“Hazel,” Liz said quietly.
Hazel looked at Liz, her face warming as guilt rushed over her.
“I’m sorry, Liz. I didn’t mean that. I-”
Liz interrupted her.
“Do you know why Abe became a reporter?”
Hazel propped her bag in her lap, digging for her sunglasses.
“No.”
Liz nodded, merging onto the highway.
“It’s not my story to tell, and I probably shouldn’t, but when Abe first started investigating Susan’s disappearance, I had a reaction similar to yours. The man was a journalist, he dredged up painful stories for a living, he exploited people’s suffering. It’s not true, though. Read any of his pieces. He’s a compassionate man, a man driven not by ambition, but justice.”
Hazel bit her lip, embarrassed at her outbursts.
“I think you should know why he does it,” Liz continued. “When Abe was eighteen, the summer after he graduated from high school, his girlfriend, Dawn, vanished.”
Hazel regarded Liz with surprise.
“Vanished?”
“Yes, but it’s more complicated than that. After work, she called him from a pay phone at a convenience store in town to see if he wanted snacks before she drove to his house. During their conversation, a man pulled up. She told Abe the guy gave her the creeps. A minute later, Abe heard her scream. He jumped in his car and raced to the parking lot of the store. The truck passed Abe, and he saw Dawn inside. Abe chased them. He followed the truck on back roads, and then he ran out of gas.”
“He ran out of gas?” Hazel blurted. “Oh my God. And the guy got away?”
Liz nodded.
“They never found her. They released a sketch based on her description from Abe, and the image of the man’s truck, but… nothing. Abe searched for years. I’m sure he’s still searching.”
They met Abe at his apartment. Coffee mugs littered every surface, coffee mugs and notes, notes with coffee stains.
“I’m sensing a theme here,” Hazel murmured, gathering half-empty mugs and carrying them to the sink.
Liz seemed oblivious to the mess and joined Abe at a desk beneath a corkboard filled with pictures of the missing girls.
“The topless bar was a dead end,” Liz told him.
Abe pulled a Post-It note from the corkboard, crumpled it, and dropped it in the trash.
“I figured as much. I appreciate you both going to check it out.”
“Anything that gets us closer,” Liz said.
Hazel set about washing dishes, ashamed of her outburst in the car with Liz. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, imagining him on a dark street long ago, watching the taillights of a truck disappear.
“What’s this?” Liz asked.
Hazel set the dishes on a towel and moved back to the corkboard.
Liz pointed at a note that read ‘M-22 just past Sapphire Lane’ with several names listed beneath it.
Abe didn’t look at her, but he pulled the note down.
“A few sightings in that area. Lots of false sightings when the article first comes out, that kind of thing.”
Liz nodded and continued browsing his notes, but Hazel saw an expression of guilt cross Abe’s features.
“And this is where the boy found Orla’s bike?” Liz asked, pointing to a map of Birch Park.
“Yeah. I’ve driven out there once, but I’m going to stake it out over the next few days. Dixon saw a pickup truck there the day Orla’s bike showed up.”
“You think it’s connected?” Liz asked.
Hazel sighed and shifted her attention to Abe’s apartment. The space was small, sparsely furnished, and buried in an explosion of paper and books. He devoted one corner of his living room to the missing girls. Corkboards flooded with their images, stacks of flyers on his desk, newspaper clippings about each girl. A couch sat in the center of the room facing a small TV. Otherwise, there were few furnishings.
The scene made Hazel anxious. She wanted to scoop pages up and file them.
She walked to the window and pushed some books aside to sit on the little bay seat extended over the backyard. A flowering dogwood tree dropped a blanket of white petals on the grassy courtyard that edged the parking lot.
Hazel remembered the summer after she met Orla. They drove up Old Michigan Peninsula in the spring and ran through the blossoming cherry trees; lying beneath one and gazing at the opulence of pink petals. The memory caused an ache beneath Hazel’s ribs, and she pressed her head against the window, wondering if she would ever hear Orla’s laugh again.
Liz and Abe seemed right at home in the chaos.
“Have you found any connection between that Spencer guy and the girls? Any evidence that the girls ever met him, knew him somehow?” Liz asked.
“No,” Abe admitted. “But I’m not ready to dismiss him. And I got a tip yesterday morning. A woman vacationing here last summer saw a gold sports car near Platte River, the beach they suspected Rita went to the day she disappeared. Spencer Crow drives a gold Corvette. It’s a very nice car.”
“And a hard car to miss. Is it possible he’s abducting girls in a gold sports car, and no one notices?” Hazel asked.
“A lot of girls would get in a car like that,” Liz murmured, gazing toward the wall of pretty girls.
After Abe filled them in on a few more tips, Hazel took a walk outside. The apartment seemed to be closing in on her.
They joined her several minutes later.
“I’ve got to get home. I told Jerry I’d pick up Chinese takeout. Can I give you a ride?” she asked Hazel.
“I’ll take her,” Abe said.
Hazel hugged Liz goodbye, and Abe gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
They drove the first few minutes in silence.
When Abe finally spoke, his words surprised Hazel.
“Liz told you about Dawn,” Abe said.
Hazel nodded.
“She wasn’t trying to go behind your back. I got frustrated about the girl at the strip club and vented.”
“About me?”
“You seemed like the easiest target.”
“I get it,” he admitted. “I know that anger. I remember it well.”
“Can you talk about her? Dawn?”
Hazel watched him consider her question.
“I couldn’t for a long time. It’s easier now, in a way. The rawness of it is gone, but I’m not sure you ever move on. Especially when you don’t know, when their fate is a mystery. I met Dawn my sophomore year at Juniper High in Spokane. I was a new kid, still reeling from my parents’ divorce. New city, new house, a new life. I struggled for the first few months, and then I met Dawn.”
“What was she like?”
“Like her name, as corny as that sounds. Light and fresh and always smiling. She played tennis, and ran track, and dreamed of owning a farm and having seven kids.”
“Seven?”
He laughed.
“Yeah. I told her I’d commit to three, and we could reevaluate.”
“You guys were serious, then? A farm and seven kids didn’t scare you off?”
“I’d never given a lot of thought to my future. Once my parents’ marriage fell apart, I lost interest in the future. I worked on the school newspaper. I’d always been into that. She said I would be a novelist. I’d be like Thoreau writing about borrowing an ax from my neighbor so I could chop a tree for firewood. I could pen long, boring novels about tending the pastures and people would love them because it would remind them of simpler days. There was something romantic in her future for us. I fell in love with her dream. I joined the 4-H club and learned about farm animals.” He laughed, as if still astounded by the choices of his younger self.