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“Maybe we should recruit a larger search party from the campsite,” Christian suggested, without looking up from his phone.

Julia thought that made sense. Campsite reservations at the lake’s southern end filled up quickly every year, so there was a potential small army of people to help scour the woods.

David pressed his lips into a fine line. “I think we’re risking someone else getting lost,” he said. “The deeper people go into the forest, the harder it is to find a way out, and cell service gets pretty spotty away from the lake.”

Erika laughed. “David, imagine how that’ll look on the Dateline episode—you telling us to sit on our asses and wait.”

Julia almost spit out her drink.

“Back to that, are we?” David sighed irritably. “You’ve known me practically your whole life, yet you’re hell-bent on labeling me some sort of killer. Thanks for the character assassination.”

“You’re the one who didn’t want to call the police in the first place, and now you don’t want to expand the search? I’ve represented guilty clients who have shown more concern. What am I supposed to think?” asked Erika.

“That I’m a good person who didn’t do anything to harm my girlfriend—who I love, by the way. And I’m worried sick about her.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say,” Erika clapped back.

Julia hated to admit it, but David was being oddly passive.

Even so, she would reserve judgment, whereas Erika seemed to have her mind made up, and not in David’s favor.

She assumed Christian would take Erika’s side.

It was his idea to expand the search, after all.

But to her surprise, he came to his friend’s defense.

“David’s right,” he said. “There are thousands of acres of dense forest out there. How are we supposed to cover all that?”

“We’re not,” said Rick, tossing his support into what was now the Men’s Camp.

“This is a job for the police. They’re trained to search for people.

If Detective Baker wants our help, she knows where to find us.

Meanwhile, we need to take a wait-and-see approach.

They certainly don’t want other people to get lost or hurt trying to locate her.

For all we know, Fiona disabled the security camera herself so she could sneak off.

As of right now, the police have no leads.

If I were them, I’d think she left willingly, and if that’s the case, I guarantee they will drag their feet investigating. ”

Julia shuddered. “Well, that’s not an option,” she said. “We can’t just let her fall through the cracks in the system.”

“What system?” Rick asked rhetorically. “It’s nonexistent when it’s an adult who runs away. At best, you get a haphazard series of starts and stops. Most of the time, the police follow a few leads here and there, and that’s if you’re lucky.”

“You sound like an expert,” said Christian as he popped the top of another soda.

“That’s because he is. We’ve gone through this before.”

All eyes went to Erika, except for Julia, who felt terribly guilty. She should have considered how Fiona’s disappearance would be triggering for her friend, whose mother had vanished from her life.

“You’ve been looking for your mom all these years?” asked Julia, her voice soft with a blend of surprise and sympathy.

“We gave it a half-hearted effort for a while, but even if we invested considerably more resources, I’m not sure we could have found her,” admitted Erika. “Like Rick said, there’s no system for finding people who voluntarily vanish, none at all.”

Rick took hold of Erika’s hand. It was nice to see them put aside the snipes and disagreements, to show a more caring side of their relationship.

Rick knew how hard losing her mother had been on Erika.

Because she was so young at the time, all Cormac had explained to his despondent daughter was that Mommy had gone away and, hopefully, she’d call or write soon. But she never did.

Julia always thought that Erika had written her mother off.

Her father became her world, and this lake, her sanctuary.

When Cormac died of a sudden heart attack, not unusual for men his age, Erika had no time to prepare herself for his passing.

Was it really seven years ago already? It’s hard to keep track of such things when you’re moving at the speed of life.

But after the shock subsided, at least Erika had cherished memories with her dad to hold on to, and a parent for whom she could openly mourn.

“I thought you were too angry with your mom to want to look for her,” Julia said. Why hadn’t Erika shared this with her? Of course, Julia kept her own secrets, and sharing was a two-way street.

“Yeah, I definitely had mixed feelings, but she’s still my mother,” Erika said.

“Even though she left when I needed her the most, I was lucky in many ways—my dad took good care of me, and we had a lot of family that stepped in to help.

My aunt Evie lived in the apartment downstairs from us in New York and cooked dinner almost every night.

And Uncle James popped over a lot back then.

He and Dad were a riot together—a real comedy duo when they got going.

“But still, part of my history was missing. When I was younger, I’d yell at her, pretending she could hear me.

I’d tell her I hated her for being so selfish, even though it wasn’t that simple.

But I wasn’t about to waste money on a private investigator, not after what she’d done.

So we tried a little on our own, hit a bunch of roadblocks, and eventually I decided to accept the situation, with all its unknowns.

Enter mindfulness… it’s not a cure, but it helps me cope. ”

It shouldn’t be surprising that all their lives were messy and complicated, Julia thought. She contemplated how to accurately caption the five friends at the beach if she were to post a pic to Insta.

Time to play Guess the Malady! Match the problem to the person for the win.

1. Has mommy issues. 2. Conceivably did in his girlfriend.

3. Bordering on bankruptcy. 4. Ashamed of his son.

5. Losing touch with her daughter. Bonus question: Perpetually annoyed with her husband (pick any woman, no wrong answer). #blessed.

Julia’s phone buzzed in her hand. Don’t look, she told herself.

Be here now. But it could be related to Fiona, someone returning one of the calls she’d placed.

She checked and regretted it immediately.

She didn’t know which creditor was hounding her this time.

She’d have to click the link in the tersely worded (read: threatening) text message to find out.

Oh shit. Well, there was nothing to be done about it right now. She’d wait until she was alone with Christian to sort everything out. Perhaps he’d been receiving his own batch of love notes. It would explain why he kept checking his phone like a teen waiting to hear from their current crush.

Julia put her phone away just as Taylor pulled into the driveway. She didn’t know where her daughter had gone, only that she’d wanted to take Izzy for a ride. She was happy Taylor was making a friend and hoped it might help her get out of her recent funk.

The girls approached, but Taylor still looked solemn after the road trip. Izzy wasn’t faring much better. She had distance in her eyes, rounded shoulders, and no pep in her step. If ever there was a case of the Summertime Blues, these two had apparently caught it.

Nutmeg approached, sniffing the girls intently. Clearly, the dog thought they had gone somewhere interesting.

“What’s up?” Christian asked, putting down his phone to acknowledge the rest of the world. “How was the car? She drives like a dream, right?”

Julia resisted a groan. She. Here he goes again, like the car has boobs instead of wheels .

“It was fine. And don’t worry, there are no scratches, promise,” Taylor assured him. “Thanks for letting us borrow it.”

“Where’d you go?” asked Julia.

“I took Izzy to see where they found the bones.”

That one word, bones, charged the air. All heads turned in Taylor’s direction.

“That’s a pretty gruesome field trip,” said David. “Why go there?”

“Izzy’s into true crime, so I thought she’d think it was cool.”

Considering Izzy’s sober expression, cool might not be the operative word.

“What’s happening up there, anyway?” Rick asked. “Is the new construction finished?”

Before Taylor could answer, Lucas erupted into a powerhouse solo that drew Julia’s attention, as well as her daughter’s.

Julia saw something on Taylor’s face that hadn’t been there moments ago.

It wasn’t the same shock and hurt she had observed that morning.

No, this was something else. A whiff of vulnerability?

Perhaps. Longing? Maybe that. It was something significant, that much she knew, but Taylor was guarding her emotions like precious gems.

“Whatever construction there was, I think it’s stopped,” Izzy said. “There’s some dug-up earth, but it’s becoming overgrown.”

David poured another G&T from the pitcher into his cup. “Yeah, I heard the new owner put a halt to the whole project until the police finished excavating the area,” he said. “And he wasn’t interested when he got the green light to continue. I guess he’s superstitious. Weird.”

Julia knew the look on Christian’s face. He smelled an opportunity.

“Hey, that’s a prime piece of real estate,” he said.

Christian dove back to his phone and, a moment later, rocketed out of his chair with childlike exuberance.

“Holy shit. That land is back on the market, and the price is a steal. He must really want out. Dave, Rick, we should pitch in and buy it. I bet you anything it’s the perfect spot for growing cannabis. ”

Cannabis? Julia scratched her head at that one. Since when is Christian into growing weed? Didn’t that go against his sobriety?

Rick rose from his seat, but not the way a young man would.

Julia swore she could hear his knees screaming.

“Christian, get a damn grip, will you? Growing cannabis in Vermont is a bureaucratic nightmare. And besides, I think you have enough problems with the one business you’re running into the ground.

Don’t try to latch us to your sinking ship, buddy. ”

Ouch.

With that, Rick headed toward his house, where Lucas continued to play a mournful tune on his guitar, echoing the sadness in Taylor’s eyes.