Ten

After we finished eating, we continued our scavenger hunt for Iris’s memory. Matt drove slowly, giving Iris a chance to scan the scene. We passed the barn where I’d hidden Iris when I’d gone back to the grave for my phone. Then we were in the countryside. There weren’t many houses, but there was lots of open space—woods, meadows, ponds, and farms.

Iris stared out the window.

“Anything look familiar?” I asked.

“No.”

Matt kept driving, expanding the circle. Now we were making our way through neighborhoods. At first we passed estates—mansions you could barely see from the road, surrounded by tall hedges, with long driveways. Some had gates. This was where the rich people lived. They belonged to the country club—which we also passed—and many sent their kids to boarding school instead of Black Hall High. Fitch and Abigail lived here in a big stone house on a hill. Chris lived next door to them.

I looked over at Matt. “Does Chris ever talk about what happened to Eloise?” I asked, my stomach clenching. “Like the investigation?”

“Only that he hopes the cops find the person soon.” Matt glanced at me. “We all hope that.”

I wanted to ask him more, but I felt uncomfortable—Chris was our friend. I didn’t want to seem suspicious. So I focused on our route. Now we were driving through a swirl of streets lined with smaller, regular-sized houses. The yards were not big, and I saw two tree houses and a jungle gym, some aboveground pools, and bikes in the driveways. Kids lived here. Families.

“Do any of these neighborhoods remind you of where you live?” I asked Iris.

“No,” Iris said, frowning. “Not at all. Why do I feel as if I didn’t grow up in a house?”

“In an apartment, then?” I asked, surprised. There weren’t really any apartment buildings nearby.

“I don’t think so,” Iris said.

Strange. Had she been raised in the wilderness? Was that why I found her in the woods? I felt it would be rude to ask that.

“If not a house,” Matt said, “where?”

“I’m trying to think,” Iris said. She bowed her head for a second. “What does any of this matter, anyway? I don’t care where I came from—I just want to find Hayley.”

“I know,” I said, trying to be patient. “But since we don’t have any idea where she is, you remembering where you were taken from could make a big difference. We’re not just looking for your home. We’re hoping you see something that will lead us to her.”

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s keep going.”

We drove through the small village of Black Hall, past the old white church, the chocolate shop, the magical art gallery that gave out the best candy at Halloween, the library, our high school, the inn and restaurant, and the wonderful museum where artists had painted panels in the dining room. Iris kept shaking her head—nothing. From there we crossed from our town into Silver Bay. We hit a red light, and while we were stopped, a familiar blue Prius pulled right next to us.

“Adalyn!” I called, rolling down my window. I had just been thinking of her, and feeling slightly guilty that we hadn’t talked or gotten together in a long time.

I would have expected her to smile, but she didn’t. She looked really upset and worried.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Not really,” she said.

I frowned. Had something happened to her that somehow connected to Iris? To Eloise?

I glanced at Matt. “I have to talk to her,” I said.

“We’ll pull into the boatyard,” he said, gesturing at the marina about a hundred yards up the road.

“Meet us there,” I said to Adalyn.

We parked side by side next to one of the docks. I jumped out, ran to Adalyn, and hugged her. I felt a pang over how I’d been avoiding her, over how much I had missed her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I feel like the worst sister in the world,” she said. “I was supposed to be feeding Thea’s kitten while she looks at colleges with our parents, and guess who escaped? Yep, you got it. The furry baby is gone. My sister will kill me. And she’ll be back any second. They called to say they’ll be home this afternoon. And no cat.”

“Oh no,” I said. “No wonder you’re upset.”

“Upset would be a step up. I’m a wreck. I’ve been driving around for over an hour, looking for the little thing. Where do kittens hide? What if she got taken by a fox or a coyote?”

“Don’t think like that,” I said. “Be positive. Maybe she’ll come back on her own.”

“But what if she doesn’t?” Adalyn asked, despair in her voice. But then she glanced at Matt’s Jeep and managed a smile.

“Really?” she asked.

I blushed because I knew exactly what she meant. Matt. She was completely aware of how I felt about him. “Yeah,” I said.

“How did this come about?”

“Well, I needed a ride.”

She laughed and raised her eyebrows. “Hello, I have a car. Why didn’t you call me? Don’t answer that, I already know.”

I was sure she did. “It’s not like Matt and I don’t hang out sometimes.”

“Yes, but in our nature group. You and Matt without us—this is progress!” She paused. “Chris is helping me look.”

Chris?

“Where is he?” I asked, feeling sudden dread.

“He’s cutting through backyards,” she said. “Looking up in trees, under bushes.”

I nodded, but my insides hurt. The mention of Chris sent me spinning. Eloise had liked him so much; I wondered if he was getting close to Adalyn. She hadn’t mentioned it, but maybe that was because she knew it would be a tender subject. I almost felt like warning her, spilling my doubts about him.

Adalyn caught sight of Iris in the back seat. “Who’s that?”

“I just met her,” I said. “You won’t believe this?.?.?.?I found her?.?.?.” I stopped myself. I trusted Adalyn, but if she was hanging around with Chris, telling her about Iris was the last thing I should do. Then I had a brainstorm. “She seems to know a lot about cats. Maybe she’ll have advice about where Thea’s kitten could have escaped to.”

I waved to Iris, and she rolled down the back window. She was eyeing Adalyn a little suspiciously, but I managed to skip introducing her and Adalyn by name, in case Adalyn mentioned anything to Chris. Iris looked relieved, and Adalyn was too distracted to notice. She told Iris about the missing kitten.

“They like to hide,” Iris said. “That’s the big thing. In closets, basements, under buildings. Under parked cars. In alleys.”

It interested me to hear her rattling off these ideas—she really did know about cats, so that was something to add to my list. And something about the places she named stuck in my mind—I wasn’t sure why.

“Where were you when the kitten ran away?” Iris asked Adalyn.

“My house is over there,” Adalyn said, pointing at the familiar white Cape I’d spent so many happy times in over the years, since fourth grade. “I opened the front door to get the mail when Esmeralda dashed outside and disappeared.”

“Can you show me where you last saw her?” Iris asked. “I might get a sense of her.”

Another mystery, another search.

“We’ll meet you at your house,” Matt told Adalyn.

We parked in the Bandas’ driveway. When Adalyn got out of her car, Iris got out of the Jeep and together they headed toward Adalyn’s front door. I was curious about the fact that Iris was willing to be seen out in the open with Adalyn when she had been so cautious all along. I figured it must have to do with her love of cats.

Matt stayed in the driver’s seat, scrolling through his phone. I got out of the Jeep and started to follow Iris and Adalyn when I heard a boy speak my name.

“Oli.”

I turned to see Chris, and I stiffened. He stood a few feet away from me in Adalyn’s yard, hands in his jeans pockets, sunlight glinting on his blond hair. It was hard for me to look at him, and this was the closest he had come to me in months.

I froze, waiting to see how he would react to Iris. If he was the one—Eloise’s killer, Iris and Hayley’s kidnapper—he would freak out at the sight of her. But when Iris passed by him with Adalyn, he barely glanced at her. He didn’t seem to recognize her at all. He was only focused on me.

“How’ve you been?” Chris asked.

“I’m fine,” I said. “How about you?”

“Fine, too,” he said.

I stared into his eyes and saw something I hadn’t expected: true sadness. Like me, he was lying about being fine. Even though I’d seen him with friends at school, laughing and talking like things were normal, at this moment I felt grief pouring off him. Maybe bumping into me was as hard for him as it was for me.

“I keep thinking I’ll see her again,” he said quietly. “Especially times like now, seeing you. Because you two were so often together.”

“It’s the same for me, Chris,” I said. “She always?.?.?.” Wanted to be with you, I thought but didn’t say.

“I’m so sorry, Oli,” he said.

“For what?” I asked, almost afraid to hear what he was going to say.

“That I didn’t realize how serious it was when I didn’t hear back from Eloise that last day,” he said. “I figured she’d gotten tired of waiting for me to finish my paper, and went to see the owls on her own. Or got someone else to go with her.”

The police had floated those theories, too. “She didn’t go to the woods on her own,” I said. Eloise didn’t have her license yet, and she hadn’t taken her bike.

“I know that now,” Chris said. “I’m just telling you what I wondered that night.” His eyes glittered with tears. “I don’t talk about it. I don’t talk about her. And I stay away from you. I can’t see you. It’s too hard, Oli.”

“What’s too hard?” I asked.

“To see how you feel about me. If I’d been there, I could have stopped what happened to her, I could have saved her.”

For a few seconds I couldn’t reply, but then the words came pouring out. “It’s true, Chris. I thought that, too. I was really angry at you at first.”

“I was angry at myself,” he said.

“I even wondered?.?.?.”

“If I was involved?”

I nodded, my heart pounding. I couldn’t believe I’d admitted it, but now that I was actually talking to Chris, I felt like I could be honest with him. “I’m sorry for thinking that.”

He looked down. “I don’t blame you. We all suspect everyone, even each other. Because how can we know? I hardly sleep, trying to think of clues, what we might have missed, wishing I had been there with her. Wishing you didn’t hate me.”

“I don’t,” I said. “I never did. I was just upset.” I paused. “Chris, we don’t know who did this to her. If you had been there, you might have been killed, too.”

He grimaced. “I would have fought whoever it was,” he said. “I would have saved Els.”

Els. Hearing him call her that made me take a deep breath. It showed how familiar he was with her, giving her a nickname I had never heard before.

“Oli, what do you think would have happened?” Chris asked. “With us—Els and me?”

That question was too hard to answer or even contemplate. I knew what she wanted, but that’s the thing about someone being gone: You don’t get to see the story unfold. I never got to see my sister and Chris getting together, holding hands, being a couple. I felt sad that Chris never got to see—or feel—any of that. Most of all, it broke my heart to know that Eloise was missing out on all of it.

On life.

“She liked you,” I said, and that was all I could get out.

“I know she did,” he said. “And I?.?.?.?well, multiply that however you want, and that’s how much I?.?.?.”

He stopped talking, and then he turned and walked out of the driveway. He got into his car and started it up. Matt called his name but either Chris didn’t hear or couldn’t speak. He just drove away.

The conversation with him made the air all around me shimmer. It made me see Chris in a different way, and suddenly I felt as if Eloise had just left. As if she had walked behind him, invisible, and gotten into his car with him. I told myself they were going for a ride, that she had heard what he had said, that she was happy to know that he liked her, even more than liked her.

Els.

My dream of my sister and Chris was interrupted by Iris running back to the Jeep. She opened the back door and grabbed what was left of her sandwich. She pulled out the sliced turkey and went to kneel next to the front steps of Adalyn’s house.

Adalyn was walking around the house, calling “Esmeralda, Esmeralda,” but Iris was totally silent. She peered under the deck. Then she dangled a turkey slice, and I heard her whispering, “Here, now. That’s a girl, good girl.”

A tiny tiger cat scooted out from the darkness, into Iris’s arms, and began hungrily chomping on turkey.

“Thank you so much!” Adalyn cried as Iris handed her Esmeralda and the rest of her sandwich. “How did you know she’d be under there?”

“I think I’m part cat,” Iris said, smiling.

“You saved me. You’re definitely the cat whisperer,” Adalyn said.

“You’d better get her inside,” Iris said. “She’s quite the little adventurer.”

I gave Adalyn a quick hug and she ran up the steps, closing the door behind her. It felt so odd, and it hit me: This was my first time at her house since Eloise had died. As much as I loved Adalyn and her family, I felt shaken because it wasn’t the same. Nothing was. Nothing ever would be again.

Iris and I got back into the Jeep, and I realized that having Iris there comforted me. More weirdness: I felt closer to this girl I had just met than I did to Adalyn. Iris and I were united by a nightmare, by a person who kidnapped girls and killed them. How could Adalyn ever understand that?

Adalyn had found what she was missing. It had been so simple.

I remembered what Iris had said when we first encountered Adalyn, about where cats liked to hide. I realized then what had stood out to me. It was probably a small thing, or nothing at all.

“You found Esmeralda under the house,” I said.

“Yes,” Iris said.

“But before, you said cats like to hide under buildings ,” I said. “You didn’t say houses.”

“Right,” Iris said. “Under factories, stores, warehouses?.?.?.” She trailed off.

“And you said alleys, not yards,” I pressed.

“Yes, they like to hide behind dumpsters,” Iris said. “Even more so if they’re strays, because they might need to forage for food.” She paused. “It makes it easier to save them—catch them. Because they congregate there, hoping for scraps.”

Matt caught the wisp of a clue, the same one I had heard.

“You live in a city,” Matt said.

Iris’s brow furrowed as if she was trying to grab the thinnest thread of memory.

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe you’re right.”

“New London,” Matt said, naming the nearest city to us, about ten miles away. “Let’s start there.”

We headed east.