He hugs me tighter. “And?”

“I said I’d go.”

“Well, look at that. Nobody would call that uncooperative, would they?”

“Will you be all right for supper on your own?”

“Dad and I talked about grilling tonight. We’ll be fine. You go. Make friends. Show this town how wonderful you are.”

I want to stay in his arms forever, but there’s work to do. “I wanted to interview Mrs. Swanson. About the Paulie Aandeg case?” I filled Deck in about it last night. He listened with half an ear.

His chin is resting on my head. “She’s taken a few days off.”

I yank myself back. “What?”

He rubs the back of his neck, holding eye contact. “Yeah, but Dad might know more about the Paulie Aandeg situation.”

“Can I ask him now?”

“Here?” Deck asks, a smile warming his eyes. “You want to interview my dad at his own business?”

“Why not?”

“All right,” Deck says, chuckling. “I’ll see if he’s free.”

I nod as if it’s the most natural thing, biting my lip. I’m fishing my notepad out of my purse when Ronald strides in. He doesn’t look nearly as pleased about this as Deck did.

“Joan, Deck says you have a few questions.” The gravel of his voice is thick with friction. He leaves the door open behind him.

“Shouldn’t take long,” I say. “Thanks for talking to me. Have a seat?”

He scowls at the chair, walking over to lean against it, placing both hands on the chairback. “I’m afraid it’s a busy day. What can I do for you?”

I sit. One of us might as well be comfortable. “You know Paulie Aandeg has come back to town?”

“That’s the rumor.”

I ignore his evasiveness. “Do you remember when he disappeared?”

Ronald’s shoulders sag, as if he can’t remain outside the memory any longer. He pulls out the chair and sits, crossing his hands on the table as if in prayer. Not only does he look like Deck, he smells just like him up close.

“A real tragedy,” he says. “My heart went out to Virginia. Miss Aandeg. We tried to help her, the whole town did, but it was too much for her when her boy went missing. Then her house burned down. I believe she disappeared that night, before the fire.”

“Do you know why she left?” I’m thinking of Miss Colivan’s theory that Virginia had killed her son.

“I don’t truck in rumor,” he says, his expression sad, “but if I had to guess, I’d say she’d had enough and needed a fresh start.”

“So you don’t think she killed Paulie?”

“Virginia? No. What mother could possibly do that?”

His gaze is so piercing that I pretend to scribble on my pad to break eye contact. “Do you think I could interview Mrs. Swanson?” I say to my lap. “Dennis said she was Paulie’s teacher the day he went missing.”

Ronald leans forward and lifts my chin with the crook of his finger. It’s an unsettlingly intimate gesture. “That would be up to Mrs. Swanson, but I don’t see why not. She’s visiting family but should return soon.”

I’m leaning forward—he looks so much like Deck—to ask him another question, and is Ronald doing the same?

“Hey, Dad!” Deck pokes his head into the break room, and Ronald releases my chin. “We need your advice out here.”

I’m still looking at my pad of paper, cheeks blazing, when Ronald leaves the room.

It occurs to me that the town might have me on a snipe hunt, leading me on, keeping the key players just out of my reach.

But to what end?

CHAPTER 23

Get called a risk by my new doctor.

Check.

Keep brooch I stole.

Check.

Have uncomfortably charged moment with my soon-to-be father-in-law.

Check.

Well, this day couldn’t get better. Might as well continue the path I’m on. I blow across the street to the Gazette offices. I want to Xerox the two Paulie Aandeg articles, plus dig deeper in case there’s any pieces I’ve missed.

Dennis Roth’s wife is at the front desk. I do not know her first name.

“Hello, Mrs. Roth!” I say chirpily. “I’m here to look at the archives. I know the way.”

She doesn’t glance up from the copy she’s proofing with a red pen. “They’re down.”

My baby hairs stand on end. Snipe hunt. “What? I used them just the other day.”

“Everything works until it breaks,” she says, glancing up. She reminds me of a torpid animal, a turtle or a sloth, with the hair of Pat Nixon.

Languid Lady Roth.

I glance toward the back of the newspaper offices. “When are they getting fixed?”

Her smile is mild. “Soon, I hope.”

I match her expression. “I’ll stop back.”

“You do that,” she says absentmindedly, returning to her work.

Languid Lady Roth, Keeper of the Letters.

Dammit. I have to make some progress today, with or without help. I step into the sunshine and consider visiting the elementary school Paulie disappeared from, stopping by the button of a town library to dig through their stacks, dropping by the police station, or returning to the Purple Saucer for the second time today. I decide instead to go outside Lilydale’s circle. That will show them. I’ll try Benjamin, a photographer friend at the Star. He was easygoing, my favorite photographer to work with. He scored as many big-ticket gigs as pink ones, but he treated them both the same. At least I assumed he did.

Fingers crossed our relationship survives outside city limits.

The phone rings twice before it’s answered.

“Minneapolis Star.”

I’m startled. That’s the number I called, but the two words are so normal, so part of a different world from the one I’m currently inhabiting. Not even three hours up the road is a city where archives don’t crash for the foreseeable future, where children who’ve disappeared receive more than two mentions in the paper, where pregnant women aren’t always being watched.

“Benjamin Ember, please. Photography.”

“I’ll try him.”

Whirs and clicks and rings and me praying he’s in.

“Benjamin speaking.”

“Benny!” My relief is out of line with the circumstances, I recognize that. “It’s Joan. Joan Harken.”

“Joan! I heard you ended up in Podiddle, Minnesota, having babies. That true?”

“Mostly.” I look around. No one’s staring at me, and why would they be? I’m simply making a phone call. Except I swear I can feel eyes on me. “I’m working for a small-town paper. The Lilydale Gazette.”

“Like I said. Podiddle. To what do I owe the pleasure? Don’t tell me they need a photographer out there. Bet it pays in hay bales and farm girls. Am I right?”

“Benjamin, please.” But I smile. I miss his humor. He made many a Women’s News photo shoot bearable. “I need your help, but not as a photographer. I’m hoping you can visit the Star archives and look for anything that mentions Paulie Aandeg of Lilydale.”

“Your car stop working?” he asks, but I can hear his pen scratching as he writes down the name that I spell out for him.