Chapter 01

1991

“They found him.”

“Found who?” James McCloud mumbled. Jarred awake by the shrill voice of the phone, he had answered it instinctively. The voice on the other end of the line was vaguely familiar, but sleep tempted him back into its arms, and the question of who had awakened him seemed ridiculously unimportant.

“Dad,” the voice answered.

James sat up, suddenly very much alert. “Celeste?” he said.

“They found dad,” his sister repeated.

“When?” asked James.

“Last night,” Celeste answered. “Nate waited to tell me until they were sure. I just found out a few minutes ago.”

A soft murmur distracted James, and he glanced at the sleeping form next to him. Charly had turned her head and appeared to be looking right at him. Her lips were slightly parted, and one delicate hand lay across her breast. He started to tell her who was on the phone, but a soft snore revealed that she still slept.

Slipping out of bed, James left the bedroom, shutting the door softy behind him, and walked to the kitchen, where he cold speak at a normal volume.

“Where did they find him?” he asked Celeste.

“In the woods,” his sister informed him.

James leaned against the counter. Dressed only in boxer shorts, he shivered in the chill of the apartment. The tile floor was cold beneath his bare feet, and he wished he’d grabbed his robe before leaving the bedroom. A glance at the microwave’s clock revealed that it was nearly five. In a few minutes the alarm clock on his bedside table would give its electronic caw and Charly would reach across where he would normally be lying, looking for the snooze button.

“James?” Celeste’s voice brought him back to the moment.

“Seven years,” he said, still not quite believing the news his sister had just delivered. “It’s been seven years, and all of a sudden he turns up?”

“Nicky Turner was digging a foundation for a new cabin,” Celeste explained. “That’s how they found him.”

“Does Mom know?” James asked.

“No,” said Celeste. “I don’t think I can tell her.”

James sighed. “What about Billy?”

Celeste gave a short laugh. “Who knows?” she answered. “Probably drunk somewhere, or high. I haven’t seen him in a couple of days.”

A flash of anger at his younger brother rose up in James’s thoughts, but he blocked it out. Being upset with Billy wouldn’t help. Not now.

“James,” Celeste said. “There’s something else.”

James waited for her to continue. It was a long moment before she did. “He was buried,” she said.

“What do you mean?” James asked. From the bedroom came the harsh beep-beep-beep of the alarm clock. He heard Charly’s muttered curses, followed by a crash as she found the clock and knocked it to the floor. Its voice was choked off.

“I mean someone buried him,” Celeste told her brother.

“That’s impossible,” said James. “He killed—”

“He was in a box,” Celeste interrupted. “Someone buried him in a box.”

James felt his breath leave him, and for a moment he could do nothing but stare at the window above the sink. Raindrops dotted the glass, forming thin trickles that ran down and disappeared over the edge of the sill. He heard the sound of footsteps, and a moment later Charly appeared in the doorway. Her long brown hair fell loosely around her shoulders, and she had put on James’s Yankees sweatshirt. The too-long sleeves covered her hands, which she rubbed against her bare thighs.

“Who are you talking to?” she asked, rubbing an eye and pushing her hair away from her face.

“I’ll come up,” James said to Celeste, holding up a finger to let Charly know he was almost finished. “I can be there in a couple of hours. Don’t say anything to Mom until I get there, okay?”

“Yeah,” Celeste replied. “I guess I can put it off for a few hours. But don’t be too long. This is a small town, remember?”

“How could I forget?” said James. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He hung up and looked at Charly, who was now eyeing him quizzically.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I have to go home,” said James.

“Why?”

“Just some family stuff,” James answered.

Charly crossed her arms over her chest and gave him the look he’d come to realize meant that she didn’t believe for one second that he was telling the truth. Although he hated that she could see through him better than anyone he’d ever met, he also found her insightfulness arousing. For a second he thought about taking her back to bed. Then his sister’s words came back to him. Someone buried him.

“Really,” he said. “It’s no big deal. But I have to go up there and deal with my mother. Celeste thinks she may have early Alzheimer’s or something.”

“Your mother?” said Charly. “Early Alzheimer’s? You mean the woman who remembers my birthday even though I’ve never met her? The woman who once recited her grandmother’s recipe for peanut butter fudge to me over the phone from memory after I told her how good it was? That mother?”

James nodded. “I guess she’s been forgetting a lot of things lately. Anyway, Celeste thinks I should come up and talk to her about maybe getting herself checked out. It’s not a big deal.”

Charly continued to stare at him. James met her gaze, smiling and forcing himself not to blink. Finally Charly nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I guess you’ll tell me when you’re ready. Go run off to the hinterlands. I’ll be fine.”

James stepped forward and drew her to him. He slid a hand beneath the sweatshirt, feeling her warm, smooth skin beneath his fingers. Bending down, he kissed her lightly on the mouth.

“It should just take a day or two,” he said. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

He was relieved that she couldn’t see his face as he spoke.

Chapter 02

1983

“Hello?”

Ada McLoud’s heart pounded in her chest as she waited for an answer.

“Ada, it’s A.J.”

Ada couldn’t hide the concern in her voice as she asked, “Have you heard from him?”

“No,” A.J. answered. “I was hoping you had.”

“I haven’t,” Ada told him. She hesitated before asking, “Do you think he’s all right?”

“Sure,” A.J. answered, but his answer came too quickly, and his voice had the air of false reassurance.

He’s as worried as I am, Ada thought.

“He’s probably just run off somewhere,” A.J. continued. “He’ll turn up.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Ada replied.

She was lying as badly as A.J. was, and both of them knew it. Yet neither would admit their falsehoods. A.J. knew as well as Ada did that Dan McCloud wouldn’t just run off anywhere. The two men had been best friends since childhood, so close that Ada often wondered if there were things about her husband that only A.J. Derry would ever know.

“Don’t worry, Ada,” A.J. said. “And call me as soon as you hear from him.”

“Same to you,” said Ada.

She hung up and turned her attention back to the potatoes waiting on the counter. As she ran the peeler over the brown skin and watched it fall in strips into the sink, she tried to focus her thoughts on preparing dinner for her family. The water was on the stove, lightly salted and simmering. She would quarter the potatoes, put them into the pot, and bring the water to a boil. She would cook them until they were fork-tender, drain them, and cube them before adding the milk and butter and mashing them, just as her mother had taught her. She would place them in the same bowl her mother had used, the one with the yellow and blue flowers.

She thought about how often this ritual had been repeated, how many times she had cooked dinner for her husband and children. She’d been married for nineteen years, twenty in October. That added up to thousands of meals. Yet as she drew the peeler over the potato in her hand she felt as if she were doing it for the first time. Her fingers trembled. The peeler slipped, and drops of red appeared on the white surface of the potato.

She turned on the water and ran it until it was ice cold before sticking her finger into the stream. It quickly had the desired numbing effect, yet she held her hand steady for a while longer, until she felt nothing.

She turned the water off and patted her hand dry with the dishtowel. She considered finding a bandage, but the cut was a minor one and had already stopped bleeding. Besides, she reminded herself, she had mother’s hands. It was a term coined by her own mother to describe the tolerance to discomfort built up by any woman who spent years cooking for a family. Ada smiled to herself. It was true; it would take much more than a little cut to make her complain. The kids were always remarking on how she could immerse her hands in dishwater so hot it turned her skin the color of a boiled lobster. Even Dan — big, macho Dan — winced when he tried to help her with the after-dinner clean up.

At the thought of Dan her smile disappeared and she was once more consumed with worry. Her husband had left the house two days earlier, presumably to go to work, but had neither come home nor contacted Ada. It was unlike him. Dan McCloud was a man who liked order. He had a fondness for watches and clocks, was always on time and always making lists of things to be done. He was not someone who just failed to come home.

Ada knew that Dan could take care of himself. He was, after all, the town’s sheriff. In addition to knowing how to use the gun he carried, Dan had a cool head. He would never rush into anything without thinking his way all around it first and figuring out at least three ways to extricate himself should things go badly. His wife had never seen him panic, and despite the dangers that came with his profession she had seldom worried over him.

But somehow this felt different.

The children, she was only somewhat surprised to see, had not really noticed their father’s absence. Now that they were all three teenagers they had their own lives, which intersected with those of their parents only occasionally. Because of Dan’s job they had never been a family that sat down to breakfast and dinner together religiously. The fact that Dan had not made an appearance at the supper table the night before was not unusual, and Ada had answered the questions regarding his whereabouts by explaining that Dan was working.

Another day, however, and she would have to answer them truthfully. What would she say then? How did you tell your children that their father was gone but you didn’t know to where? She couldn’t claim he was on a business trip, or taking care of some emergency out of town. They would know she was lying. Which left her with only one option — to tell them the truth. Only she didn’t know what the truth was.

The banging of the kitchen door startled her. She turned to see her youngest son, Billy, entering. Billy had recently turned thirteen, officially making her and Dan the parents of three teenagers. Although she admitted to no favorites among her children, as the baby Billy occupied a place in her heart perhaps a step or two above those of his brother and sister. James, who at fifteen was a younger version of his father, had the McCloud look about him, with dark hair and stormy eyes. Her oldest, Celeste, favored her, being tall and thin, her hair a deep red and her skin the pale, freckled cream that burned easily and never tanned.

But Billy was the perfect mingling of Ada and Dan, proof of their union in physical form. Slighter than his brother, he was graceful without being delicate. His face was less handsome than James’s, but arguably more beautiful. His green eyes sparkled when he laughed, and of all the children he was the one most likely to make Ada smile. Even now, in the midst of worry, his appearance was reassuring. There was, she thought, no question of Dan’s safety when such a child was waiting for him to come home.

“The mail came,” Billy said. He dropped it on the counter and sniffed the air. “Roast beef?” he asked.

Ada nodded. “It’ll be ready in about half an hour,” she told her son. “Go wash up.”

Billy left, and Ada finished peeling the potatoes and cutting them into chunks. Dropping them into the now-steaming water, she turned up the flame beneath the pot. Dinner preparations completed, she picked up the mail. Taking it to the table, she sat down and leafed through it. She took time to peruse the circular from Penney’s and to examine the weekly grocery specials, tearing out the 2-for-1 coupon for the brand of peanut butter Dan liked. She discarded several pieces of junk mail from various organizations wanting their money, and read with only slight interest a bulletin from the church the family nominally attended but to which they hadn’t actively gone in a long while.

Maybe we’ll go this Sunday, she thought. It might be good for the kids.

The last piece of mail was a plain white envelope. It was addressed to her. Instinctively she looked to the upper left corner for a return address, but found none. The postmark was dated the previous day. Who, she wondered, had sent her a letter? She slid her finger beneath the lip of the envelope and opened it. Removing a single sheet of paper, she began to read.