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We eventually make our way to the hotel courtyard and take a seat in one of the cabanas I pull her to me "You want me to tell you what I remember? Or do you have specific questions?"

"Both," she says "But I want to hear your story first"

I kiss her on the side of the head, then rest ainst hers while we stare out over the courtyard "You have to understand how surreal this feels for le day for the past thirteen years And to think I’ve been living twoa hard ti you here, telling you everything that happened"

I sigh, re back to that day "After the car pulled away, I went into the house and told Les that you left with so me who, but I didn’t know My mother was in the kitchen, so I went and told her She didn’t really pay any attention tosupper and ere just kids She had learned to tune us out Besides, I still wasn’t sure anything had happened that wasn’t supposed to happen, so I didn’t sound panicked or anything She told o outside and play with Les The way she was so nonchalant about it , I was positive adults knew everything, so I didn’t say anything else about it Les and I went outside to play and another couple of hours had passed by when your dad ca your name As soon as I heard him call your name, I froze I stopped in theon his porch, calling for you It was that moment that I knew he had no idea you had left with so"

"Holder," she interrupts "You were just a little boy"

Yeah A little boy as old enough to know the difference between right and wrong "Your dad walked over to our yard and asked ets hard for me This is the point I realized the awful ," I say to her "I was scared of your father I was just a kid and knew I had just done so you alone Now your police chief father is standing over un visible on his uniforht to my bedroom and locked the door He and my mother beat on the door for half an hour, but I was too scared to open it and admit to them that I knehat happened My reaction worried both of them, so he immediately radioed for backup When I heard the police cars pull up outside, I thought they were there for me I still didn’t understand what had happened to you By the time my mother coaxed me out of the room, three hours had already passed since you left in the car"

She can feel how much this hurts me to talk about She pulls one of her hands out of the sleeve of her shirt and places it in mine

"I was taken to the station and questioned for hours They wanted to know if I knew the license plate number, what kind of car took you, what the person looked like, what they said to you Sky, I didn’t know anything I couldn’t even remember the color of the car All I could tell the, because you were the only thing I could picture in my head Your dad was furious within the hallway of the station that if I had just told soht when it happened, they would have been able to find you He blahter, you tend to believe he knohat he’s talking about Les heard hiht it was all my fault For days, she wouldn’t even talk toto understand what had happened For almost six years we lived in this perfect world where adults are always right and bad things don’t happen to good people Then, in the span of a ht we knew turned out to be this false ie of life that our parents had built for us We realized that day that even adults do horrible things Children disappear Best friends get taken from you and you have no idea if they’re even alive any for reports For weeks they would show your picture on TV, asking for leads The ht before yourone by without so taken a more recent picture They would show pictures of your house and would sometimes show our house, too Every now and then, they would mention the boy next door who saw it happen, but couldn’t reht e on TVone of the reporters showed a panned-out ie of both our houses They mentioned the only witness, but referred to me as ‘The boy who lost Hope’ It infuriatedat the reporters, yelling at the her back inside the house

"My parents did their best to try to make our life as normal as possible After a couple ofup The endless trips to the police station for an to slowly return to norhborhood Everyone but Les andwith our Hope"

She sighs when I’ve finished and she’s quiet for a while "I’ve spent soup on me," she says "I can’t believe she just took me from him How could she do that? How could anyone do that?"

"I don’t know, babe"

She sits up in the chair and looks me in the eyes "I need to see the house," she says "I want ht now it’s hard I can barely re, much less him I just want to drive by I need to see it"

"Right now?"

"Yes I want to go before it gets dark"

Chapter Forty-two

I should never have let her come here As soon as we pulled up in front of the house, I could tell just looking at it wouldn’t be enough for her Sure enough, she got out of the car and demanded to see the inside of it I tried to talk her out of it, but I can only do soI don’t want her to be in there right now, but I could clearly see that she’s not having it any other way I lean against the house and hope she hurries the hell up It doesn’t look like any of the neighbors are ho to drive up any second now

I look down at the ground beneath lance behindin when I walked away froainst the house I never expected I’d ever be back here with her again

My eyes flash open and I stand up straight the second I hear the crash coiveon in there I just run