Chapter 6

Maisy Farley’shoneyed voice floats through the Marino family’s kitchen from the smart speaker near the stove. Amy listens to the familiar voice tell an all-too-familiar tale that makes her gut twist and her throat clench.

Then her own disembodied voice emanates from the small rectangle. “Mom and Dad could have gone to court …”

Owen, no doubt on his way to the pantry for a pre-dinner snack, stops in his tracks. “Is that you?”

She holds up one finger—wait a minute—and listens to the rest of the trailer play before turning to him. The question is moot because Maisy identified Amy as the speaker, but she answers it anyway.

“Yes.”

Her middle son stares at her unblinkingly. “Why?”

“Why what?”

He opens the pantry, removes an entire sleeve of cookies from the package, and slams the door shut. “Why would you go on that podcast and tell the whole world about Aunt Heather?” His voice shakes.

“One, put at least half of those cookies back. Dinner’s in less than an hour.”

She uses the time it takes him to remove a handful of cookies from the plastic and return the rest to the package—still too many, but a more reasonable number—to formulate her answer. She silences the speaker as he mows through the cookies, eyeing her while he chomps and chews.

“Two, your aunts and I need to know what happened to Heather. The Farley Files is one of the most popular true-crime podcasts in the country, Owen. Maybe someone who knows something will hear it and come forward.” Because someone out there does know something. She’s sure of it.

She looks at her son. In a few months, he’ll be the same age Heather was when she disappeared. She remembers being fifteen. Everything her parents did was embarrassing—no, mortifying. She can empathize. Tomorrow, in school, he won’t be the kid in the robotics club who also loves fencing and comics. He’ll be the kid whose aunt vanished ages ago and whose mom’s going public, dredging up the past. Diana, Kristy, and she have put their own families in the spotlight.

She rests a hand on Owen’s arm. “We talked about this, honey.”

“I know,” he mumbles through a mouthful of cookies. “I just … it’s different hearing your voice in the podcast talking about it. Everybody’s hearing that, Mom. Everyone listens to The Farley Files.”

Despite the anguish in his voice, she’s thrilled to hear this.

“That’s good. Because the more people who listen to it, the greater the chance that someone who knows something about Aunt Heather will come forward.”

“I know, but ….” He trails off, his face crumpling, and she thinks he might cry.

Just then, they hear the creak of the garage door rising. A moment later, Rich and Ava walk into the kitchen.

“You’re home early. Short rehearsal?” Amy smiles at her daughter as Rich comes around the counter to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Yep. Next week is tech week, so it’ll be long nights all week. Ms. Donaldson cut us loose early today and told us to do something fun.”

Rich takes one look at Owen and accurately sums up the situation. He says in a cheery voice, “Something fun, huh? We have time before dinner. What do you two say we shoot some baskets?”

Owen brightens instantly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Amy mouths “Thank you,” to Rich.

“You want to shoot around too, Mom?” Ava asks.

Why not? “Let me get this casserole in the oven so we can eat when your brother gets home and then I’ll lace up my shoes. You fools better look out when I bring my A game to the court.”

Ava giggles at her attempt at trash talk and even Owen flashes her a grin. She ruffles his hair and then turns to her daughter. “How was rehearsal? Are you kids ready for opening night?”

“Uh, noooo. But it’ll come together next week and during dress rehearsal.”

Ava’s excitement when she talks about her drama class is palpable, and Amy’s heart squeezes with joy. Watching her teens develop their passions as they move from childhood into the wider world is so satisfying, more than she ever imagined it could be when they were tottering around with sippy cups. She’s looking forward to hanging out with them when they’re adults. Then her heart squeezes again, in a sadder, tighter way, as she thinks of Heather, who’s forever sixteen.

As if Ava senses the shift, her voice softens, and she leans against her mom. “Dad and I heard the podcast trailer in the car.”

Amy blinks at Rich.

“I was listening to satellite radio,” he explains.

“I thought the Farley Files is an internet podcast.”

“It is, but the true crime channel rebroadcasts it. A lot of people are going to hear it, Amy.”

She tells him what she just told Owen. “That’s good. That’s the point.” She says the words with more conviction than she feels.

Rich gives her a long, steady look. “Yeah, that’s the point.” Then he claps his hands together. “Come on losers. Let’s hoop it up. We’ll warm up while Mom finishes up in here.”

That is the point Amy reminds herself as her husband and children head out to the basketball hoop nailed over the garage door. She slides the casserole dish into the preheated oven and gives herself a pep talk: Stay strong. Don’t let anything that comes to light knock you off course, and you’ll be fine.

She picks up her phone to text her sisters to ask what they thought of the trailer. But then she returns the phone to the counter facedown and grabs her sneakers from the bin in the mudroom instead. From the beginning, when Diana first voiced the idea, Amy promised herself that this effort to make peace with her past, with Heather’s disappearance, wouldn’t impinge on her present with her own family. She’s committed to keeping her focus on Rich and the kids. So she leaves the phone inside and runs out to the driveway to join in the basketball game. No matter what she learns, her priority has to be the life she built with Rich, not the one that was destroyed the night Heather vanished.