Chapter Six

Billy is dead.

While I'd assumed that was the case, it feels different when that assumption is confirmed. Because deep down, I never wanted to believe it. For decades I'd harbored faint hopes and what-ifs. Now that I know I was wrong all this time, it feels like I'm floating. A strange, weightless sensation that hit the moment Ragesh broke the news on the phone and that has stayed with me the rest of the day.

From the way the others look, I can tell they feel the same. Russ keeps a tight grip on the side of the sofa, as if he's afraid of sliding off. Ashley, squeezed between the two of us, simply looks nauseated.

The only person seemingly unaffected by today's news is the bearer of it: Ragesh Patel, who volunteered to stop by with more details when he got the chance. At 7:30, he finally arrived and now speaks calmly and slowly, a far cry from the teenager with the cruel voice and mocking laugh of my memories. He's changed so much that when he came to the door, I barely recognized him. He's larger now, thick in both chest and stomach, and strands of gray pepper his hair and his full beard. Back when he was the neighborhood bully, his face was angular and clean-shaven, all the better to show off his perpetual sneer.

"I can't talk long," he says. "I probably shouldn't even be talking to you at all. We haven't told the media yet because Billy's family still hasn't been notified. We reached out yesterday to the state hospital where Mrs. Barringer is being cared for. They said a doctor would tell her, but that it's highly unlikely she'll comprehend what he's saying. As for Andy Barringer, he's MIA. The last contact information anyone seems to have for him is more than ten years old. He was in a brief relationship with one of his mother's nurses back then. She's tried to reach out, but I'm not sure if she got ahold of him or not. So this is all very classified information—which doesn't leave this room."

He doesn't need to explain further. It's clear this is a favor to me, Ashley, and Russ.

"What about the rest of the neighborhood?" says Russ, who's shrunken himself so the three of us can fit on the sofa. It makes him look oddly fragile. Just a boy getting bad news. "The others should hear this, too."

"And they will," Ragesh says. "Very soon. But we don't want this news leaking to the press before we locate Billy's brother. So you can't tell anyone. Not that I can share very much. The state police's Criminal Investigations Bureau has taken charge."

I study Ragesh's face. If he's annoyed about being pushed aside, he doesn't show it.

"All I'm allowed to say is that yesterday morning, a set of human remains were found in the area. A forensic anthropologist examined them and concluded that they appear to be the remains of a male juvenile."

"Are you certain it's Billy?" I say, clinging to the idea that Ragesh could be wrong.

"Dental records now confirm it's him. Which we already knew. Based on the condition of the remains and where they were found, it was clearly Billy Barringer."

All the air leaves my lungs, taking with it that last bit of hope. For a moment, it feels like I'm drowning. I force myself to inhale before saying, "Where was he found?"

"The base of the falls at the Hawthorne Institute," Ragesh says with the abruptness of someone ripping off a Band-Aid. With good reason. The institute sits just two miles away, separated from my backyard by a stretch of woods.

And Billy had been there this whole time. So close yet so beyond rescue.

The weightless sensation grows worse, to the point where I press my feet against the floor just to make sure I haven't lifted off the sofa. To counter it, I close my eyes and picture the falls. Rushing water colored a turbulent white pouring over a granite cliff into a lake of indeterminant depth. All of it created not by nature but by man more than a hundred years ago.

Growing up, I'd heard rumors that the lake was bottomless. That, long ago, people would jump in and never resurface. That their ghosts haunted the falls, floating like strips of fog around the cascading water. Suburban legend, but apparently with enough truth to it that my parents forbade me from ever going there. To this day, I've only seen the falls once.

With Billy and the three other people in this room.

On the afternoon before Billy disappeared.

"How did Billy end up there?" I keep my eyes closed as I say it, as if that will make the question easier to ask. It doesn't. Because part of me doesn't want to know, even though I need to, if only to see if it's better or worse than my imagination. "Do you think he could have fallen in and drowned?"

As the words still hang in the air, I realize the unlikeliness of such a scenario. While it's possible that Billy returned to the falls on his own, sneaking away under the cloak of darkness, that isn't the case. The side of the tent had been sliced open, which is reason enough to think Billy didn't leave of his own accord. What seals the deal for me, though, are his sneakers. They were still in the tent when I woke up the next morning. If Billy intended to walk two miles through a heavily wooded area, he certainly would have put on his shoes.

"That's unlikely," Ragesh says. "Both the forensic anthropologist and investigators at the scene found evidence that suggests foul play."

A pall settles over the room, during which I hear nothing but the dull hum of the central air unit and a blue jay screeching from the elm tree in the front yard.

Foul play.

"I can't share any details, but it's believed he was killed first and that his body was weighed down and tossed from the top of the falls into the lake below."

Beside me, Ashley claps a hand over her mouth. "I think I'm going to be sick."

She rushes to the powder room in the hallway off the kitchen, the memory of visits thirty years ago showing her the way. I follow Ashley out of the room and hover in the hallway, far enough to give her some privacy but unfortunately close enough to hear her retching behind the closed door.

When she emerges a few minutes later, Ashley spots me and freezes. Then her face crumples and she reaches for me, pulling me into a hug both desperate and sad. Weeping at my shoulder, she says, "Oh, Ethan. All this time, I liked thinking he was still alive. I knew it wasn't true, but it was nice having that thought to cling to."

I wrap my arms around her, unable to keep the memories at bay. Of the two of us a week after Billy had gone missing. By then, every parent in town was terrified to let their children out of sight for even a second. I was allowed to go outside and play, but only in the front yard, where I'd be in view of others in the neighborhood.

That's where I was sitting that afternoon, not playing. Not by a long shot. Instead, I smoothed my hand over the grass, plucked a few strands, and watched them catch the breeze and fly away. Each time a blade lifted from my fingertips, I thought of Billy, who had in essence done the same thing.

Flown away.

Vanished.

Even though no adult—not the police, not even my parents—had told me so, I also knew the likelihood was high that Billy was dead. A horrible thing for a ten-year-old boy to deal with.

Yet that's what I was thinking about when a brown Camry, shining like a polished penny in the light of the mid-afternoon sun, pulled up to the curb. I stood and instantly started backing toward the house. Despite staying mum about Billy's probable fate, the adults around me had plenty to say about stranger danger. I was on the verge of running when the passenger-side window lowered, revealing Ashley behind the wheel.

"You got a new car," I said, because it was true. Her parents' other car had been a boatlike blue Chevy Malibu.

"Yeah," Ashley said. "Now, are you going to stare at it all day or are you going to get in?"

By then my mother was outside the house and stalking toward the car. She looked so strange in that moment. Her eyes gleamed with terror, yet her mouth was twisted into an angry snarl, her teeth literally bared. It made her seem both vulnerable and vicious. It was, I assumed, what mother bears looked like when someone got between them and their cubs.

"Ethan, get away from that car!" she yelled as she thrust her arm in front of me, as if that alone could shield me from the evil she thought rested inside that idling Camry.

"Hi, Mrs. Marsh," Ashley said through the open window.

My mother practically melted with relief. The terror left her eyes and her face went slack. Only the arm thrown across my chest remained, and even that soon dropped to her side.

"I thought you were a stranger," my mother said with relief.

"I'm just saying hi to Ethan." Ashley paused, mulling something over. "I could take him to get some ice cream. Give you some alone time."

With anyone else, I'm certain my mother would have said no—or at least considered it for more than five seconds. But since it was Ashley, her reply was instantaneous.

"Thank you," my mother said. "That would be wonderful."

I climbed inside, making sure to fasten my seat belt. Worry fluttered in my stomach. It was, to my recollection, the first time I'd ever been in a car without an adult behind the wheel. A scary thought, but also exciting.

"Can you drive?"

"Obviously," Ashley said as she eased the car away from the curb. "My dad taught me this spring."

"I meant legally."

This time Ashley, who I knew to still be fifteen, said nothing.

"Where are we going?" I asked once she'd steered us out of Hemlock Circle.

"Not for ice cream." Ashley set her jaw and stared straight ahead through the windshield. "I wanted to talk to you. About Billy."

I shifted in the passenger seat, annoyed and sad and guilty. I'd wanted to forget about Billy. Just for a little bit. Which made me feel even more guilty—and more annoyed and sad that I couldn't escape that guilt.

"What have the adults been telling you?" Ashley said.

"That he was taken."

I turned to look out the window, watching the neighboring homes and lawns. The way they slipped by and vanished from view made me think about Billy. I knew I'd see those houses and yards again when Ashley turned around and brought me home. But Billy? I knew in my gut that I'd never see him again. A realization so awful that I began to bawl right there in the car.

"I think he's dead," I said with a sorrowful sniff.

"Who told you that?"

"No one. I just know that he is."

Ashley slammed on the brakes, bringing the Camry to a rocking stop in the middle of the road. "Look at me," she said.

I didn't. I couldn't. Not with tears streaming down my face and snot dripping from my nose. I wanted Ashley to think I was older, tougher, wise beyond my years. Instead, I looked like the weak crybaby I truly knew myself to be.

"Ethan," she said, softer this time. "Look at me."

I did, resisting the urge to flinch when Ashley returned my gaze. The pity in her eyes made me feel so utterly pathetic. But then she reached over and pulled me to her.

"Don't think that," she said. "You hear me? Don't ever give up hope, Ethan. If you keep thinking Billy is alive and safe, then that's what he is. Even if it's just in your mind. Even if you never find out what happened to him."

Now here we are, repeating that moment, only with our roles reversed and both of us faced with the stark reality that any hope we still had is now gone. Ashley pulls out of my grip, breaking the spell of memory. She steps away from me, swiping at the mascara-stained tears running down her face. "Fuck, I'm a mess right now."

"Everyone is," I say.

"Not you. You're handling this so well."

If only she knew about The Dream. And the insomnia. And the guilt and the grief and the long line of therapists stretching back to my early teens who, despite their valiant efforts, couldn't help me one damn bit.

"Looks can be deceiving."

"I guess we should go back in there," Ashley says, looping an arm through mine. "Getting bad news is always easier with a buddy."

We return to the living room, squeezing onto the sofa next to Russ again as he says, "What kind of evidence did they find?"

Ragesh clears his throat. "I'm not at liberty to say."

"How was he found?" I say as I shift on the sofa. Something about this doesn't feel right. Billy had been missing for thirty years, with no clue as to where he was or what had happened to him. Then he was suddenly found two miles from here—not long before I thought I'd sensed his presence outside.

"By two scientists with the state Department of Environmental Protection," Ragesh says. "They were taking water and soil samples. Routine stuff they do all the time. In one of the samples, they found a bone fragment. That prompted them to dredge the lake. That's when they found Billy."

"But didn't they search that area decades ago?"

Ragesh shakes his head. "It's my understanding that they didn't."

"Because of the institute?" Ashley says, referring to the Hawthorne Institute, which sits on the same land as the falls and the lake. A hundred acres total. All of it once the property of Ezra Hawthorne, the last remaining member of a family whose old money stretched back to the days of the Mayflower.

While a stone's throw from Princeton University, the Hawthorne Institute was separate from those hallowed halls of higher learning. It was quiet, unassuming, and private. Exceedingly so. For decades, it flew under the radar because no one quite knew what it was, what they did there, or why they needed so much land.

Even though I've only been there once, I vividly remember how strange the place seemed. A stone mansion surrounded by several barns and other outbuildings. Surrounding that was the lake and the falls, formal gardens, and thick clusters of trees, all of it by design. An idealized version of nature that couldn't happen without planning. Like a Central Park that hadn't seen a tourist for decades.

"More like because Ezra Hawthorne was so rich they looked the other way," Russ says.

Ragesh presses his lips together until they form a flat line. "I don't know why it wasn't searched back then. But, clearly, it's being searched now."

"Aren't the institute grounds private property?" I say.

"Yes and no," Ragesh says as he runs a hand through his formidable beard. "It's government land now. Green space. The institute closed in the late nineties when Mr. Hawthorne died. He donated the land to the county, with the stipulation that it remained untouched. No tearing down buildings or turning it into a public park or anything like that. So it's technically public land that's still very much off-limits. The only time people are allowed there is when they occasionally rent the mansion out for private parties and weddings."

"What about back then?" Russ says. "What did they do there?"

He'd asked a similar question thirty years ago, as we stood at the edge of the falls. Only Billy had an answer, and the memory plants a seed of unease in my already-roiling stomach.

Ragesh shrugs. "I don't know. Whatever it was, the institute kept it secret. Very few people had access."

Yet we were there.

All four of us.

It had been Billy's idea, and the rest of us went along with it because we had nothing better to do. We were just a group of kids in the thick of summer, listless in our suburban world of nice houses and manicured lawns. It was natural to want to push against the boundaries our parents had drawn for us.

We ended up getting more than we bargained for. Billy most of all. Possibly more than I ever could have imagined.

"Do you think this has something to do with that day?" I say, because one of us needs to. "We were there. And Billy ended up there again—this time dead—less than twenty-four hours later. That can't be a coincidence."

Ragesh, who'd been standing this whole time, kneels until he's eye level with those of us on the couch. It's a disarming gesture, which is surely the point. Something taught at the police academy to put people at ease.

"I understand why you'd jump to that conclusion," he says, although it's not a jump at all. It's a half step at best, taking me from one fact—our presence at the falls—to another: Billy's body was found there. "But there seems to be no correlation between what happened that afternoon and Billy's abduction."

"Other than you, does anyone else investigating this thing even know we were there that day?" I say, jarred by the realization that none of us talked with each other about what happened that day after Billy was taken. "I mean, all those years ago, did anyone tell the police about that afternoon?"

"I didn't," Ashley says. "I think I mentioned we were all in the woods, but not specifically where."

"Same," Russ says.

And it was the same with me. Despite being interviewed by so many cops, detectives, and agents that they became a blur of blue and khaki, I never mentioned we'd been at the falls or on the grounds of the Hawthorne Institute. I'd like to think it's because I was scared of getting myself and others in trouble, but I know the real reason is because I felt guilty. Just like I'm sure the others did. About what happened while we were there. About how we treated Billy. And while it feels inexcusable in hindsight, back then I didn't think what happened that day had anything to do with Billy's disappearance.

That's no longer the case.

"So the police back then didn't know we were there," I say. "Or that Billy was there. Do they know now?"

We all look to Ragesh, the actual cop in the room, who nods and says, "I mentioned it today."

"And everyone still thinks it's unrelated?" I say.

"Our gut instinct—my gut instinct—is that there's no reason to think Billy's death is connected to anyone associated with the institute."

Ragesh stands, done with trying to put us at ease when I need it now more than ever. The pernicious floating sensation resumes. Caught off balance, I lurch to the side, bumping shoulders with Ashley. She reaches for my hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze.

"Why not?" I say.

"Because technically we didn't do anything wrong that day," Ragesh says. "Yes, we were somewhere we shouldn't have been. But we were just a bunch of kids messing around. And we didn't see anything forbidden or suspicious."

"But don't you think it's the least bit strange that's the place where Billy ended up?"

"It is strange," Ragesh concedes, "if you don't stop to consider that a lake in a remote area where few people have access is the most convenient place in a ten-mile radius to dump a body."

Next to me, Ashley blanches. "Jesus, Ragesh. You don't need to be so blunt about it."

"Murder is blunt." Ragesh crosses his arms and stares her down. "Billy was taken from the tent, killed, and his body was dumped in a lake. That's the brutal truth."

"Brutal" is the perfect word to describe it. Billy was just a boy. And what happened to him is so brutal that, like Ashley earlier, I think I'm about to be sick. I take a deep breath and swallow hard, determined to keep it together at least until everyone else leaves.

"Are there any suspects?" Ashley says.

"None that I'm allowed to tell you about," Ragesh says, inadvertently answering her question. Yes, there are indeed suspects.

Russ leans forward, elbows on his knees. "What about the stranger who'd been seen in the neighborhood?"

"That was all conjecture. No one knows if there was really someone roaming the woods."

"But it still could have been him, right?"

"We're looking into every possibility," Ragesh says.

"You mean the state police?" Ashley says.

"Correct. Detective Cassandra Palmer is in charge of the investigation. Currently, she's overseeing the search of the institute grounds, but I'm sure all of you will be hearing from her soon."

My wooziness grows at the prospect of yet more questioning. Other than the fact that we were at the institute—which Ragesh insists isn't important—there's nothing I can tell the authorities now that I couldn't thirty years ago.

Nothing I can remember, that is.

I take another deep breath and lean back on the sofa. Maybe because she senses my weariness—or because she's feeling the same way—Ashley asks Ragesh, "Is there anything else?"

"That's about it."

About.

Meaning there is something else, and Ragesh is either unable to tell us what it is or unwilling to. I suspect it's the former, because he adds, "I'm sorry. I know all this is a lot to take in, especially with no real resolution."

That fact is one of the many things I'm grappling with right now. For decades, all I wanted was an indication of what had happened to Billy. Now that I have an answer, it feels both horrible and inadequate.

The knowledge of Billy's death only begets an even bigger mystery: Who did this to him? Why? For what purpose? Without those answers, all that's left is a sense of mournful disappointment. After thirty years, there should be more.

More information.

More justice.

More fucking closure.

Instead, all we can do is carry on with our day, which for Ashley and Russ means returning to their families. I walk them both to the door.

"Thanks for telling us what you could," Russ tells Ragesh on his way out. "We appreciate it."

At the door, Ashley gives me a quick squeeze and a peck on the cheek. "It's nice to have you back, Ethan. Don't be a stranger."

She leaves, and it's just me and Ragesh, who remains in the living room, his arms crossed.

"What's going on, Ethan?"

"What do you mean?"

"You damn well know what I mean," he says. "You called me asking about Billy barely twenty-four hours after his body was found. That's a coincidence I think is worth discussing."

I plop back onto the sofa, stunned by yet another wallop of surprise. I think about how suspicious he sounded on the phone earlier. What have you heard? How much do you know?

"You think I knew Billy had been found when I called you earlier?"

"I'm not saying that," Ragesh replies, though it feels like that's exactly what he's saying. "But I do find the timing of your call very interesting. Something had to have prompted it."

"Other than being back in the house where it all happened? That's reason enough, don't you think?"

"You've been back a week. I checked." Ragesh wags his finger at me, a gesture that's both absurd and taunting. In that moment, the stoic detective he's become flickers enough to reveal a glimmer of the bully he'd once been. "So I suspect something else made you think to call about Billy's case."

He's right, of course. But to tell him that would mean having to explain how, for the briefest of moments, I'd thought Billy was outside circling the cul-de-sac in the middle of the night. Faced with the choice of appearing suspicious or merely mentally disturbed, I pick the latter.

"I thought I sensed him," I say slowly, fearful Ragesh the bully will show himself again. "His presence. In my yard."

I tell him everything. About The Dream, the garage lights, the sudden, strange sense that Billy was outside with me. That last part makes me weak with shame. That I really thought, even for the briefest of moments, that Billy was still alive, that he was here, that he was, I don't know, waiting for me.

Ragesh lifts a brow. I can't tell what it signifies. Amusement? Condescension? Concern?

"And in the morning," I continue, "this was in my yard."

I slip into the kitchen, grab the baseball, and give it to Ragesh. He turns it over in his hands and says, "It's just a ball."

"The same kind of ball Billy threw into my yard almost every day that summer before he—" I almost say vanished, but catch myself, replacing it with something more accurate. "Died."

Yet even that's not quite right. Billy didn't just die. He was murdered. Something I can't yet bring myself to utter. Just thinking it causes another sickly twist in my stomach.

"Well, Billy didn't put it there," Ragesh says as he hands the ball back to me.

"I know that. Now. But I didn't last night. Or this morning. That's why I called you."

Ragesh looks like he believes me. Or maybe it's all an act. Another thing he learned during his journey from teenage asshole to local cop. Make people think you're on their side, keep them talking, wait until they trip up.

"Do you think someone is messing with you?" he says.

"It's possible. But I don't know why. Or who would even know to do it."

No one else knew about the meaning behind the baseball. Just me and Billy, both of us pinkie swearing to keep it a secret.

"Maybe to remind you," Ragesh says.

"I don't need reminding. I remember enough about what happened."

"But not everything."

The smirk that follows makes it clear Ragesh knows all about the gaps in my memories from that night. Because of course he does. He's probably read every interview and report about the case.

But the smirk is also a reminder that Ragesh and I are not friends. We never were. Far from it, in fact. Thirty years ago, the rest of us boys on Hemlock Circle went out of our way to avoid him. Unlike a lot of bullies, Ragesh never physically hurt us. He specialized in emotional torment. Insults. Name-calling. Learning the things we were most self-conscious about and bringing them up constantly. Like Billy's eccentricities and Russ's scrawniness. Back then, Ragesh could never peg my individual weakness. Now he knows.

"I remember what really happened that day," I say.

"I already told you—"

"That your gut tells you it's unrelated to Billy's murder. Yeah, I know. And I think you're wrong. And I think you know why."

Like a spent candle, Ragesh's smirk flickers and goes out.

"Listen, what went down that afternoon was unfortunate," he says. "I'm not going to deny that. And I regret literally all of it. But it likely had nothing to do with what happened to Billy later that night."

"How can you be so certain?"

"Because if it did, Billy never would have come home that afternoon," Ragesh says. "But he did. He made it home later that day, completely unharmed and none the worse for wear. Hell, you were with him that night. Did he seem upset about it?"

Memories appear in my mind like Polaroid pictures coming into focus. The tension in the tent that night. The fight we'd had once it reached a breaking point. My immediate apology and Billy's attempt at a smile that never quite took spark.

Hakuna matata, dude.

"No," I say, because it's easier than trying to explain all that transpired between the two of us that night. "He seemed fine."

"See?" Ragesh says, his I-told-you-so glare softening into something that resembles pity. "I know this is harder on you than on the rest of us, Ethan. I know that for you it's…complicated. But leave the investigation to the cops. Right now, you should just focus on mourning your friend."

I stay on the couch after Ragesh leaves, held in place not by the seasick swaying of the living room, though that still remains, but by thoughts of that final night in the tent with Billy. I hadn't lied to Ragesh. Not entirely. Billy really did seem fine with the behavior of the others at the institute that day. Russ and Ashley and Ragesh. It was only me he had issues with.

Because I was his best friend.

And I had run away like the others.

Leaving Billy alone to fend for himself.

I can still hear the echo of his voice as I fled with the others. How desperate he sounded. How lonely and sad and scared.

Ethan, don't leave me! Please don't leave me!