I can’t offer my kids a home with two parents, or a huge house, lots of money, or to coach them in their extracurricular activities. But I can try my damnedest to make this home one that they don’t hate returning to each day or feel ashamed at the idea of bringing friends over to. I’m tackling it one room at a time and today I’m going to show this kitchen who’s boss.

  I’ve had my morning coffee, the kids are back at school, and I’m armed and ready with a tool that looks a whole lot like a crowbar. It might actually be a crowbar, I’m not sure, but I’m ready to pry the old yellowing laminate countertops from the otherwise decent cupboards and drawers sitting underneath. All the cupboards need are a lick of paint and then I can affix to them the secondhand (but good as new) countertops I scored for next to nothing online. Then I just need to replace the old grapevine patterned tiles with the plain white ceramic ones I picked up from Home Depot and voilà! A whole new kitchen for less than four hundred dollars.

  I’d planned to wait until the weekend to start this particular task because I thought maybe we could all do this one room together as a family, but after learning that both my children will be spending this entire Saturday over at the Perfect Parkers’ house—Mory doing robotics with Hutch, and Cameron on a Lego playdate with Leo—I figured I may as well just get started all by myself.

  I’m not sure how much longer I can wait for this magical future I’ve been envisioning to arrive. The one where my children and I spend one full day together, bonding or playing or just hanging out. At some point I might have to accept that my kids just don’t want to spend the precious little spare time they have with their mother.

  I suppose I’m happy about Mory finding a friend so close by, though. Hutch seems like a good kid. Mory told me she has a group of friends at school she hangs out with, but I’ve noticed that she never goes out with them at weekends or over to any of their houses. I’m starting to wonder if they really exist.

  I know that despite Mory’s genuine interest in robotics, the real reason she wants to go over to the Parkers’ this weekend is to get closer to Hutch. He’s got a Disney Channel kind of face and the floppy blond hair to match. I saw the look in her eyes at their house, the girl is crushing hard and it’s adorable. And since there’ll be some parental supervision involved, I have no issue with her spending time with Hutch over there.

  Then again, if it all ends in tears—as it so often does with teenagers—she’ll be stuck living on the same street as Hutch until they move away for college. But love and heartbreak are all par for the course at her age and I won’t be the one to get in the way of her path. Not that she’d let me if I tried.

  I start on the far side of the countertop, wedging the bar underneath and levering it upwards. I hear a little crunching noise and the side of it lifts up a little. That was easy. This might not take as long as I’d expected it to. I move along to the middle section and do the same, but this time when I move the counter upwards a tile on the wall at the back of it shifts and falls over, as though it was already loose.

  When I go to pick it up, I see something stuck to the rear side of it with a piece of tape. It’s another photo.

  I smile and lift it up. I’d almost forgotten about the one I found under the living-room carpet. I’d shown it to Mory when she got home from school one day and suggested we should get an instant camera and do the same ourselves as we renovate the place, but she hadn’t seemed interested.

  I take the tape from the photo and turn it around. It’s just like the last photo, but this one is of a different young woman. She’s wearing a red and white flowery dress with big puffed-up sleeves, the kind my aunt would always wear to church when I was a child, along with a wide-brimmed summer hat that would block the view of the people in the row behind.

  It’s weird, though. This girl bears no resemblance to the one in the last photo. Her hair is much lighter in color and straighter. She’s sitting in seemingly the same place and in the same pose—against a wood-paneled wall and smiling wide for the camera—but I can’t imagine she’s related to the girl from the last photo. Jessie, I remember it had read.

  This one has another name written below, in the same writing as the last. Sandra.

  I stare at the photo and the same questions run through my mind as with the last. Did it occur to these people that these photos might take another thirty or so years to be uncovered? And what I’d really love to know is; what exactly was it that Jessie and Sandra were so happy about?

  10

  SANDRA

  Sandra wakes to the sound of footsteps in the next room. Her limbs are heavy and her head is spinning. For a moment she thinks she’s at home in her own bed, before she smells the musty odor of damp wood and the terrifying reality sets in.

  He brought her here last night. He told her his name was Charlie and that he worked for Manning Models as a talent scout. He showed her his business card and a black binder full of models signed to their agency. Sandra even recognized some of them. That was when he asked her to come to his studio. His enthusiasm was so infectious that when he promised this was the start of an amazing future for her, she believed him. Like an idiot.

  She knew by twenty minutes into the drive that he wasn’t really a model scout. His avoidance and vague answers to all her questions tripped the alarm in her mind and she knew she needed to get away from this man, and fast. It’s not like she hadn’t seen the warning signs when he first approached her but stupidly she ignored them, so badly wanting to believe.

  The thing is, when a guy like Charlie picks you out from the crowd and tells you you’re one of the most beautiful girls he’s ever seen and that he’s going to make you a household name… well, you should walk away right then and there. And maybe fifty other girls did. But Sandra didn’t. She wanted to believe that this was the something she’d always felt was around the corner for her. That this smooth, handsome man was telling her the truth and that in just a few months’ time she’d be in London or Paris, walking the catwalks in the latest big-name designers’ clothing and being paid thousands for it.

  She can hear how phony it all sounds now, but when Charlie looked into her eyes it felt as though he was unlocking something deep within her, a part of her which nobody else had ever accessed before. But by the time she found the courage to speak up and tell him she’d figured him out it was too late, because whatever was in that Diet Coke he gave her had left her limbs slack within minutes. He’d drugged her. It’s obvious now, but for some reason that wasn’t as clear to her as she sat in that car feeling each part of her body gradually failing to respond. She’d wanted to pull her bag from the footwell below her, open the car door and jump right out. But all she could do was blink at the headlights on the road ahead that were blinding her. Those headlights became fewer and fewer until there were no other cars around. Or houses. Just a dirt track that felt as though it wound on forever.

  By the time they arrived at the cabin she could barely keep her eyes open and when she tried to speak, her mouth just couldn’t form the right shapes. The last thing she remembers before she’d fallen into a deep dreamless sleep was a shadow kneeling down beside her and cold eyes fixed on hers.

  Now, in the early morning light, she tries to lift her head from the mattress and listen closely to the sounds coming from the next room. The fog that’s been clouding her mind begins to clear but with that, the gravity of the mistake she’s made hits fully. She doesn’t know where she is, she doesn’t know who the man really is and they’re so far from civilization that there’s nobody around to save her.

  She sees a bathroom across the room and forces herself to sit up. Her head is pounding and her mouth is bone-dry. She’s never needed a drink of water so badly. She slides her feet over the edge of the bed and onto the floor. There are no shoes on her feet, he must have taken them off her. Thankfully she’s otherwise still fully dressed, a welcome consolation amidst the nightmare she’s found herself in.

  The wood floor shifts noisily under her feet as she moves and she only makes it halfway across the room before a figure appears in the doorway. The smile that was used to so easily convince her yesterday now drives a dagger of fear deep into her chest.

  “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” He crosses his arms and leans back against the door frame casually.

  Sandra freezes where she stands, not knowing what to do or say.

  “Go on.” He extends an arm. “Go to the bathroom. I’ll wait here.”

  She keeps her eyes on his as she moves forward and reaches for the handle. The light is already on inside and there’s no lock when she closes the door but at least there’s an illusion of safety inside here that she can cling on to. She turns the rusted faucet and pulls her hair back, ducking down to drink greedily from the flowing water. She then splashes some on her face before taking a few breaths, trying to figure out what she’s going to do next. She wishes she’d told somebody where she was going or who she was with, but after Charlie introduced himself to her, everything happened so fast that she didn’t get a chance.

  There’s a knock at the bathroom door and her whole body goes rigid.

  “Sandra, put on the dress.” His muffled voice from outside the door is quiet but firm.

  She looks around and finds something folded up on the shelf. It unfolds as she pulls it down. It’s a red dress with white flowers and large puffed-out shoulders. It’s made of a cheap, crinkly kind of fabric and it’s hideous. She doesn’t want to put it on, but there’s a voice shouting inside her head not to make this man angry. If she wants to get out of here, she needs to stay quiet and do as she’s told. Then maybe he’ll let her go.

  Each little movement takes her full concentration as she gets out of her clothes and into the dress. Her whole body is threatening to collapse but she tries to stay strong. She just needs to play along with this and everything will be okay. She looks at herself in the small mirror above the sink. Her skin almost matches the dress: her face is pasty white and her eyes rimmed with red.

  She can hear his footsteps out there, pacing. The last thing she wants to do is leave the bathroom and face the man waiting for her in the other room, but she has no other choice. She takes a deep breath and slowly opens the door. She jumps in fright when she sees he’s right outside, his face so close she can smell his stale breath.

  “You look beautiful.” His eyes come to life, and he runs a finger down the material at her shoulder.

  He’s holding a camera in one hand and uses it to gesture to the wall across from the bed. “Sit down over there.”

  “I… do I have to? Can’t we go outside?” she croaks.

  “Sandra, a little advice. If you want a good picture taken, never argue with the photographer.” There’s an impatience in his voice that scares her.

  Sandra knows he didn’t bring her here just to take photos, and she can only pray that she finds a way to escape before his real plans are revealed. She walks to the side of the room and sits down slowly against the wall, looking up at the lens pointed her way.

  “No, no, no.” Charlie lowers the camera from his eye. “Come on, sweetheart, you’ve got to smile.”

  She tries to morph her features into a smile but it’s as though she’s forgotten how.

  “Did you not just hear me, Sandra? Smile!” he shouts and she flinches.

  “I just want to go home,” she whimpers, her words sticking together as she speaks.

  “Sandra, this was supposed to be nice. You’re my model, remember? And I just want to take one photo. That’s all.”

  She swallows down a lump in her throat. “Okay.”

  She uses everything she has to force herself to smile.

  “Bigger. Bigger. Come on now!”

  Sandra stretches her mouth until it’s painfully wide. A sudden flash of light goes off before a photo slides from the front of the camera and he holds it up like a prized possession. “Don’t you feel better now, for co-operating?”

  She nods as a tear runs down her cheek.

  There’s a darkness to his eyes as he studies the photo and mutters to himself. “I’m going to keep this forever.”

  It only takes a split second for Sandra to make the decision. She prays that her legs will hold her as she rises up and begins to dash for the door, but she’s too slow and in seconds he has her in a tight grip. She tries to kick and scream but he just pulls her in tighter toward him and she looks up to see the same smile she saw on his face yesterday. Except now the kindness in it is gone, replaced by something darker. Something terrifying.

  “You’re not going anywhere, Sandra.”

  11

  RUBY

  I pull up outside Cameron’s school just after lunchtime. In my rush to get over here I forgot to grab a jacket, which I’m now regretting as I get out of the car and make the short walk to the front entrance, the chilly breeze biting through the thin fabric of my sweater.

  When Cameron told me yesterday about a small scuffle he and another boy had gotten into at school over a wolf sticker, I hadn’t thought it anything serious. He’d said he’d planned to put the wolf sticker on the picture collage he’d been working on and had left it on his desk while he went to go sharpen his pencil at the trash can. When he returned, he found the boy had taken it and stuck it firmly to his own collage. Cameron had gotten angry and tried to pull it off the boy’s paper and the boy had shoved him, resulting in Cameron telling the teacher on him. Your typical eight-year-old squabble.

  But the call I got from the principal thirty minutes ago, requesting that I come in right away to meet with him about another incident Cameron was involved in with the same boy has me worried. Cameron is not the kind of kid who goes around starting fights. He’s gentle, considerate and tends to make friends with every kid he meets, so this leads me to believe the problem isn’t him, it’s this other child. Cameron seems to love going to this school, so I don’t want anything to ruin that for him.

  Inside it strikes me, as it has done in the past, how strange it is that every single elementary school smells the same. Like markers and floor cleaner mixed with teachers’ despair.

  I quickly find the main office and explain why I’m here to the school secretary, and she directs me to the principal’s office down the end of the hall.

  When I knock on the door and poke my head into the room, Principal Sailsbury is sitting behind his desk talking on the phone. He looks up and smiles at me apologetically, flashing five fingers my way. I close the door and sit on one of the two chairs outside his office. After a moment, a woman walks by and glances my way. She smiles and when I smile back, I realize it’s with an almost shameful expression. It doesn’t matter how old you get, sitting outside the principal’s office will transport you right back to your childhood.

  “Mind if I sit?” I’m shaken from my thoughts when I see a man with dark hair and work combats approach me and point at the seat next to mine questioningly.

  “Go ahead.” I smile.

  “Thanks.” He sits down and leans forward, clasping his hands together. “In trouble with the principal?”

  I laugh. “That’s how it feels.”

  I get a hint of this man’s scent and discreetly breathe in deeper. He smells great. Like freshly cut pine mixed with soap.

  “I’m Justin Thomas, by the way. Xavier’s dad.” He holds out his hand.

  I’m not sure who he’s referring to for a moment before it clicks that he’s here for the same reason as me, and I reach out to shake his hand with a hesitant smile. “I’m Ruby Blake, Cameron’s mom.”

  I see Justin’s eyes flicker almost imperceptibly down at our hands, likely noticing—as I do—that neither of us wears a wedding ring.

  “So, uh…” Justin grimaces. “Do you know what happened?”

  “No, I just got the call a little while ago to come in. I hope it was nothing too bad.”

  “I’m sure it’s just another disagreement. Xavier told me about yesterday’s incident with the wolf sticker,” he says.

  “I heard about that, too. And don’t worry, Cameron didn’t seem too upset about Xavier pushing him.”

  Justin laughs. “Uh… I wasn’t worried. Because Cameron was the one who pushed Xavier.”

  I cross my arms. “That’s not what I heard.”

  “Well, I guess you heard wrong then.” There’s a playful smile on his lips. “And we should have no problem getting to the bottom of this because Principal Sailsbury used to be a criminal defense lawyer.”

  I raise a brow. “Used to be?”

  Justin nods and lowers his voice before leaning in conspiratorially. “The rumor is that he was disbarred for misuse of client funds. I heard he was ordered to repay over fifty thousand dollars that he’d already blown on gambling.”

  My mouth drops. “Noooo.”

  “Yep.”

  “And they just let him be principal here?” I whisper.

  “Uh-huh. I mean, he’s not a danger to the kids or anything but… you know. It’s hard to respect a guy who would do something like that.”

  I want to ask more but the door to the office opens up and Principal Sailsbury calls us in. We both stand up and walk inside, and he gestures for us to sit across from him at his desk.

  His office is small but bright, with a window overlooking the playground. And judging by how clean and impossibly neat the room is, I take it Daniel Sailsbury is an organized man.

  He takes his seat across from us and clasps his hands together on the desk. “Mr. Thomas, Miss Blake. Thanks for coming in. As I told you both on the phone, there was another incident this morning with Xavier and Cameron, the second in two days. Their teacher, Mrs. Jacobs, recommended I bring the parents in to try to resolve this issue at a base level.”

  “What happened exactly?” Justin asks.

  “Well, I’m told that during reading time this morning, Mrs. Jacobs found the two boys fighting over a book and some name calling ensued,” he says gravely.