Chapter 38

LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS

Poppy and her brother arrive at their childhood home, Poppy’s current home, in the afternoon. It’s been a long night at the hospital. Her father’s alive, but it’s touch and go. It wasn’t the cancer this time, not directly, anyway. It’s an infection from the chemo, which lowered Dad’s white count, which resulted in neutropenia, which led to an infection that worsened to sepsis. The dominos fell quickly. Their father is in the ICU on a ventilator. The doctor—an alpha type with little bedside manner but probably strong medical skills—told them that they weren’t doing any good taking up seats in the waiting room.

“He’s gonna be all right,” Dash says at last. It’s not for Poppy’s sake. He’s reassuring himself. He and Dad have a unique bond, one forged from basketball and guy stuff. She knows her father loves her. But she also knows Dash is who he was probably thinking about when he collapsed on the floor. And, while Poppy would be crushed if her father didn’t come out of this, she would push through. She’s not so sure about Dash.

She eyes her brother. She feels what can best be described as disgust. The evidence doesn’t lie. The high-school friends telling her to ask Dash about Alison. Disgraced cop Buckman suggesting that she get her own house in order. And the podcast—the witness describing someone who could have been Dash at Lovers’ Lane that night. Dash’s weird behavior—crying in his room—the day they found the car in Suncatcher Lake.

She’d considered confronting her brother at the hospital. But between the hospital staff and people in the waiting room, there was no opportunity to get him alone. Also, Sheriff Walton was there most of the night. He told stories of their dad surviving all kinds of peril in Iraq and assured them that cancer is going to wish it hadn’t messed with Mac.

In the fleeting moments they were alone, Dash was too distraught, too distracted, for her to question him.

Now that they’re home, she knows what she has to do.

“I’m gonna go take a shower,” she says.

“You want a drink first?” he asks, reaching for the bottle of Jack perched on top of the refrigerator.

“I’m good,” she says. But maybe she should have a drink. Her nerves are on fire, anxiety prickling her skin.

She heads down the hallway. She opens her bedroom door, then closes it loudly without going inside. She peers back to make sure Dash isn’t coming. She can hear him in the kitchen, a cupboard opening, glass placed on the counter. She steps quietly and turns the handle of his bedroom door.

It opens with a quiet click. She looks back again, then goes inside. She’s walking on her toes, trying not to make a sound. She moves around the bed and to the desk. She inspects the clutter until she sees it. The red shoebox.

Sitting softly on the bed, she bends over and retrieves the Jordans box, placing it on her lap. She turns to the door again, listens. Then she opens the box’s lid.

Inside is a T-shirt that’s been rolled up and several folded sheets of paper. Like notes you’d pass in elementary school before they all had phones. Poppy unfolds one of the notes and apprehension spreads through every part of her:

4–4–9; 44–7–2; 73–8–12.

Her mind flits to Chantelle from KBI, who brought her the note they found in Alison’s handbag. We think it’s a book cipher.

Poppy feels a tear run down her cheek at the realization that her brother and Alison were communicating in the same code.

But what causes bile to run up her throat is the shirt. She doesn’t want to look, but she has to. She slowly unrolls the black fabric.

It says: BON JOVI on the front. The shirt Alison was wearing the night she was abducted.

Poppy’s heart nearly explodes at the sound of Dash’s voice.

“It’s not what you think.”