Chapter Five

My steps are slow as I climb onto the Wallaces' front porch, so preoccupied am I by what kind of friendship Fritz Van de Veer had with my father. If they had one at all beyond simply being neighborly. The fact that he singled out my mother but not my father suggests they weren't on the best terms, which I find impossible.

Everyone likes my father. He's as decent as he is nice. The kind of father I wanted to make proud, which is partly why I got into teaching, although a prep school English teacher is a far cry from being a professor at Princeton.

Maybe that doesn't impress Fritz. Or maybe it makes him insecure. Or, more likely, it's nothing at all, and Fritz only mentioned my mother because she used to sometimes chat with Alice and the other wives at various spots on the cul-de-sac. Concluding that must be the reason, I ring the bell at the Wallace house.

The door is answered by a boy of about ten with unruly brown hair and dark-framed glasses sliding down his nose. He peers up at me through the smudged lenses, looking both curious and slightly annoyed to be pulled away from whatever ten-year-olds do nowadays.

"How may I help you?" he says in a manner so precociously serious it would be amusing to everyone else but me. Instead, my general mood is unease. The fact that I'm uncomfortable around kids shocks everyone who knows I'm a teacher. "Of teenagers," I always remind them. "Not children."

I hold out the baseball and say, "Um, hi. Does this belong to you? I found it in my yard and thought it might be yours."

"It's not," the boy says without looking at the ball. His gaze stays firmly on me, curious.

"Henry? Who are you talking to?"

The woman's voice rising from inside the house makes me stand a little straighter. Although it's different from the last time I heard it, there's a warmth there that's instantly familiar.

Ashley.

"A stranger," the boy, apparently Henry, calls back.

"Tell him to please go away."

Henry looks up at me, unsmiling. "I'm supposed to tell you to please go away."

"So I've heard."

Suddenly Ashley is there, coming up swiftly behind Henry, too preoccupied with putting in an earring to notice me at first. When she does, there's a moment in which she recognizes the boy she once knew in the man I've since become and tries to mentally process if we're one and the same. When she concludes it's a match, a wide smile spreads across her face.

"Ethan? Is it really you?"

An awkward few seconds follow in which Ashley opens her arms for a hug as I attempt a handshake, forcing both of us to change tactics. The result is a partial embrace that leaves Henry looking confused.

"So you're not a stranger?" he says.

"This is Ethan Marsh, honey. I used to be his babysitter. A long, long time ago."

"Thirty years," I add, prompting a grimace from Ashley.

"That long? My God."

She smiles shyly, as if embarrassed by the passage of time. There's no need to be. Dressed in dark jeans and a tangerine blouse, she's as beautiful as I remember. The same Ashley, yet also different. Her hair's slightly darker now—a light brown instead of the cool blond of her teenage years—and her face and figure are thinner, more angular, like she's been slightly hardened by life. I have, too, but it's taken the opposite toll on my appearance. I'm softer, as if my body is trying to cushion life's blows.

"I haven't seen you since…"

The way Ashley's voice trails off tells me she remembers exactly when we last saw each other. Billy's memorial service. Because the church was packed, we didn't get a chance to sit together or even speak. But when the service had ended, I caught Ashley's eyes as she was leaving. She gave me one of the saddest smiles I've ever seen, waved, and was gone.

"What are you doing here?" she says now.

"Do you mean right now? Or in general?"

Ashley laughs. "Both, I guess. Your parents just moved, didn't they?"

I briefly bring her up to speed on my past few months. My parents' move to Florida and me staying in the house until I settle into my new job teaching English lit at a nearby private school.

"Similar story," Ashley says when I'm done. "Dad's not doing so well, and Henry and I needed a fresh start, so we came back here. I'd invite you in to catch up, but I'm showing a house in fifteen minutes, and we need more time than that. Rain check?"

"Absolutely," I say. "I actually just came by to see if this belonged to Henry."

Like her son, Ashley doesn't glance at the baseball in my hand. "I don't think he's thrown a ball in his entire life."

"I'm uncoordinated," Henry says.

Ashley shoots him a surprised look. "Who told you that?"

"Everyone."

"Even your grandpa?"

"Especially Grandpa."

As if summoned, Vance Wallace lumbers into view behind Ashley and Henry, barking out a half-confused, half-ornery "Who's calling me?"

"No one, Dad," Ashley says with a sigh. "We're talking to Ethan Marsh."

"Ethan?"

Mr. Wallace comes to the door, a little slower than I expected, but looking as pugnacious as I remember, even though he's now pushing eighty. A former boxer, he opened several regional gyms in the eighties that had done well for many years before he sold them all to a national chain. Now he looks like a cross between a retiree and a drill sergeant. Big arms, big chest, big belly, a tan that can't be natural. As he gets closer, though, I notice a slight vagueness in his gaze. Even though his eyes are locked on mine, it seems like he's looking past me instead of at me.

"Your parents make it to Florida in one piece?" he says.

"They did."

"Good. We're going to miss them around here." He spots the baseball I'm holding. "What's that?"

"It's a ball, Dad," Ashley says nervously, giving the impression this isn't the first time she's had to help him identify everyday objects. It makes me wonder what exactly she meant when she said Vance wasn't doing well.

"I know that," he snaps. "I wanted to know why he had it."

"Found it my backyard," I say. "I'm just trying to return it to its rightful owner. Any ideas where it could have come from?"

"You ask your neighbor?" Mr. Wallace says.

"Russ? Yeah, I just came from there."

"Not him." He gives an agitated point toward Billy's house. "Your other neighbor. The Barringer boy. I saw him outside last night."

"Dad," Ashley says, her voice low with concern. "Billy wasn't outside last night."

"He was so. I saw him running through the backyard."

"What time was this?" I say, my interest suddenly piqued.

Mr. Wallace thinks it over for a slice of a second. "A little after two."

Despite the hard heat of the day, a chill washes over me.

That was roughly the same time I watched the light above the Wallaces' garage flick on for no discernible reason.

I look to Ashley, whose expression is rightly skeptical—in addition to pinched, worried, and unbearably sad. "Billy hasn't been around in decades, Dad," she says. "You know that."

"And I know what I saw, dammit."

Ashley takes her father by the arm. "Let's get you inside. Remember what the doctor said about needing your rest." To me, she flashes an apologetic look before saying, "I really need to get going. Catch up later?"

"Sure," I say. As nice as it is to see Ashley again, all the memories and feelings of nostalgia are so overwhelming that I'm honestly relieved our reunion has been cut short. There'll be plenty of time to catch up later. Besides, all I can think about is what Mr. Wallace just said—and how it supports my own experience last night.

I wave goodbye to Henry and, baseball in hand, head home. Rather than use the sidewalk, I cut across the cul-de-sac itself, curving around the planter in the middle of the circle. At my own yard, a flashback hits when I step onto the curb. Me in the driveway last night sensing someone else outside, present yet hidden. And the only person I thought of is the same person Mr. Wallace claims to have seen in his backyard.

Is there even the slightest possibility that both of us could be right?

Inside the house, I head straight to my father's study. There, I open my laptop and bring up Billy's NamUs listing. Still missing. But just because the database says it doesn't mean it's accurate. It just means that no one—not even the authorities—knows where he is.

That leaves a chance, however small and improbable, that Billy is alive.

That he returned to Hemlock Circle last night.

That he could still be here right now.

I scan the laptop screen, seeking out the police contact listed on NamUs. Next to Ragesh Patel's name is a number to call with any information regarding the case. Without thinking, I grab my phone and dial.

Ragesh answers on the second ring with a harried "Detective Patel. What's the nature of your call?"

I pause, jarred by how different he sounds since the last time we spoke. Gone is the teenage snark I've always associated with the older kid who once lived two doors down from me. In its place is a voice that's deeper, gruffer, and extremely tired.

"Hey, Ragesh. It's Ethan Marsh. From Hemlock Circle."

Ragesh spends a moment doing the same thing I just did. Trying to match a name with a voice that's changed dramatically. He probably pictures me as a the gangly, gawky ten-year-old I used to be and not the no-longer-gangly-but-still-slightly-gawky forty-year-old I've become.

"Ethan, hi," he says. "How can I help you?"

"I'm calling about Billy Barringer."

"What about him?" Ragesh says, hesitation drawing out the question to twice its length.

"Have there been any updates?"

"Why are you interested in Billy's case?"

A baffling question. He was taken from my backyard while he slept next to me. Why wouldn't I still be interested?

"I just moved back into my parents' house," I say. "Since being here's brought back a lot of memories, I figured I'd see if there was any news."

Not a lie, but far from the complete truth.

"What have you heard? How much do you know?" Ragesh says, lowering his voice.

I go numb. There is news. Important news, from the way Ragesh sounds. And for a second I allow myself to think that what I felt last night and what Mr. Wallace saw were real. That the impossible has indeed happened.

Billy's back.

"I haven't heard anything," I say. "What's going on?"

"Yesterday morning, human remains were found in the area." Ragesh pauses and the whole room tilts. "A boy. Probably around ten years old. They're still checking dental records, but I'm pretty sure we found him, Ethan. We found Billy Barringer."