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Fourteen Months Since Megan’s Escape

M egan took off, heading with her flashlight to one of the empty homes. Livia followed. Toward the dark house up the road from where Livia had parked, adjacent to the home bathed by the car’s headlights.

“You ran from that bunker,” Livia said. “The police know you were there. Your prints were found on the door handle. The burlap bag he placed over your head was found in that bunker. Your hair follicles were in the bag. That was a real thing, Megan. You did escape that night. You ran through the woods until Mr. Steinman found you on Highway Fifty-Seven.”

Megan, a few paces in front of Livia, spoke over her shoulder.

“Yes. The bunker was real. It was all real. The forest, the highway. Mr. Steinman, too. But not the escape. The media created that. Dante Campbell and all the others, they wanted the sensationalism. The whole country took that myth and ran with it. I did, too. Embellishing the details in my book until I believed the story myself. But it’s not true. ”

She continued walking toward the house, the beam of her flashlight widening on the brick exterior.

Megan jogged to the back of the house and shined the light onto the English windows of the basement.

The light shined straight through the windows and into the empty basement.

No plywood. She redirected the light to the next house, across two acres of construction and clay and rubble. She ran for it.

Livia worked to keep up, stumbling over the rubble as she finally came alongside Megan. “Tell me about the bunker, Megan. What’s not true with your story?”

“I didn’t escape. He left that bunker door open. He did it so I would run.”

“Why? Megan, why would he do that?”

“Because there was no other way.”

“Slow down and help me understand.”

Megan made it to the rear of the next house and shined her flashlight onto the English windows at the base of the foundation.

The light stopped at the yellow-brown plywood that covered the windows.

Livia saw the boarded windows and remembered immediately the section in Missing that described such a thing. An eerie feeling came over her.

“This is it,” Megan said, bewilderment in her voice. “I found it.” She looked at Livia, locked eyes with her. “I know who took me, Livia. And this is where he kept me.”