of an accent, to present myself as a cultured, intelligent man, not the son of an uneducated hog farmer. I was dumbfounded at the perfection that I held in my arms, the long, dark eyelashes, the wild mass of dark hair on top of her cone-shaped head, the soft fold of skin beneath her neck, the earnest sucking motion she made with her tiny lips. To me, all amazing.
On top of the engine, I place my face in my dirty hands. I cannot find her and I cannot bear the disgrace of returning home to Fielda without our daughter. I am shamed again. I have once again shirked my duties, this time as a father, and I imagine, again, the disappointment on my own father’s face.
DEPUTY SHERIFF LOUIS
On my way over to the Gregory house, I contact our sheriff, Harold Motts. I need to update Harold as to what is going on. Let him know I have a bad feeling about this, that I don’t think this is merely a case of two girls wandering off to play.
“What evidence do you have?” Motts questions me.
I have to admit that I have none. Nothing physical, anyway. There are no signs of a break-in, no sign of a struggle in either of the girls’ rooms. Just a bad feeling. But Motts trusts me, we’ve known each other a long time.
“You thinking FPF, Louis?” he asks me.
FPF means Foul Play Feared in the police world. Just by uttering these three letters, a whole chain of events can unfurl. State police and the Division of Criminal Investigation will show up, the press and complications. I measure my words before I speak them.
“Something’s not right here. I’d feel a lot better if you called in one of the state guys, just to check things out. Besides, once we call them in they foot the bill, right? Our department can’t handle or afford a full-scale search and investigation on our own.”
“I’ll call DCI right now,” Motts says to my relief. “Do we need a crime scene unit?”
“Not yet. Hopefully not at all, but we just might. I’m heading back over to the houses. Better call the reservists,” I say. I am glad that Motts will have to be the one who wakes up our off-duty officers and the reservists, take them away from their families and their jobs. Willow Creek has a population of about eight thousand people, though it grows by about twelve hundred each fall due to the college. Our department is small; we have ten officers in all, three to a shift. Not near enough help when looking for two missing seven-year-olds. We’d need the reservists to help canvas the neighborhoods and question people.
“Louis,” Motts says, “do you think this is anything like the McIntire case?”
“It crossed my mind,” I admit. We had no leads in last year’s abduction and subsequent murder of ten-year-old Jenna McIntire. That little girl haunted my sleep every single night. As much as I want to push aside the idea that something similar may have happened to Petra and Calli, I can’t. It’s my job to think this way.
PETRA
I can’t keep up with them, they are too fast. I know he has seen me, because he turned his head toward me and smiled. Why don’t they wait for me? I am calling to them, but they don’t stop. I know they are somewhere ahead of me, but I am not sure where. I hear a voice in the distance. I am getting closer.
CALLI
The temperature of the day was steadily rising and the low vibration of cicadas filled their ears. Griff had become uncharacteristically hushed and Calli knew that he was thinking hard about something. Anxiety rose in Calli’s chest, and she tried to push it down. She focused her attention on trying to locate all the cicada casings she could find. The brittle shells clung to tree trunks and from limbs, and she had counted twelve already. Ben used to collect the shells in an old jewelry box that once belonged to their grandmother. He would spend hours scanning the gray, hairy bark of shagbark hickory trees for the hollow skins, pluck them carefully from the wood and drop them into the red velvet-lined box. He would call out to Calli to come watch as a fierce-looking, demon-eyed cicada began its escape from its skin. They would intently watch the slow journey, the gradual cracking of the casing, the wet-winged emerging of the white insect, its patient wait for the hardening of its new exoskeleton. Ben would place its discarded shell on her outstretched palm and the tiny legs, pinpricks of its former life, would tickle her hand.
“Even his wife knows something is going on,” Griff muttered.
Calli’s heart fluttered. Thirteen, fourteen…she counted.
“Even his wife knows he’s too interested in her. Toni runs to him when she’s in trouble,” Griff’s voice shook. “Does she come to me? Off she runs to Louis! And me playing daddy to you all these years!” Griff’s fingers were now digging into her shoulder, his face purple with heat and dripping sweat. Minuscule gnats were orbiting his head. Several stuck to his slick face like bits of dust. “Do you know how it makes me look that everyone, everyone knows about your mother?” He unexpectedly pushed Calli roughly to the ground and a loud whoosh of air escaped her as her breath was slammed from her.
“So, that gets a little noise outta ya? Is that what it takes to get you talking?”
Calli scrambled backward, crablike, as Griff loomed over her. Her head reeled, silent tears streaked down her face. He was her daddy; she had his small ears, the same sprinkle of freckles across her nose. At Christmas, they would pull out the large, green leather picture album that chronicled Calli’s and Ben’s milestones. The photo of Calli at six months, sitting on her father’s lap, was nearly identical to the photo of Griff sitting on his mother’s lap years earlier, the same toothless smile, the same dimpled cheeks looking out at them from the pictures.
Calli opened her mouth, willing the word to come forth. “Daddy,” she wanted to cry. She wanted to stand and go to him, throw her arms as far around him as they could reach, and lean against the soft cotton of his T-shirt. Of course he was her daddy, the way they both stood with their hands on their hips and the way they both had to eat all their vegetables first, then the entire main dish, saving their milk for last. Her lips twisted to form the word again. “Daddy,” she wished with her entire being to say. But nothing, just a soft gush of air.
Griff stepped closer to her, rage etched in his face. “You listen here. You may be livin’ in my house, but I don’t gotta like it!” He kicked out at her, the toe of his shoe striking her in the shin. Calli rolled herself into a tight little ball like a woolly bear caterpillar, protecting her head. “When we get home I’m gonna tell your mom that you went out to play and got lost and I came out to find you. Understand?” He struck out at her again, but this time Calli rolled away before he connected. The force of the kick caused him to falter and trip off the trail and into a pile of broken, sharp-tipped branches.
“Dammit!” he cursed, his hands scratched and bloodied. Calli was on her feet before Griff, her legs taut, ready for flight. He reached for her and Calli turned on the ball of her foot, a clumsy pirouette. Griff’s ruddy hand grabbed at her arm, briefly catching hold of the smooth, tender skin on the back of her arm. Then she pulled away and was gone.
ANTONIA
I sit at the kitchen table, waiting. Louis told me not to go into Calli’s room, that they may need to go through Calli’s things to look for ideas of where she may have gone. I stared disbelievingly at him.
“What? Like a crime scene?” I asked him. Louis didn’t look at me as he answered that it probably wouldn’t come to that.
I’m
