It all makes sense, the morbid glee in the Mill Street families when they “searched” for Angel, Angel’s mother’s strange comments, Rosamund Grant’s cackling words. Plant a seed, harvest it, plant a seed, harvest it.

I think not only is Kris not Paulie Aandeg but that Paulie Aandeg has been dead since 1944, and his mom, too. The same is probably true of Angel Gomez, though I can’t bear to think it.

I can’t say any of this, not until I can prove it. If the Mill Street families got word of my suspicions, they’d have me institutionalized in a heartbeat and take my child. Ronald very nearly promised it.

I make up a lie that will get me the same information I’m after. “I think the danger’s not over,” I say. “I think there might be a copycat kidnapper here.”

Benjamin’s whistle pierces the line. “No shit.”

“None.” I beg him to dig deeper, find out if there were any less-publicized child disappearances from this area, any other fires that got only a passing mention. “While you’re in the archives, can you look up any investigations into a Ronald Schmidt or Stanley Lily of Lilydale? Something you might have missed in a general Lilydale search?”

I hold my breath. He could hang up, and then I’ll have nothing.

“Joan?”

“Yeah?”

“What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

“Will you help me, Benjamin?”

“Yeah. But you owe me a beer next time you’re in town. Make that a whole case of beer. And you have to drink it with me. I don’t care how pregnant you are.”

I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. I hadn’t noticed the tears rolling down my cheeks. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me from paying that debt.”

CHAPTER 47

Benjamin will get me the information when he gets me the information.

If he gets me the information.

All that I can do now is wait. Deck insists he needs the car, so the next day, I repeat the one-hour walk to the Gomez house. This time no one answers, even though I see a curtain fall inside the house when I knock. Unable to sit at home, helpless, I travel house to house asking the questions I was trained to ask.

Who. What. When. Where.

No one has seen anything unusual. The Gomez family is large, but they keep to themselves and don’t cause trouble. Mrs. Gomez cleans houses. She receives food stamps, that’s what her neighbor tells me with disdain, but I suspect it’s because he believes I’d look poorly on such a practice.

You’re one of them, Mrs. Gomez had said.

The only hint of something troubling I get is three blocks down. The house is the same size as the rest in this part of town, but it’s neater, the trim a crisp black, the paint white. The lawn is mowed. The crew-cut man who answers the door stares down at me, and something about him chills me to my core.

“Hello,” I say.

He doesn’t reply.

“I’m Joan Harken, reporter for the Lilydale Gazette. I’m doing an article about the missing boy. Angel Gomez? I was hoping I could ask you a few questions.”

The man steps aside. I gulp. There’s a young man teetering immediately behind him, a lantern-jawed teenager. His eyes are vacant. He’s just been standing there, like a piece of furniture.

“Come in,” the man says.

“That’s all right,” I stammer, my heartbeat clattering in my chest. “I have a lot of houses to stop by. Can I ask you if you saw or heard anything that would be helpful?”

“No, but you can ask my stepson.” The man turns to the dead-eyed teen. “Gary? Have you seen anything?”

“Un-unh,” the stepson says.

“Thank you,” I say, stumbling backward off the steps. He should be in Vietnam, the young man, but he doesn’t look like he’s right in the head. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t been drafted? I note the name on the mailbox.

Godlin.

There’s something terribly wrong with that family. Is it enough to report to the police? I finish canvassing the neighborhood. Nobody else has offered anything of use. One moment Angel was there, and the next he was gone.

The Lilydale Police Department adds a half an hour to my walk, but I need to be thorough. I’m surprised to find Amory Bauer inside. I don’t know why. I assumed he would be in the field, somehow. He’s not pleased to see me.

“Hello, Mr. Bauer,” I say, unsure of his title at work. His uniform impossibly adds size to his already large body.

His silver-streaked hair is immaculate, his blue eyes shocks of color beneath the sagging fat of his face. “What are you doing here?”

I hold up my notepad. “I’m writing an article on the missing boy. Angel Gomez. Have you uncovered any leads?”

“Have you?” he asks.

He means to belittle me. I play submissive. “I interviewed everyone in a five-block radius, everyone who was home. No one knows anything, but I did meet a strange man and his stepson. The Godlins?”

Amory is suddenly standing in front of me, hands gripping my upper arms too tightly. I’m caught off guard that a man his size can move that fast, but I shouldn’t be. He demonstrated his agility the night he kicked Kris out of my house. “You want to avoid the Godlins. The stepdad doesn’t do right by that boy. They’re trouble.”

I struggle to keep my voice even. “You think they had something to do with Angel disappearing?”

“Not that kind of trouble.”

I twist out of his grip. “So no news on Angel, none at all?”

The phone rings behind Amory, and he turns away.

“None,” he says, hand on the ringing phone. “I’ll let your husband know if I hear anything. Makes sense you’d be worried about a little boy with your own baby on the way. We’ll find him. I promise.”

Amory picks up the call.

I leave, taking my time, not ready to return home. I walk past the newspaper office. When I step inside, Mrs. Roth, who looks more like Pat Nixon than ever in her red suit and pearls, tells me that Dennis has traveled to Saint Cloud and that the archives are still down. I peek inside the Fathers and Mothers hall next door. It still looks like it’s halfway unpacked. That doesn’t leave much to do in Lilydale. I don’t need anything from Ben Franklin or the grocery store, and I’m not hungry.

That leaves only Little John’s. I suddenly realize how hot and thirsty I am, how much my back and feet hurt. Yet I’ve been avoiding the bar ever since Ronald cornered me outside the nursing home. While I’m now certain—almost positive—that my mugger was from Lilydale, there’s always the distant chance that Regina ratted me out. Next time I see her, I’ll have to ask about it, and then I risk losing my only friend in town.

But my feet are steering me toward the bar. Maybe it was a mix-up. What if Regina innocently let it spill? Or what if it happened exactly like Ronald said, with Deck worrying about me and going on to identify the man based on the description the night of the mugging? That’s a lot to swallow, but believing it is easier than confronting Regina.

Little John’s is ahead on the corner. It’s late afternoon, another hour before everyone gets off work.

Anyone inside the bar is either unemployed or trouble.

The door swings open, and Kris stumbles out.