“Thomas said they searched every inch,” I said, after a long pause.
“Thomas was only the sheriff then,” Evelyn said, her eyes fixed on the highway. “He was not yet the mayor. His duties were different.”
A yellow remnant of police tape, brittle and bleached white by years of sun, fluttered from a low pine branch twenty yards away. I looked at the dark woods stretching toward the ridge, wondering if my son had ever really been inside them, or if the truth had been right here on the asphalt all along.
“We should go,” Evelyn said, tapping her fingers against her leather purse.
I slipped the rusted truck into my coat pocket, the metal heavy and cold against my thigh, and opened the driver’s door.
The municipal building in Oakhaven sat three miles from the highway, its double oak doors heavy enough to block out the sound of the traffic. Mayor Thomas sat behind his mahogany desk, his large frame filling the high-backed leather chair. The room smelled of floor wax and old paper, a combination that always reminded me of the winter we filed the missing person reports.
He was fifty-eight now, his booming voice carrying easily through the frosted glass of his office door. He was holding a green municipal permit for the upcoming autumn festival, his heavy gold pen poised over the signature line.
“We did everything that could be done, Margaret,” Thomas said, his voice filling the room. “The county spent twelve thousand dollars on the helicopter search alone.”
I waited five seconds before I replied, my hand finding my bare ring finger again.
“The newspaper clipping says the search ended on the third day, Thomas.”
He adjusted his heavy metal watch strap, sliding it an inch up his thick wrist, before he looked up at me.
