Chapter Thirty

"Are you really sure you want me to stab this tent?" Cassandra Palmer says as she stands in the backyard holding the sharpest knife I could find in the kitchen.

"Yes," I say.

Detective Palmer eyes the orange triangle in front of her. "But it's a nice tent. Looks expensive. Not gonna lie, I feel weird about ruining it."

"I won't hold it against you," I say. "I swear."

"I'm just giving you the option of finding someone else."

"You're the best person for the job."

In truth, Detective Palmer is the only person I could think of. After our talk last night, I knew Ashley was out. I briefly considered Russ but was afraid he'd balk at the weirdness of it all. Ditto for Ragesh. That leaves Detective Palmer, who I called as she was leaving the state hospital where she had tried to interview Mary Ellen Barringer. It resulted in nothing. Mrs. Barringer was, in Detective Palmer's words, "as silent as a clam with its shell taped shut."

Now that she's here, I see the value in having a nonbiased third party help me. Detective Palmer's presence eliminates the risk of familiarity possibly clouding the memories I hope will arrive.

That's not the only precaution I've taken to achieve the desired outcome. Rather than do it the moment I got the idea, I insisted on waiting until darkness arrived. I didn't want the presence of daylight to ruin the experiment. I also arranged the inside of the tent so it's as close to that long-ago night as possible. Two sleeping bags, laid out side by side. The lantern placed between pillows. I even tried to dress the same way—shorts, T-shirt, and a pair of Nikes.

If this doesn't work, it won't be for lack of trying.

As Detective Palmer gets into position next to the tent, I pass her a picture of the original one I printed off the internet earlier today. It's the famous picture. The one that ran in every newspaper in the country showing the tent with a dark gash marring its side. Detective Palmer takes one look and her brows rise questioningly.

"For verisimilitude," I say. "Try to make the cut look as close to the one in the picture as possible."

"What if I'm off?"

Then all of this might be for nothing. Something I don't tell Detective Palmer. She's uncertain enough as it is.

"Let's go over it one more time," I say. "You wait—"

"Until you're inside the tent," Detective Palmer says with a nod. "And I'm not allowed to tell you when I'm going to do it. I just—"

"Slice." I've dropped to my hands and knees in front of the tent, preparing to enter, when I'm struck by an idea. "It might be better to wait until I'm asleep."

Detective Palmer waves the knife, confused. "You want to sleep through all this?"

The irony isn't lost on this insomniac. But it strikes me as the best course of action. To summon memories of the night Billy was taken, I need to replicate it as much as possible. And since I was asleep when the event that would later become The Dream occurred, it stands to reason that I should sleep now.

"How will I know you're asleep?"

That beats the hell out of me.

"You'll need to wing it," I say. "Listen to my breathing. That should be a good indicator."

"I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but I've got some confiscated Ambien in my purse," Detective Palmer says, deadly serious. "Pop one, wash it down with some whiskey, and you'll be out like a light. It usually does the trick for me."

While I'm tempted—and increasingly intrigued by her personal life—I decline the offer. The goal here is to wake up as the tent is being sliced open, not drop into a coma.

"All ready?" I ask.

The detective gives me a look. "Can anyone truly be ready for something like this, Ethan?"

The answer is no, especially with so much uncertainty. I have no idea if I'll remember anything when she slashes the tent. I don't even know if I'll be able to fall asleep. But I have to at least try. Tonight, the thirtieth anniversary of when Billy was taken, seems the most likely time for my memory to produce something tangible.

"Well, I'm going in," I announce before crawling into the tent and zipping it shut behind me. I then move to the sleeping bag on the left, the same side I was on when Billy was taken. I wriggle into it and tap the side of the tent. A signal for Detective Palmer to recite the words I instructed her to say once I was ready to go.

She does, reluctantly. "Hakuna matata, dude."

I slide deeper into the sleeping bag and shut off the lantern, plunging the tent into darkness. I lie still for a moment, basking in the deep blackness. There's a heaviness to it, thick and slightly oppressive. That also describes the air inside the tent, which has quickly increased in warmth thanks to the closed tent flaps. Due to the darkness, the heat, and the sounds of summertime in July just outside the tent, familiarity begins to creep in. It may not be an exact reenactment, but it feels like that night.

Now it's time to sleep.

I close my eyes and try to rid my mind of all thoughts. I focus instead on everything I remember sensing that night. The tickle of sweat on the back of my neck. The cricket closest to the tent, sounding extra loud. The smell—a sickly sweet combination of earth and stale air and two boys after a long summer day.

Shockingly, it seems to be working. I find myself drifting closer to sleep as, one by one, my surroundings seem to fall away. First the tent walls, followed quickly by the sleeping bag around me and the ground beneath me. My pillow is the last thing to slip into nothingness, and when it does, I feel like a man floating in space.

Then I hear it.

Scriiiiiiiitch.

My eyes snap open, adjusting to a darkness different from what was there when I closed them. It's lighter. A gray haze. Like I'm trapped inside a black-and-white movie.

Only it's not a movie.

It's The Dream.

And I'm not reenacting it.

I'm inside it.

My surroundings grow clearer as my eyes adjust to the darkness. I'm still inside the tent, only it's not the one currently in my backyard. This is my old tent. The one the police took when I was ten.

I even feel like I'm ten. Lighter, younger, carefree. Gone is the weight of thirty additional years and all the stress, guilt, and heartache that came with them. I literally feel like my old self again, a fact that would fill me with joy if I didn't know what was coming next.

But I do.

The scriiiiiiiitch made sure of that.

I look to my left and the sleeping bag that's a Billy-shaped lump beside me. Next to him, a long gash runs the length of the tent's side. It looks so much like a wound that I half expect to see blood gushing from it at any moment.

The freshly split tent walls ripple slightly, and the dark gash widens. Just a tad. I peer through it, even though I know I'm not going to see who's on the other side. I've never been able to see.

This time, though, something's different.

Someone is there.

I see their face.

I recognize it.

For a slice of a sliver of a second, our eyes meet.

No.

If the word is spoken or merely thought, I can't tell. It sounds the same to me. A loud, emphatic noise echoing through me.

No.

It can't be him.

I blink in shock, and it's all gone. Then is replaced by now. And through the new slash in this new tent, I glimpse a sliver of Detective Palmer eyeing me from the other side like a Peeping Tom.

"Did it work?" she says.

Rather than answer, I shimmy out of the sleeping bag, unzip the tent, and push out into the yard. Detective Palmer follows me as I keep going, marching to the driveway at the side of the house.

When I pass the garage, the security light above it snaps on, bathing me in brightness, my shadow stretching all the way to the curb. It shrinks as I hit the sidewalk, then stretches again as I run to another house on the cul-de-sac.

Over the lawn.

Up the porch steps.

Pounding on the door until it opens a crack and Russ Chen peers out of it, looking nervous. Looking, in fact, like an older version of the person I glimpsed through the tent slash thirty years ago. Those dual views—one remembered, one happening right now—tell me I'm right.

"It was you," I say. "It was all you."