Local Woman Missing Quotes

Sometimes being scared makes you do things you didn't know you could do.

That’s not to say I didn’t think about you. I thought about you a lot when you were gone, though all I ever knew was the absence of you.

I never noticed the whir of the ceiling fan, but the absence of it I do. The absence of it is deafening.

The absence of a no should never mean yes.

Sister Ernestine said something very nasty about how maybe Miss Simon didn’t realize how unpleasant detention at the Mission Academy could be. I assured Sister Ernestine that if she was threatening corporal punishment, I would tell my mother, who was a local news anchor-woman and would be over here with a TV camera so fast, nobody would have time to say so much as a single Hail Mary. Sister Ernestine was pretty quiet after that.

A common belief during labor is that a baby’s needs supersede that of the mother’s. Women don’t always know they have options. Or they aren’t given a choice in their care. If they are, they aren’t allowed ample time or information to come to a decision themselves. Choices are made without their consent. Too many women don’t want to be a burden and so they say nothing. The mistreatment is subtle, too, and falls under the guise of medical care.

They say time heals all wounds.

The way the psychiatrist explained it to me,” Dad says, “being isolated in the dark for as long as your sister was drives people to the brink of insanity. It impairs their sense of time, their sleep cycles. Without being able to see, they suffer sensory deprivation.

Being unbiased is important. Every woman is not me.

The scar I’ve still got, but the memory of it is gone.

I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally

Mostly, though, he made people laugh, with wicked impersonations of everyone around him: clients, lawyers, clerks, even the cleaning woman. When Pickwick Papers came out, his former colleagues realized that half of them had turned up in its pages. His eyes - eyes that everyone who ever met him, to the day he died, remarked on - beautiful, animated, warm, dreamy, flashing, sparkling - though no two people ever agreed on their colour - were they grey, green, blue, brown? - those eyes missed nothing, any more than did his ears. He could imitate anyone. Brimming over with an all but uncontainable energy, which the twenty-first century might suspiciously describe as manic, he discharged his superplus of vitality by incessantly walking the streets, learning London as he went, mastering it, memorizing the names of the roads, the local accents, noting the characteristic topographies of the many villages of which the city still consisted.

The fire was farther away by now, but it seemed to be growing in intensity. Even I could tell the wind had picked up. Marlboro Man and Tim looked at each other…and burst out in nervous laughter--the kind of laugh you laugh when you almost fall but don’t; when your car almost goes off a cliff but comes to a stop right at the edge; when your winning team almost misses the winning pass but doesn’t; or when your fiancée and a local cowboy are almost burned alive…but aren’t.

A local white bootlegger, idling under the store awning, accosted Major Stem. “Why’d you call that damned nigger woman ‘Mrs. Shaw’?” he demanded. In those days, white Southerners did not use courtesy titles for their black neighbors. While it was permissible to call a favored black man “Uncle” or “Professor”—a mixture of affection and mockery—he must never hear the words “mister” or “sir.” Black women were “girls” until they were old enough to be called “auntie,” but they could never hear a white person, regardless of age, address them as “Mrs.” or “Miss” or “Ma’am.” But Major Stem made his own rules.

Jung told the Society that apparitions (ghosts) and materializations were “unconscious projections” or, as he spoke of them to Freud, “exteriorisations.” “I have repeatedly observed,” Jung told his audience, “the telepathic effects of unconscious complexes, and also a number of parapsychic phenomena, but in all this I see no proof whatever of the existence of real spirits, and until such proof is forthcoming I must regard this whole territory as an appendix of psychology.” This sounds scientific enough, but a year later20 when Jung was again in England, he encountered a somewhat more real ghost. Jung spent some weekends in a cottage in Aylesbury outside of London rented by Maurice Nicoll, and while there was serenaded by an assortment of eerie sounds—dripping water, knocks, inexplicable rustlings—while an unpleasant smell filled the bedroom. Locals said the place was haunted, and one particularly bad night, Jung opened his eyes to discover an old woman’s head on the pillow next to his; half of her face was missing. Jung leaped out of bed, lit a candle, and waited until morning in an armchair. The house was later torn down. One would think that having already encountered the dead on their return from Jerusalem, Jung wouldn’t be shaken by a fairly standard English ghost, but the experience rattled him.

The Riders Placencia Beach, Belize, 1996 Americans aren’t overly familiar with Tim Winton, although in my mind he is one of the best writers anywhere. This novel is set in Ireland and Greece as a man and his daughter search for their missing wife and mother. Gripping. 2. Family Happiness Miacomet Beach, Nantucket, 2001 The finest of Laurie Colwin’s novels, this is, perhaps, my favorite book in all the world. It tells the story of Polly Demarest, a Manhattan woman who is torn between her very uptown lawyer husband and her very downtown artist lover. 3. Mary and O’Neil Cottesloe Beach, Western Australia, 2009 These connected stories by Justin Cronin will leave you weeping and astonished. 4. Appointment in Samarra Nha Trang Beach, Vietnam, 2010 This classic novel was recommended to me by my local independent bookseller, Dick Burns, once he had found out how much I loved Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. John O’Hara’s novel has all the requisite elements of a page-turner—drinking, swearing, and country club adultery, although set in 1930s Pennsylvania. This may sound odd, but trust me, it’s un-put-downable! 5. Wife 22 Oppenheimer Beach, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, 2012 If you like piña coladas… you will love Melanie Gideon’s tale of marriage lost and rediscovered. 6. The Interestings Steps Beach, Nantucket, 2013 And this summer, on Steps Beach in Nantucket, I will be reading The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. Wolitzer is one of my favorite writers. She explores the battles between the sexes better than anyone around.

Try as she might, Annabelle could think of no subtle way to ask him. After grappling silently with a variety of phrases, she finally settled for a blunt question. “Were you responsible for the boots?” His expression gave nothing away. “Boots? I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning, Miss Peyton. Are you speaking in metaphor, or are we talking about actual footwear?” “Ankle boots,” Annabelle said, staring at him with open suspicion. “A new pair that was left inside the door of my room yesterday.” “Delighted as I am to discuss any part of your wardrobe, Miss Peyton, I’m afraid I know nothing about a pair of boots. However, I am relieved that you have managed to acquire some. Unless, of course, you wished to continue acting as a strolling buffet to the wildlife of Hampshire.” Annabelle regarded him for a long moment. Despite his denial, there was something lurking behind his neutral facade…some playful spark in his eyes…“Then you deny having given the boots to me?” “Most emphatically I deny it.” “But I wonder…if some one wished to have a pair of boots made up for a lady without her knowledge…how would he be able to learn the precise size of her feet?” “That would be a relatively simple task…” he mused. “I imagine that some enterprising person would simply ask a housemaid to trace the soles of the lady’s discarded slippers. Then he could take the pattern to the local cobbler. And make it worth the cobbler’s while to delay his other work in favor of crafting the new shoes immediately.” “That is quite a lot of trouble for someone to go through,” Annabelle murmured. Hunt’s gaze was lit with sudden mischief. “Rather less trouble than having to haul an injured woman up three flights of stairs every time she goes out walking in her slippers.” Annabelle realized that he would never admit to giving her the boots—which would allow her to keep them, but would also ensure that she would never be able to thank him. And she knew he had—she could see it in his face.

Two starving kids and tree-hugging vegetarians. I’m going to kill Chase.” Phoebe didn’t blame him. Despite her lack of experience in the cattle-drive department, even she could see the potential for trouble. Then a familiar figure standing beside the driver caught her attention, and she waved. Maya grinned and waved back. “It’s Maya,” Phoebe said. Zane turned and followed her gaze. “Just perfect,” he muttered as his ex-stepsister walked toward them. “You’re looking grim, Zane,” Maya said cheerfully when she joined them. “Who died?” She smiled. “Oh, I forgot. You’re just being your usual charming self.” She squeezed his arm. “You’ve missed me, I know.” Zane’s eyes narrowed. “Like foot fungus.” She laughed and turned to Phoebe. “You’re still alive. I see Zane didn’t bore you to death.” “Not even close.” Phoebe hugged her friend. Maya waved forward the bus driver, a pretty woman in her fifties. “Phoebe, this is Elaine Mitchell.” “You’re the one Maya worked for in high school?” Phoebe asked. “I am.” Maya put her arm around Phoebe’s shoulders. “And this is my BFF, Phoebe.” “Welcome to Fool’s Gold,” Elaine said with a smile. Instead of her usual suit and high heels, Maya wore jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and boots. Her blond hair was pulled back in a braid. “You look like a local,” Phoebe said. “Speaking of locals,” Maya began, a note of warning in her voice. “Oh, shit,” Zane said before she could continue. Phoebe looked toward the bus and immediately saw why Zane’s face had gone a little ashen. The two crazy old women who had cornered her at his truck in town had just gotten off the bus. Eddie and Gladys, if she remembered right. The skinny one was wearing stiff, dark blue jeans and a plaid Western shirt with pearly snaps along the front. The plump one, who still looked as if she had asked for one of everything at the cosmetic counter, was wearing jeans, too, and leather chaps with fringe along the sides. They both had cowboy hats perched atop their white curls. Besides her Zane muttered under his breath. She caught a handful of words. Something about being old, broken bones and a reference to hanging Chase from the lightning rod in the middle of a storm.

But even in Gavle I went on digging into the case." "I don't suppose that Henrik would ever let up." "That's true, but that's not the reason. The puzzle about Harriet still fascinates me to this day. I mean... it's like this: every police officer has his own unsolved mystery. I remember from my days in Hedestad how older colleagues would talk in the canteen about the case of Rebecka. There was one officer in particular, a man named Torstensson - he's been dead for years - who year after year kept returning to that case. In his free time and when he was on holiday. Whenever there was a period of calm among the local hooligans he would take out those folders and study them." "Was that also a case about a missing girl?" Morell looked surprised. Then he smiled when he realised that Blomkvist was looking for some sort of connection. "No, that's not why I mentioned it. I'm talking about the soul of a policeman. The Rebecka case was something that happened before Harriet Vanger was even born, and the statute of limitations has long since run out. Sometime in the forties a woman was assaulted in Hedestad, raped, and murdered. That's not altogether uncommon. Every officer, at some point in his career, has to investigate that kind of crime, but what I'm talking about are those cases that stay with you and get under your skin during the investigation. This girl was killed in the most brutal way. The killer tied her up and stuck her head into the smouldering embers of a fireplace. One can only guess how long it took for the poor girl to die, or what torment she must have endured." "Christ Almighty." "Exactly. It was so sadistic. Poor Torstensson was the first detective on the scene after she was found. And the murder remained unsolved, even though experts were called in from Stockholm. He could never let go of that case." "I can understand that." "My Rebecka case was Harriet. In this instance we don't even know how she died. We can't even prove that a murder was committed. But I have never been able to let it go." He paused to think for a moment. "Being a homicide detective can be the loneliest job in the world. The friends of the victim are upset and in despair, but sooner or later - after weeks or months - they go back to their everyday lives. For the closest family it takes longer, but for the most part, to some degree, they too get over their grieving and despair. Life has to go on; it does go on. But the unsolved murders keep gnawing away and in the end there's only one person left who thinks night and day about the victim: it's the officer who's left with the investigation.

Then I heard it--the voice over the CB radio. “You’re on fire! You’re on fire!” The voice repeated, this time with more urgency, “Charlie! Get out! You’re on fire!” I sat there, frozen, unable to process the reality of what I’d just heard. “Oh, shit!” sweet little Charlie yelled, grabbing his door handle. “We’ve got to get out, darlin’--get outta here!” He opened his door, swung his feeble knees around, and let gravity pull him out of the pickup; I, in turn, did the same. Covering my head instinctively as I ditched, I darted away from the vehicle, running smack-dab into Marlboro Man’s brother, Tim, in the process. He was spraying the side of Charlie’s pickup, which, by now, was engulfed in flames. I kept running until I was sure I was out of the path of danger. “Ree! Where’d you come from?!?” Tim yelled, barely taking his eyes off the fire on the truck, which, by then, was almost extinguished. Tim hadn’t known I was on the scene. “You okay?” he yelled, glancing over to make sure I wasn’t on fire, too. A cowboy rushed to Charlie’s aid on the other side of the truck. He was fine, too, bless his heart. By now Marlboro Man had become aware of the commotion, not because he’d seen it happen through the smoke, but because his hose had reached the end of its slack and Charlie’s truck was no longer following behind. Another spray truck had already rushed over to Marlboro Man’s spot and resumed chasing the fire--the same fire that might have gobbled up a rickety, old spray truck, an equally rickety man named Charlie, and me. Luckily Tim had been nearby when a wind gust blew the flames over Charlie’s truck, and had acted quickly. The fire on the truck was out by now, and Marlboro Man rushed over, grabbed my shoulders, and looked me over--trying, in all the confusion, to make sure I was in one piece. And I was. Physically, I was perfectly fine. My nervous system, on the other hand, was a shambles. “You okay?” he shouted over the crackling sounds of the fire. All I could do was nod and bite my lip to keep from losing it. Can I go home now? was the only thing going through my mind. That, and I want my mommy. The fire was farther away by now, but it seemed to be growing in intensity. Even I could tell the wind had picked up. Marlboro Man and Tim looked at each other…and burst out in nervous laughter--the kind of laugh you laugh when you almost fall but don’t; when your car almost goes off a cliff but comes to a stop right at the edge; when your winning team almost misses the winning pass but doesn’t; or when your fiancée and a local cowboy are almost burned alive…but aren’t. I might have laughed, too, if I could muster any breath.

Meredith

It’s not like she could know about her husband, Marty, and me. Unless he told her, but he wouldn’t do that. We’d agreed to keep things secret, for Cassandra’s and Josh’s sake.

I know what you did. I hope you die.

Because two days later, I miscarried. “What did you do with the baby?” she asks. “We lost it at twelve weeks.” “Shame,” she says icily.

Not only did Bea get her money from her; she also got her name, Beatrice, which is one of those vintage names someone else might hate, but not Bea.

You have an accent I do not recognize," he was saying. 'Tis certainly not local…." "Really, Lord Gareth — you should rest, not try to talk. Save your strength." "My dear angel, I can assure you I'd much rather talk to you, than lie here in silence and wonder if I shall live to see the next sunrise. I ... do not wish to be alone with my thoughts at the moment. Pray, amuse me, would you?" She sighed. "Very well, then. I'm from Boston." "County of Lincolnshire?" "Colony of Massachusetts." His smile faded. "Ah, yes ... Boston."  The town's name fell wearily from his lips and he let his eyes drift shut, as though that single word had drained him of his remaining strength. "You're a long way from home, aren't you?" "Farther, perhaps, than I should be," she said, cryptically. He seemed not to hear her. "I had a brother who died over there last year, fighting the rebels.... He was a captain in the Fourth. I miss him dreadfully." Juliet leaned the side of her face against the squab and took a deep, bracing breath. If this man died, he would never know just who the little girl playing so contentedly with his cravat was. He would never know that the stranger who was caring for him during his final moments was the woman his brother had loved, would never know just why she — a long way from home, indeed — had come to England. It was now or never. "Yes," she whispered, tracing a thin crack in the squab near her face. "So do I." "Sorry?" "I said, yes. I miss him too." "Forgive me, but I don't quite understand...."  And then he blanched and stiffened as the truth hit him with debilitating force. His eyes widened, their lazy dreaminess fading. His head rose halfway out of her lap. He stared at her and blinked, and in the sudden, charged silence that filled the coach, Juliet heard the pounding tattoo of her own heart, felt his gaze boring into the underside of her chin as his mind, dulled by pain and shock, quickly put the pieces together. Boston. Juliet. I miss him, too. He gave an incredulous little laugh. "No," he said, slowly shaking his head, as though he suspected he was the butt of some horrible joke or worse, knew she was telling the truth and could not find a way to accept it. He scrutinized her features, his gaze moving over every aspect of her face. "We all thought ... I mean, Lucien said he tried to locate you ... No, I am hallucinating, I must be!  You cannot be the same Juliet. Not his Juliet —" "I am," she said quietly. "His Juliet. And now I've come to England to throw myself on the mercy of his family, as he bade me to do should anything happen to him." "But this is just too extraordinary, I cannot believe —" Juliet was gazing out the window into the darkness again. "He told you about me, then?" "Told us? His letters home were filled with nothing but declarations of love for his 'colonial maiden,' his 'fair Juliet' — he said he was going to marry you. I ... you ... dear God, you have shocked my poor brain into speechlessness, Miss Paige. I do not believe you are here, in the flesh!" "Believe it," she said, miserably. "If Charles had lived, you and I would have been brother and sister. Don't die, Lord Gareth. I have no wish to see yet another de Montforte brother into an early grave." He settled back against her arm and flung one bloodstained wrist across his eyes, his body shaking. For a moment she thought the shock of her revelation had killed him. But no. Beneath the lace of his sleeve she could see his gleaming grin, and Juliet realized that he was not dying but convulsing with giddy, helpless mirth. For the life of her, she did not see what was so funny. "Then this baby —" he managed, sliding his wrist up his brow to peer up at her with gleaming eyes — "this baby —" "Is your niece.

Listen, I have to tell you something.” Her drowsy eyes opened. “I don’t want to push you into anything, take your time about me, but you have to know—I feel pretty strongly about monogamy.” Her eyes widened. “You can’t think I’d be with another man! I wasn’t even going to be with you! But there is one thing you have to do for me,” she said. “Anything that makes you happy,” he promised. “I want this to be only between us.” “Sure. Of course. It’s personal. I agree.” “I don’t want anyone around here to know it’s like this between us. I just work for you, that’s all.” He frowned. “We don’t have to share our personal lives with anyone, but we don’t have to hide the fact that we care about each other.” “Yeah, we do, Noah. No one can know about this. About us.” “Ellie, why? Are you embarrassed to find yourself attracted to a man who’s a minister?” She laughed a little bit. “No. But no one would ever believe you seduced me. And you did, Noah. You did and I loved it. Not only are you the sexiest minister alive, you might be the sexiest man alive. But people will think I trapped you. They’ll think I ruined your purity and dirtied you up. And I don’t need that right now.” “Come on, you’re wrong…” “I’m right,” she said. “No matter how much I try to do the right thing, no matter how determined I am to do the right thing, everything that happens ends up being my fault. And when people around here find out you like me…they’re going to think I cast an evil spell on you and made you break your vows.” “Honey, I didn’t take a vow of chastity. I didn’t promise not to love a woman. I never said I wouldn’t have a perfectly normal sex drive. I’m not fifteen, Ellie, I’m thirty-five and I’ve missed passion. Passion and intimacy, two things that are really healthy for a normal man. Don’t argue with a man with seven years of theological training.” “People don’t get that about you like I do. They think of you as different. As a minister. Please, Noah. Let’s just act like I work for you, and that we’re casual friends.” “We can do that, if that’s what you need. Or we could change the way things have been for you. We could be honest without being indiscreet. We could hold hands, you could let me put my arm around your shoulders, smile at you like you’re special. Treat you like the woman of my choice while I enjoy being the man of yours.” “You don’t get it, do you, Noah?” she asked, shaking her head. “Don’t you see how fragile this is? How much hangs in the balance for both of us? At some point—maybe sooner, maybe later—the people here are going to figure me out. They’ll know I come from a dirt-poor background, that the men who gave me my children didn’t marry me, that I was a stripper when you hired me. What if they hate me? What if they treat my kids like trash because of me?” “I won’t let anyone—” “Don’t you see it’s your future in this town, too? What if they ask themselves what kind of minister you could be if you’d choose a woman like me? Oh, Noah,” she said, running her fingers through his thick, dark hair. “We’d get along okay in a bigger town where no one knows us all that well, where I’m not hooked up with the local preacher. But here—you and me? It could ruin us all.” “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not going to be that way.” She smiled at him. “You’re just a fool,” she said. “It usually is that way.” He

I consider the threatening, hateful wording of the texts. Was she hyperbolizing only or does she want me dead? Do I have a reason to be scared for my safety, for my life?

And then, because I didn’t do it right away, I can’t tell him later. Because he’d want to know why I didn’t tell him before.

create a culture of consent with my clients, especially in situations like this, where Shelby is vulnerable and Dr. Feingold in a position of power.

You’re sweet, Meredith. Really sweet. I’m glad I found you,

It’s the same as what happened with Marty. As the days go on, I can’t tell him about the malpractice suit or Dr. Feingold or any of it, because it would all look so dodgy and dishonest.

He and Shelby had problems. He was the only one who knew she’d gone running that night. He had a motive to kill her, and he had the means.

So what do you want to do?” I ask. “You want to just leave?

It’s genetic. It’s gone. You don’t have it anymore. It isn’t that you lost it. It’s that you are not my sister.

You’re the one who’s been sending me those awful texts. You’re the one who’s been trying to scare the shit out of me.” “Did it work?” she asks, satisfied in herself because she can see that it has. “Were you following me?” I ask, aghast, thinking of the time a text arrived just as I was leaving the hospital, as if the sender knew I was on my way home and alone. “If I was,” she asks, “would it be anywhere as awful as what you’ve done? As what you’re still doing?

She presses a hand to my mouth and holds my cries in. I have to fight her off to breathe. Bea is scared, I know that. She’s panicking. I am, too.

As long as Dad thinks you’re her, he’s happy. He can get on with his life. He can have closure, albeit phony. You, whoever you are, who lived locked in someone’s basement for eleven years, can have a better life. Dad will take care of you. He’ll give you everything you need. Except that you probably have your own folks out there. Maybe you have a kid brother, too. They’re probably missing you.

I knock and, when Roger Thames answers, I ask if he’s seen Meredith. Roger is limping. He threw his back out working on his car, he tells us.

He doesn’t have the best bedside manner. He can be uncompromising. He wouldn’t have appreciated Meredith being there, questioning him, undermining his decisions.

Among our search party is the woman who owns the yoga studio where Meredith works.

It’s a gray house that belongs to a young couple with kids. Bea and I don’t know the Hanakas well because families with kids tend to bond better with other families with kids, and Bea and I don’t have any kids. But I’ve met them once. The Hanakas are friendly with the Dickeys.

He thinks you’re a con. He thinks you’re ripping us off. He looked up people in your line of work. He wants to know why you charge so much.

I saw something.” Her words are quiet but charged, full of meaning.

feel right stealing Josh’s attention away from the search.

He suggested some animosity toward the obstetrician.

The baby isn’t right.

Jan Fleisher remembers Meredith’s car parked in back; Tim Smith saw her pull down the alley.

Today she is assertive and sure. Which side of her am I to believe is true?

I’ve never liked Roger much.

She had an obstetrician she loved, but now she’s two thousand miles away.

In essence, she’s alone with the exception of her husband.

He’s kind of hard core, as she calls him. I’m not sure what she means by that. But it’s why she needs me there.

Charlotte is in her late fifties, sixty, maybe. She lives alone with her husband.

The truth is, Dad was never much of a dad to me until he got over missing you. But now you’re back and, in his eyes, you’re all that matters.

At school they treat me like some abnormality because of you. Everyone’s supposed to be nice to me because I’m the kid whose mom is dead and whose sister is gone. The truth is, nobody’s nice to me. They treat me like a freak instead.

They’re not false memories because they really happened. They’re just false to me. There’s a difference.

But for as much as people think the internet knows everything, the one thing it doesn’t say is that the girl who came back isn’t the same one who disappeared.

I know Meredith,” he says.

She was Shelby’s doula,” he says. I stiffen. My stomach churns.

Meredith Dickey,” I say, smiling. “Shelby Tebow,” she says, shaking mine. “You want some coffee?” she asks. I do. The fatigue is taking over. Without caffeine, I don’t know how much longer I can last on my feet.

He wishes I was a stay-at-home mom like Cassandra.

That’s not unusual,” he says. “That’s the way it is with Meredith and me. Sometimes we’re filling each other in on the minutiae of the day. Other times we don’t have time to check in. I didn’t see Delilah today, either,” he says regretfully.

For the life of me I can’t remember if she looked run-down last night. I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember.

I feel it in my gut then: something is wrong. I’m not just thinking about Meredith and Delilah. Because it would be one thing if this was an isolated incident, then maybe I wouldn’t feel so concerned. But there’s Shelby Tebow to consider, a young woman who went for a jog in our neighborhood ten nights ago and never returned.

Josh,” she asks, “did Meredith have a reason to leave?” Bea doesn’t mince words. It’s not her way. She gets right to the point, asking, “Were you guys fighting?” His reply is resolute. “We weren’t fighting,” he says. “Not like you might think. But Meredith wasn’t herself lately. She was stressed out all the time. She was quiet. I wanted to know why. She wouldn’t tell me. All she’d say is that it was nothing, that she was fine.

I tell Bea that I think we should skip the Tebows’ house. Something about going to the home of a missing woman to inquire about another missing woman feels in poor taste. But Bea disagrees. “We should go to their house because of the similarity, not despite it,” she says, and I know then that she’s right.

No one has any reason to wish me dead. I’m an extremely conscientious woman. I’ve done nothing wrong.

You passed on a soft, warm bed to come sleep on the cold, hard basement floor in the dark. Because for eleven years, it’s all you’ve known. In some effed up way, you find comfort in it, being down here in our dark, dingy basement. It doesn’t get much more fucked up than that.

But abuse isn’t always physical. It can be emotional, too. Name-calling, throwing insults, controlling her behavior, monitoring her whereabouts at all times, asserting financial control.

A tear leaves her eye, weaves down her cheek. I’m moved by the sudden show of emotion.

I wrap my hands around my coffee but I don’t drink it. I hang on to Cassandra’s every word.

stupid and dumb.

Josh left him with the sitter, Charlotte, I assume.

The world is overwhelming and big. I find myself missing the darkness of the enclosed basement, ’cause even though it was the worst place in the world, something about being shut in made me feel safe. There was only one way in or out. No one was gonna sneak up on me without me knowing. But here, bad things can come at me from any direction.

The dog found the body first, driven there by the offensive scent. The river there is high, on the verge of overflowing; a day or two later and the body would have been at risk of floating away.

The truth? No one likes me. I’m the weird kid, the freak, the loser. I have you to thank for that. I don’t get in trouble, though. The only time I get in trouble is when the other kids tell lies about me.

When Dad tells you to have a seat, you drop to the floor. We’re in the kitchen when it happens, in a room with six chairs. Yet you pick the floor. Dad looks shook but goes on as if it’s no big deal because he doesn’t want you to feel all weirded out by calling you out for it. So instead he makes turkey sandwiches and we all eat on the stupid floor,

Someone outside their house. In the middle of the night,

husband

Oh, Meredith. I didn’t see you there.

Something went down that made her want to kill herself. We don’t know what.

only to be murdered when they arrive

Josh is able to sweet-talk himself into almost any situation.

don’t like Amber any more than Delilah likes Lily. Lily, according to Delilah, is not nice. She’s mean.

When the sitter Charlotte comes, Leo throws a fit. This happens, sometimes, though it’s relatively new.

You’re hurting me,” she whimpers. He makes light of her pain. “This doesn’t hurt,” he says, going on. He wouldn’t know. He’s never had a cervical exam before. Shelby squirms. He tells her to hold still.

I say flatly, “You didn’t tell me if you’re all right.” “Why wouldn’t I be?” she asks, her tone immature. Shelby is in her early twenties. I thought I’d reached adulthood when I was that age. Now, over a decade later, I realize that at twenty-three or twenty-four, I didn’t know much of anything. I still had so much growing up to do, so much to figure out about how the world worked. “Because of your text messages, Shelby.

Dr. Feingold motions for me to slide to the end of the exam table and stick my feet in the stirrups. I do, lying spread eagle on the table before him. Dr. Feingold sets his firm hands on my bare knees. He presses my legs wider, before dropping somewhere that I can’t see. I’m flat on my back. I can’t see what he’s doing. I close my eyes, try and transport myself somewhere far from here. My own gynecologist talks me though the entire exam, as if every time is the first time. A little pressure, she forewarns. Just try and relax for me, Kate. You’ll hear a click...

With her back turned to us, she says, “I saw something.” Her words are quiet but charged, full of meaning. They send a sudden shiver up my spine. I find myself wanting, desperate for more.

He’s cheesed off, but trying not to fly off the handle because the reporters would only get that on video and show it on TV.

Ripped jeans, Doc Martens, a newsboy hat.

And then the results came back. Negative. Not a match.

We think that victims of abuse should leave their spouses. We judge them for not leaving but choosing to stay in abusive relationships. But with no job and a baby on the way, what are women like Shelby to do? She’s reliant on Jason.

Because the realization that harm can come to one of my kids when I’m not there to protect them still terrifies me.

The hospital parking garage is empty when I leave. It’s three-thirty in the morning. I was with my client for nearly seven hours, helping her deliver a beautiful baby boy that she and her husband named Zeppelin. It’s horrible. He’s only hours old and already I’m imagining him being made fun of at school. But no one asked for my opinion. The husband, Matt, is an amateur guitar player and a diehard fan of ’70s rock. They’d made up their minds weeks ago.

Most times labor ends with a happy ending. Women put aside whatever negative feelings they experienced during birth because they got what they wanted in the end: a healthy baby. That doesn’t make it right. One of the reasons I do what I do is to advocate for women during birth.

My telltale heart is beating.

They stayed in town, just on the other side of it, where they didn’t have to look out their window and be reminded that bad things happen to good people every day.

One thing that I think we often miss, however, is that in some communities the local “witchy woman” with her bag of bones or tarot cards has another health function: listening.