Page 29 of Our Darkest Summer

There was another stretch of silence between us, then he closed the journal in his hand.

“There was a serial abduction in this area in 2009. The police didn’t think it had anything to do with my mom’s case because the targets seemed to be only teens. But, it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

It definitely did. It wasn’t unusual for the police to not prioritize adult missing person cases.

“Did they ever find the kidnapper? Or any of the victims?”

Thomas shook his head.

So it could have been human trafficking. Or at least that was more likely to be the case with serial kidnappings. If that’s what happened, I wasn’t sure we could find her. But Thomas also said the targets were teens, which could also mean it had nothing to do with Lizzie’s disappearance.

“Why do you never talk about her?” I asked. Neither him, nor Connor or even their father mentioned her name once. The only reason I even knew it, was because of the research I did—if I could call it that—last night.

A glimpse of emotion washed over his features before he masked them again.

“After she disappeared, whenever Connor or I mentioned her,hewould either get really mad or ignore us, there was no in-between.” He was talking about his father, and somehow Joshua’s reaction didn’t surprise me at all. “So after a while, we just learned not to.”

I bit the corner of my lip, picking at the laces of my dark blue Converse.

“What was she like?” I asked, and he turned his gaze at the floral-patterned wall.

“She—” I held my breath. “She loved nature. We spent almost every weekend outdoors.”

I couldn’t stop myself from thinking back at my own memories with my dad. Hiking between the thousand-year-old trees in the morning mist.

“She was the one who wanted a vacation house up here.” My memories shifted to the back of my mind and I fixated my gaze on Thomas. “This house,” his eyes captured mine, “was an anniversary gift from my father to her, not long after his architecture firm took off.”

I looked around the room again. “But Josh…he’s…”

“He was different before…with her at least.”

With her.So not with his kids. I stayed silent. We both did. I didn’t want to scratch any more wounds, so it felt wiser to just seal my lips.

Thomas cleared his throat. “So, what should I be looking for?”

I straightened up, opening the journal in my lap. Even if I felt bad about it, reading these pages was inevitable if we wanted to crack this case.

“Anything from that year, and the summer before,” I answered, smoothing over the words written by the woman whose house I was sitting in.

She was probably a child when she wrote this. I thumbed through some pages, but it became clear pretty fast that this wouldn’t be the journal to give us clues. It mostly contained stories about unicorns and yellow monsters. I put it aside and opened a plain beige one.

The entry was written a month and two days after Thomas was born. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, but he was busy reading. I took the chance to examine him for a second—the way his head was tilted, his dark waves falling almost into his eyes, the lean muscles of his arms… My breathing shortened, and I turned my attention back to the journal, flipping through its pages.

I turned some more.

I let out a snort, and Thomas lifted his eyes at me, arching a brow. I shook my head and turned back to the page, the smile lingering on my lips. I could absolutely imagine him as a baby, running around, sayingmoron.

I put aside this journal as well and took hold of a yellow one, but when I opened it a paper fell out and landed on the floor.

“Thomas,” I called, and he shifted closer instantly.

I flipped through the rest of the pages, searching for anything else that might have been tucked into it, when another paper fell out, and landed in my lap.

The air froze around us.

“What the fuck,” Thomas muttered as I put the notes down on the floor for him to see.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper, spreading it next to the other two. It was the note that was left on the front door, I realized.