Chapter Ten

Russ ends up taking pity on me and applies his employee discount. Even with the additional ten percent off, the purchase puts a major dent in my savings. And now that the camera's removed from its box, and thereby unreturnable even to a friend like Russ, buyer's remorse has kicked in big-time.

"Where are you going to put it?" Henry asks as we stand in the backyard.

I study the camera in my hands. Roughly the same shape and size as a paperback book, it seems too small to do all the things it claims to be capable of. But there's one advantage to its compactness: It can be attached to almost anything.

"I'm not sure," I say, scanning the yard for an appropriate place. I settle on the magnolia, mostly because it seems to offer the most expansive view of the rest of the backyard.

With Henry's help, I strap the trail cam to the tree, pointing it toward the forest that borders the yard. We place it at chest height, which is what the instructions recommend. It makes sense, though. Too low would catch only the bottom half of someone entering the yard. Too high might allow them to slip, undetected, under the camera's eye, eluding it altogether.

I turn on the camera and download its corresponding app to my phone. Then I tell Henry to leap in front of the camera, pause a moment, then jump out of view. When he does, the camera lets out a click so light no one would be aware of it unless they knew what to listen for. It's followed a second later by another sound—the phone in my hand letting out a sharp ping!

I check the app, which has sent me a photo of Henry in front of the camera, slightly blurry as he prepares to spring out of frame.

Well, it works, although the blur could be a problem. If whoever's coming into the yard never stops moving, there's a chance the blur might render them unrecognizable. After consulting with the instructions, I switch the camera's settings from regular to sport, which should produce a crisper image. Then I ask Henry to pass in front of it again.

"Mr. Marsh, why do you need a camera in your backyard anyway?" Henry asks as he jumps into frame, pauses, leaps away again.

My phone sounds a second time.

Ping!

"I think someone's been coming here at night," I say as I check the app again. This time, the image of Henry is crystal clear. "And I want to find out if it's true or not."

"Why do you think they're doing it?"

That's a very good question. One I hope the trail cam will help me answer. "No idea," I say honestly.

"And you don't know who it is?"

"Nope," I say, feeling foolish about how, two nights ago, I'd thought it might be Billy, returning after thirty years. But then I remember how Vance Wallace also claimed to have seen him outside at around the same time, and my sense of foolishness fades.

"Have you seen anyone in your backyard?" I ask Henry.

He shakes his head. "Not really. Just some squirrels and birds. Oh, and a hawk. I don't like the hawk because it tries to eat the birds and squirrels."

"But never any people?" I say.

"No," Henry says. "Grandpa has, though."

I lower my phone, intrigued. "Who has he seen? Did he say?"

This time, Henry responds with a slow, uncertain nod. Knowing what I'm about to ask next, he says, "But he made me promise not to tell anyone. Especially my mom."

"What can't you tell me?"

Henry and I both freeze at the sudden appearance of Ashley coming around the side of the house and into the backyard. She gives us a curious look, her head tilted, a hand on her hip.

"What Henry's reading," I say, trying to cover for the kid and doing a shit job of it. Surely Ashley knows what kind of books Henry likes. He had one with him when she dropped him off this morning. But in the moment, it's the only thing I can think of.

"Those?" Ashley says incredulously. "They're harmless. Besides, I remember you liking those at his age."

She's wrong. It was Billy who was obsessed with the Goosebumps books. He was always trying to get me to read them, but I declined, saying I wasn't interested. In truth, I was too scared. The covers alone gave me the creeps.

"Can I get another from the library now?" Henry says.

"Yes, you may get another," Ashley says as she tousles her son's hair. "Did you and Ethan have fun?"

Henry studies me a moment, as if tallying the pros and cons of our morning together. Apparently, it's a draw because he says, "It was adequate."

Ashley rolls her eyes and gives me a headshake that's partly to apologize and partly to say, Can you believe this kid? "That's better than awful," she tells Henry. To me, she says, "Thanks again for watching him, Ethan. I owe you."

Putting a hand on Henry's shoulder, she leads him out of the backyard and past the side of the house. I head inside, curious to see how well the trail cam performs when there's not a ten-year-old boy standing directly in front of it. Parked at the sliding glass door that leads to the patio, I watch the yard and wait. Five minutes later, a squirrel emerges from the woods. After a few tentative steps onto the grass, it begins to bound across the lawn, its tail twitching. When it passes in front of the camera, my phone lets out a telltale alert.

Ping!

I check the picture on the app. With Henry out of the frame, I get a better sense of the camera's view—a clear square of grass stretching from the base of the magnolia tree to the cusp of the woods. In the center of the frame is what set the camera off—the squirrel, caught in mid-leap, as if it's flying.

Satisfied the camera works, I set my phone down on the counter and make a cup of coffee. As I stir creamer into the steaming mug, the phone erupts into noise again.

Ping!

I take a sip of coffee and reach for the phone. The camera has now sent me a picture of a cardinal pecking at the ground, its red plumage bright against the green grass. I set the phone back down on the counter.

Ping!

I pick it up again, check the app, see a picture of both the squirrel and the cardinal, warily eyeing each other on opposite sides of the frame.

Ping! Ping! Ping!

Jesus, did the backyard suddenly turn into a zoo?

I grab the phone again, expecting to see the squirrel, the cardinal, or some combination of both. Instead, on the app are three pictures of a woman I've never seen before standing in the backyard. In her early forties, she's dressed like a lawyer. Tidy hair. Tailored suit. Starched white shirt. Slung over her shoulder is a purse as big as a diaper bag.

The first image is of her looking at the woods behind the house, her back turned to the camera, her purse prominent at her hip. The second catches her in profile as, now aware of the camera, she spins around to face it. The third picture is the most arresting—her staring with curiosity directly into the camera, her lightly glossed lips forming a bright smile.

I do my own turn, whirling from the coffee maker to the patio door. The woman now stands on the other side, cupping her hands against the glass as she peers inside.

"Hi!" she says brightly. "Didn't mean to sneak up on you there. I was just checking out your camera. Looks fancy!"

Cautiously, I approach the door. "Can I help you with something?"

"Oh, my bad. Of course." The woman presses a set of credentials against the glass, allowing me to see that she's with the state police. "I'm Detective Cassandra Palmer. Do you have a minute to chat?"

Now her surprise appearance makes more sense. Ragesh had said Detective Palmer would be coming around to talk to us.

"I assume you're Ethan?" she says when I let her inside.

"I am."

"Fantastic. Always good to check first, you know?" The detective nods to the kitchen table. "Mind if I sit?"

"Sure," I say as she pulls out a chair and gingerly settles into it. "Coffee?"

Detective Palmer beams. "That would be swell, actually. Thank you."

As I fill a second mug, I notice Detective Palmer looking through the kitchen doorway to other parts of the house. Surveying the decor—or, rather, the lack of it—she says, "Are you moving in or out?"

"Little of both," I say. "My parents moved out. I'm moving in. Temporarily."

Detective Palmer smiles politely, as if she doesn't believe me. I don't, either.

I join her at the table and slide the coffee her way. She takes a lip-smacking sip and says, "So, Ethan, as you've likely already guessed, I'm here to talk about the Billy Barringer case." Detective Palmer pauses to enjoy another sip. "That's why I was poking around outside, by the way. I wanted to get a good look at the crime scene."

Hearing those words to describe my backyard is jarring, especially when they're uttered so cheerily. And even though I know abduction is itself a crime, I find myself asking, "Do you think Billy was killed in the yard?"

"Gosh, no." Detective Palmer jerks her head toward the lawn beyond the patio door. "If he had been murdered there, the forensics team would have found evidence. Blood spatter, maybe bone fragments. Billy was definitely killed in the woods and his body disposed of in the lake. But let's not dwell on the gory details."

Too late, I think as I take a sip of coffee. Detective Palmer does the same, content to wait for me to speak next.

"So, um, I guess you want me to go over everything I remember about that night."

"Oh, there's no need for that," Detective Palmer says. "I know Billy's case forwards and backwards. It's what got me into law enforcement, actually. I was twelve when it happened, and I remember it just like it was yesterday. I grew up not too far from here, believe it or not. In Somerville. And that summer, I remember most people only wanted to talk about O.J. But me? I was obsessed with finding out what happened to Billy."

That makes two of us. The only difference is that Detective Palmer got to choose her obsession.

"No, I'm interested in what you couldn't remember back then," she says. "I don't suppose the memory bell has rung much since then?"

I look down at my coffee to avoid making eye contact. I know I should tell her about The Dream, even though it's unclear if it's a memory or just a combination of imagination and nagging guilt. Also, there's no new information contained in it. Just the tantalizing possibility that I might have been awake when the tent was sliced open and Billy was taken. Which I guess is reason enough to talk about it.

"I have a recurring dream," I say, still staring into my mug, alarmed by the way my reflection ripples and wobbles on the coffee's mud-brown surface. Is that how I look to Detective Palmer? Is it how I look to everyone?

"About Billy?"

"About that night."

I describe The Dream in as much detail as possible, right down to that unholy scriiiiiiiitch before I wake.

"Interesting," Detective Palmer says when I'm done. "And it's the same every time?"

"Always."

"I'd ask if you've tried to unpack what it all means, but I assume you have."

I respond with a solemn nod.

"Do you have any idea who might have taken Billy?" Detective Palmer says.

"I don't," I say. "I didn't see anything."

"I wasn't asking if you saw who did it. I want to know who you think did it."

I take another sip of coffee, thinking it over. For thirty years, I've pondered that very question, usually while lying awake in the middle of the night. While various possibilities have crossed my mind, none have ever quite stuck.

"Ethan?" Detective Palmer says when twenty seconds pass without a response from me.

"Still here," I say, although part of me remains deep in thought. Who do I think took Billy? The question was always so hard to answer because I never knew why Billy had been taken—or what happened to him afterward. Now that I know the latter, I can infer the former.

"Someone at the Hawthorne Institute," I say.

Detective Palmer crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. "An intriguing answer. I'm curious why you think that."

And I'm surprised by her curiosity. Billy's bones were discovered there. Isn't that enough?

"Because we were there that day," I say. "At the falls. Did Detective Patel tell you that?"

"He did, yes."

"And did he also tell you what happened?"

"He told me that as well," Detective Palmer says.

"Yet you don't think it's related to Billy's death?"

"We're looking into every possibility."

It's the same thing Ragesh said. Obviously, the official line. One that feels created to placate suspicious people like me, even though I have every reason to be suspicious.

"You are now," I say. "But that wasn't the case thirty years ago. Do you know why the institute's grounds weren't searched back then? Was it because Ezra Hawthorne was filthy rich?"

"He was, yes," Detective Palmer says. "And he made many generous donations to places throughout the state, including the governor's campaign fund."

I roll my eyes. "Of course he did."

"But I don't think that had anything to do with it. You have to remember, Billy's trail seemed to end at the access road in the woods, a mile away from the institute, leading everyone to think he was taken to a car waiting there. And considering the institute grounds are surrounded by a perimeter wall, it was assumed no one could easily trespass onto the property."

"But we did," I say. "Me, Billy, three other people. We all trespassed with no problem."

"A fact none of you mentioned until yesterday." Detective Palmer's expression can only be described as "not mad but disappointed." With her tilted head and lips this close to forming a frown, she looks like a kindergarten teacher who just caught someone trying to sneak a second chocolate milk. "Had my colleagues known this all those years ago, they would have included the institute grounds in their search."

Shame presses down on my rib cage, to the point where my breathing starts to get shallow.

"What did they do at the institute?" I say.

"I'm not sure. It's my understanding they did research."

"What kind of research?"

"Private research," Detective Palmer says. "The kind the public isn't privy to."

"But you have some idea, right?"

Detective Palmer grips her coffee mug and turns it slowly. "From what I've been able to gather, it was just a bunch of eccentrics. Very smart, very rich eccentrics. Certainly not the type of people who would kidnap and murder a little boy."

"Well, you asked me who I think killed Billy and I told you," I say. "Since it's not the answer you wanted, I guess we're done here."

"We're on the same team, Ethan," Detective Palmer says, and this time it sounds genuine. "We both want to catch who did this and find some justice for Billy. So, let's try again: Who do you think did it? Someone not associated with the Hawthorne Institute."

I stare over her shoulder, to the backyard beyond the patio door and the woods beyond that. Someone emerged from that forest, sliced the tent, and pulled Billy out of it and into the woods. Whoever it was then killed him and threw his body over the falls. Just thinking about it makes me queasy. And that's without considering the very real possibility that, had the killer approached the tent from a different angle and slashed the other side, it likely would have been me who was abducted and killed.

"There were—" My mouth has gone dry, making it hard to talk. I gulp down some coffee and start again. "There were rumors of a stranger roaming the neighborhood the day before Billy was taken. Someone who came out of the woods."

"And you think he might have done it?" Detective Palmer says.

"Maybe," I say. "Some serial killer who later went far, far away from here."

"Unfortunately, that's highly unlikely. Over the years, every known serial killer, kidnapper, and killer of children has been interviewed and asked about Billy Barringer. I've mentioned him to at least a dozen myself."

I try to picture Detective Palmer, with her chipmunk cheeks and Girl Scout troop leader smile, interviewing a serial killer in a maximum-security prison. It's impossible.

"Not a single one has confessed to the crime, which they love to do, even if they didn't commit it," she continues. "No one has even hinted that they were in a hundred-mile radius at the time. So the culprit was either a psychopath who's killed only once—a sick, thrill-kill situation—or a serial offender we don't know about or who hasn't yet been caught, or it was—"

"Someone from here," I say.

I can tell I'm right when Detective Palmer locks eyes with me from across the table. Now I understand why she doesn't think the Hawthorne Institute had anything to do with Billy's death. She suspects it was someone closer to home.

"This wasn't done by someone on Hemlock Circle," I say.

"I understand why you think that. I know it's hard to believe one of your friends and neighbors is a killer."

"It's impossible."

"Even when you consider the details of what happened that night?" Detective Palmer stands and goes to the patio door. Pointing to the yard, she says, "You and Billy were asleep in a tent. Something you did throughout that summer, right?"

I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry again because I know what she's getting at. "Every Friday night."

"So it wasn't a secret," Detective Palmer says, stating it not as a question but as the undeniable fact it is. "Now, consider how you didn't notice when Billy was taken. Yes, you might have been awake for it, based on your recurring dream, but that seems more because of the sound of the tent being cut open and not any other noises."

She pauses, giving me a chance to figure it out for myself. When I do, it feels like I've been punched.

"Billy didn't scream," I say.

Detective Palmer nods, pleased at my deduction skills. "Nor did he yell for help or put up a fight. You didn't hear anything. Your parents claimed not to have heard anything. No one on this cul-de-sac heard anything. Now why do you think that is?"

This time, no pause is needed for me to put it all together.

"Because Billy knew who it was."

"And he willingly left the tent and followed them into the woods," Detective Palmer says. "That's why I'm convinced it was someone who lived here and not some stranger who just happened to enter your yard and see a tent with two ten-year-old boys inside."

I'm not as convinced. It's not unreasonable to think that someone outside of Hemlock Circle was responsible. As for the lack of a scream or calling for help, maybe Billy was in shock when he was pulled from the tent. Or maybe he never woke up until he had been carried into the woods and it was too late.

"But this is a good neighborhood," I say. "Filled with good people."

"They might seem that way on the surface," Detective Palmer says. "But when you're in my line of work, you tend to see people for who they really are. Most of them are good, I'll grant you that. Upstanding citizens who only want to do the right thing. I deal with the small percentage of people out there who don't do the right thing. They hurt. They kill. Sometimes for reasons beyond comprehension. These kinds of folks? They're definitely not good people."

"What would you call them?"

For the first time since she appeared in my yard, Detective Cassandra Palmer looks deadly serious. "They're monsters."