we start airing episodes.”

If one of the Ryan women changes her mind and backs out after the season starts, it will be an unholy headache. One Maisy neither wants nor needs.

Diana nods. “Thanks for understanding.”

Then Amy asks, “If we go ahead and do it, how will it work? You’ll air the episodes as you go? You don’t hold them all until the end?”

Jordana gives Maisy a questioning look. She nods as if to say go ahead.

“That’s right. The Farley Files investigates in real time, uncovering the truth of the story along with our listeners. Our market research shows that this immediacy keeps the audience invested in the story. Necessarily, every episode ends on a cliffhanger since we don’t know what happens next either. Engagement in our first season was quite high.” Jordana folds her hands on the table in front of her and eyes the women.

From his corner, Rich asks, “And if you fall on your face, then what? The whole season’s a bust?”

Maisy flicks her eyes toward him for a few seconds before addressing her answer to the sisters. “Rich has identified the risk of our format. If my investigation uncovers nothing new, if listeners don’t send in any tips, if no evidence emerges, then I fall on my face.” She waits a beat. “But if I thought that was a real possibility, I wouldn’t structure my podcast this way. After all, I like my face.”

Kristy laughs softly. Amy grins at her. Even Diana’s tense, tight facial muscles relax. The trademark Maisy Farley charm has once again worked its magic.

Now that the tension’s eased, she elaborates. “This is a different way of presenting a case—investigating it in real time. It removes the temptation for Jordana and me to craft a narrative arc that leads the listener to the conclusion we want them to reach. There is no foregone conclusion. We’re not telling a story where we know the ending. We’re searching for answers.”

“We’re searching right along with you,” Jordana elaborates. “The Farley Files only take on cases where we’re working in concert with the people directly affected by the crime. We’re not interested in sensationalizing someone’s pain for ratings.”

She pauses, and Maisy jumps in. She looks directly at Rich as she adds, “Or in re-traumatizing this family. You’ve been through enough.”

He holds her gaze for a moment, then dips his chin. Message delivered.

To Maisy, it seems the sisters are having a silent conversation. The atmosphere in the room changes, as if they’ve come to a decision. They have.

Diana leans forward. “Let’s do it.”

A thrill of triumph runs through Maisy, and she realizes for the first time how badly she wants to do this. But she maintains a calm expression. “You’re all in agreement? You’re sure?”

Amy speaks up. “Yes. Mom and Dad could have gone to court to have Heather presumed dead seven years after she disappeared. They never did because they always held out hope that we’d get her back. Just because they’re gone doesn’t mean we want to give up on her without at least trying one last time.”

Diana crosses herself at the mention of their recently deceased parents. “The estate attorney says we need to do it now so we can close probate. Mom and Dad went to their graves without answers and without changing their will. Everything is split four ways. We either need to find Heather or have her declared dead.” She stares down at her hands.

“We’ll do everything we can to get answers for you,” Maisy promises the sisters. “But be prepared for unflattering or upsetting information to come to light.”

Kristy speaks for the first time. Her voice is soft but sure. “Ms. Farley, it’s been thirty years. Nothing we learn is going to change how we feel about our sister.”

Maisy’s about to explain she actually means information about the rest of them—Heather’s friends and family—when Kristy continues.

“We just want to give her some peace. And, to be honest, ourselves. It’s been hell wondering what happened to her. We need to know.”

“You deserve to know.” She stops herself from saying the obvious: any closure she can provide is almost certainly going to be painful and dark. Odds are this story doesn’t have a happy ending, but they know this even better than she does.

There’s a pause, then Amy asks, “So, where do we start?”

Jordana shuffles a stack of papers. “We’ll begin by filing a right-to-know request for the police records and pulling archives of local media coverage. Do you have access to Heather’s things—any diaries, yearbooks, calendars?” Her voice rises in a question as she rattles off the list, and Maisy realizes her twenty-two-year-old producer is wondering what other analog forms of communication existed among teenagers in the last millennium.

“Notes, letters, photo albums,” Maisy adds. She pauses and tries to remember life in 1994. “Did Heather have a pager?”

“No,” Diana and Amy say in unison, confident in their answer.

Kristy presses her lips together for a moment, then says, “Actually, she did.”

Her sisters turn to gape at her. “She did?”

And so it begins,Maisy thinks.

Kristy nods. “She gave me the number and made me promise not to tell anyone.”

“A pager? Like a doctor would have?” Jordana’s confusion is splashed across her face.

“Right,” Maisy explains. “Before cell phones, some teenagers used pagers so their friends could reach them when they were out. You’d page them with your number and they’d call you back when they got to a phone. Usually a payphone.”

“Drug dealers,” Diana says. “When I was in high school, only kids who were dealing had pagers.”

Amy’s bobbing her head in agreement. “That’s why Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me or Heather get one. I didn’t really care.”

“Heather did, though?”

The sisters consider Maisy’s question. The older two look at Kristy, who shrugs.

“She must’ve. She went through the trouble of getting it and paying the rent on it in secret.”

“Why? Was she dealing drugs?” Jordana wonders.

The three women laugh.

“Nothing like that,” Kristy assures her. “Imagine sharing one phone line with five other people, three of them girls. Even after Diana moved out, it was chaos.”

“We had one landline, two phones, for six people—and then for five when Diana went to college. One was mounted on the wall in the kitchen with this super long curly cord. That’s the one we girls used,” Amy remembers.

“If you stretched it as far as it could go, it just reached the powder room. Standing inside the door with the cord pulled taut was the only way to have a semi-private conversation,” Diana says.

“Even though anybody sitting at the kitchen table could make out most of your end of it,” Amy adds. “The second phone was on our parents’ nightstand in their bedroom. And that phone was off-limits.”

“It almost didn’t matter, though. Somebody was always on the phone. For the longest time, anyone who tried to reach someone at our house got a busy signal. When we finally got a call waiting, all it did was cause more fights over the phone.”

Amy and Diana speak with a surprising amount of affection over their competition for the precious, shared resource.

“I was only eight. I wasn’t making or getting many phone calls, but I understood why Heather wanted her pager. It was cute. Pink,” Kristy remembers.

Diana furrows her brow. “Yeah, I guess. But why’d she tell you about it?”

The youngest Ryan sister squeezes her eyes shut, pinches the bridge of her nose, and exhales loudly before answering. “In case I needed her when I was home alone.”

The atmosphere in the room cools. Maisy notes Amy and Diana’s expressions. They both narrow their eyes and flatten their lips. She flicks a glance toward Rich, silent in the corner. His shoulders are bunched up, and he’s wincing as if bracing for a blow.

“What do you mean, when you were home alone? It was Heather’s responsibility to watch you after school until Mom got home from work.” Amy’s voice is tight. “Just like Diana watched me, and I watched Heather when she was little.”

Kristy clears her throat. “You only had to do that for a few years, both of you. The age gap between Heather and me was bigger. It wasn’t fair. She couldn’t join any clubs or do extracurriculars. She never got to hang out with her friends and?—”

Diana throws up a hand. “—Don’t defend her.”

“She’s not here to defend herself,” Kristy shoots back.

It’s time to intervene.

“This is good. Great, actually,” Maisy assures them.

In unison, the sisters give her a look.

“What’s so great about it?” Amy wants to know.

“It’s new information, for starters. I mean, I haven’t read the police reports yet, but I reckon Kristy didn’t mention the pager—or the fact that Heather had after-school activities that the rest of the family didn’t know about.”

“The police didn’t interview me,” she says simply.

There’s a brief silence before Jordana slaps her hands down on the table. “Are you freaking kidding?”

“No.” Kristy shakes her head. “I was just a kid. I guess they thought I wouldn’t know anything. And I wasn’t about to volunteer information that would just get Heather in trouble when she came home.” Her voice wobbles. “Because I thought she’d come home. I must’ve paged her a thousand times, crossing my fingers and holding my breath while I waited for her to call. She never did.” She hangs her head. “I should have told someone. I’m sorry.”

Amy covers Kristy’s hand with her own. “Don’t be. You’re right, you were just a kid.”

Diana leans across Amy. “It’s not your fault, Kris.” Her voice is soft, soothing, even maternal.

Kristy sniffles.

Maisy gives her a minute, then pushes a notepad and a pen across the table. “Do you remember the pager number?”

She nods.

“Write it down for me.”

She does, then sends the notepad back to Maisy, followed by the pen.

“Thanks. Now, I need the names and as much information as you can give me about all of Heather’s friends, anybody who was at the bonfire that night, neighbors, families she babysat for. Anything and everything.” She lifts the pen and eyes them expectantly.

Jordana’s recording this meeting, and they know that. But Maisy wants them to forget about the video and audio recorder picking up every change of inflection, every hesitation, every shift in the seat or bite of the lip. By giving them something else to focus on, she hopes to lull them into an open, relaxed state.

Diana straightens her shoulders and glances at her sisters. “I’ll go first.”