Adam ran into Wendy outside Clara's bakery.
Sam was on her hip and she had a coffee in her free hand. Wendy had the air of a woman who had been awake since five and, although tired, had come to terms with it.
"We might be here longer than a week," Wendy said. "The van's acting up. Pete — the mechanic? He says he needs to order a part. Could be a few days. Hopefully a week."
"Is that a problem?"
She shrugged. "Elliot'sgot a meeting Friday he was supposed to be back for. He's a bit annoyed. Butthe kids and I love it here. Everywhere here is lovely." She looked at Sam.
Paused. "Strange. But lovely."
Adam looked at her. "Strange how?"
She opened her mouth. Caught herself. Smiled.
"Ignore me. Sleepdeprivation. Everything seems slightly off when you haven't slept properly."She shifted Sam on her hip. "They're very nice here, aren't they? Very
friendly."
"Very."
"Maybe too —"
She stopped. Laughed at
herself. "Okay, I'm getting paranoid. Four hours' sleep does that apparently."
She said goodbye and walked off. Sam turned and looked at Adam over her shoulder for a long time before the corner took them.
Too, Adam thought. She was going to say 'maybe too friendly.'
He wrote it in the BLORD document.
Evening. Adam sat on the steps. The breeze had a kick. Cleaner than back home. Everything here was cleaner.
"I guess it's time to go back inside," he said as he stood. He dusted the dirt from his behind and was about to turn when he spotted Elliot across the road, a paper bag in each hand.
Sam, not to Adam's surprise, was on his back — the boy really did not like walking. Caitlin was trying to tell him something that required both her hands to convey adequately.
Elliot had an ear-to-ear smile. He looked like a man in the middle of a good holiday who had forgotten to be annoyed about the van.
He and Adam exchanged a wave. Elliot called across, "You should come join us for breakfast tomorrow."
"I'll think about it."
Sam waved from somewhereup near Elliot's left ear.
I don't think I should go.
Morning. Birds. Wind in the trees. Adam stood outside Elliot and Wendy's apartment — Danny's rental. He hadn't wanted to come. LAU had said it would be good for him. He'd come anyway.
Flowers in his hand. Mrs. Harrow's garden. She wouldn't miss them.
As he surveyed the porch, he realized he'd been standing there too long. He had rung the bell more times than he could count.
He looked around for their car. Gone. Absent from its spot across from The Mill — where it had been parked for four straight days. If Adam's memory was holding up, it was supposed to be there, with a slight lean to the left and a small shoe visible in the rear
window.
Adam stood on the pavement and looked at the empty space.
He stood there long enough for Danny to notice from inside The Mill and come to the door.
"Looking for the family?
They left last night. I heard they packed up in a rush."
"In a rush."
"That's what Mrs. Harrow said. They came and paid up late. Seemed a bit worked up. Wanted to get moving.
Happens with visitors sometimes."
"The van needed a part.Pete was ordering it."
A small pause.
"Maybe it came in faster than expected. Pete's pretty efficient."
"Did anyone see them leave?"
Danny thought about it. "I don't think so. Late night and all." He shrugged. "Can I get you breakfast?"
Adam ate breakfast. Then he went to see Mrs. Harrow. She was deadheading roses in the front garden with small, precise snips. The soil around the roses was the same unnaturally black earth she had in back.
She looked up when he came through the gate.
"The family staying at The Mill," Adam said. "Elliot and Wendy Marsh. Did you see them go?"
"Oh, such a shame, yes.They left very early. Something about a meeting. Must have been three in the morning. I was staying at my sister's. I saw their car speed past. Seemed in a rush." A small shake of her head. "These things happen, don't they? People get
restless."
She is lying.
"All five of them? Three children?"
She snipped a stem. "Must have been, yes. I didn't see them myself." She looked up again. Full smile. "Is your room all right?"
"It's fine. Thank you."
He walked away.
Something didn't feel right, and he wasn't one to sit still when something didn't sit right. So he did two things at once: he walked toward the mechanic's yard behind the
hardware store, and he ran the timeline.
Elliot Marsh had stoodacross the street with pastries and his children the previous evening — and had invited Adam to breakfast in the same breath.
People who plan to leave in distress don't invite someone to breakfast and then cancel without a word.
Adam walked to the mechanic's yard. Good thing there was only one mechanic in town. He reached through a narrow lane between two buildings and saw a rusted truck on blocks, a late-model sedan with a cracked windshield, and a fence with nothing behind it.
The Marsh family minivan was not there.
Adam crouched and examined
the pavement. There were tire tracks leading out onto the road.
He walked the edge of the residential streets, following the tracks on a route he had learned, and it led him to an old barn at the far end of Millhouse Lane.
He didn't know what he wasdoing. The Marshes had left wrong. The town felt wrong. Or maybe he was wrong.
He'd add paranoid to his LAU file. Fine.
The tracks led him to a community storage structure. It was padlocked, made of old timber,unremarkable. Today it had a new padlock, nothing like the one he'd seen on his
first walk around town.
New, he thought.Recently installed. The metal still has a slight sheen.
In the mud outside the barn doors, there they were: two parallel tracks, wide-spaced, the width of a van. Leading in, not out.
He went closer to see if there was a crack in the wooden door. There was none. He didn't touch the padlock — didn't want to leave prints. He stood there for a while before
deciding to walk back.
Adam sat at the desk for twenty minutes without opening the laptop.
He thought about Sam pointing at him from his father's shoulders. Saying his name. He thought about Wendy saying strange, but lovely. Then stopping herself.
He opened LAU.
I think the family didn't leave. The van is in the barn at theend of Millhouse Lane. It has a fresh padlock. The tracks lead in.
Elliot invited me to breakfast in the evening. When I went inthe morning, they were gone. I looked around. Their belongings are still there
— pushed away from the door so the house looks empty.
Nobody fills their fridge, moves away in a hurry, and leaves their belongings behind permanently.
What do you think happened to them? LAU asked.
I think they were taken. The story of voluntary departure exists to explain the absence. The van is hidden to support the story. If they had
driven away, the van wouldn't still be here.
He looked at the BLORD document. Seven entries now.
LAU was typing.
Adam. Leave.
He sat back. Did not move for a long time.
That evening he went to the river and sat on the bank until dark came in. A fish turned near the surface and caught the last of the light. The water smelled like cold stone and
wet grass, and something underneath both. Something faintly sweet. Almost chemical.
He had decided it was probably industrial runoff from upstream.
Less sure about that now.
He went back to his room and locked both locks. He lay in the dark.
He thought about a four-year-old boy who had walked up to him at a petrol station in the desert, who placed a small hand on his arm, said I like them, and walked away.
He thought about it for a long time. In the dark. In the quiet.
Then he got up and kept working.