Lynn’s fist covered her mouth, her other hand bracing her elbow. “I don’t want the shop opening today. I have to call Anne. In fact, we need to leave right now.”
“Anne won’t be here for another three hours to open the shop. You need to take a deep breath and just explain what’s going on. I know this has something to do with that video.”
“I have to know when anything is reported about William. Turned out to be just the same rehashed theories of where he might be. But that wasn’t why I came out here. I was right to be worried.”
As Lynn turned once again to the trees, Roxy followed her gaze. The morning’s humidity swam like a river around them, seeping through the iron fence and throughout the burr oaks beyond. Not a half mile into the trees was the site that prompted Lynn to wall off the woods from the world.
“I woke up with this horrible feeling. You know how it is when you’re supposed to do something important, then you forget it, and when it comes back to you, it hits you like a Mack truck?”
“We turn eighty next year, Lynn. I am well aware of the sensation of forgetfulness.”
“This was worse than that. It was like a neighbor calling to say that smoke is coming out of your house and remembering that you left the gas burner on. Take that horrible feeling and times it by a thousand. I was in a panic. When the video proved to be nothing new, I searched for anything about him or Kate. There was nothing. That feeling, though… of something horrible remembered… wouldn’t go away.”
Lynn continued to look through the fence. Roxy had only been to the abduction site a few times, and that was when William first disappeared. She’d found nothing remarkable about it all those years ago. Just a small grove amidst the trees where, unlike most of the woods, grass actually thrived in places, thanks to gaps of sky amongst the canopy of leaves. That summer, everything the sun encouraged to grow was flattened by the feet of searchers and police. Surrounded by crime-scene tape even in the winter months, it became desolate.
The fence prevented anyone, except for Lynn and the few she allowed to enter, to reach the site. Upon learning its history, tied to the disappearances of so many, Roxy understood her friend’s fierce commitment to conceal it. Privately, she worried how often Lynn returned.
“Why did you say you were right to be worried?” Roxy prodded.
Lynn did not respond at first, careful, as always, to mask her reasons. “I didn’t even like Tom going there. I fought for so long to keep him from even stepping foot there. But Tom gave up so much… and was such an asset to my work… that it was unfair to stop him. And when I’m lost, or frustrated with my own deep failings, I can’t help but go there, to see if I’ve missed something. And I was right to go there today. We have to leave. Right now.”
Roxy allowed Lynn to drag her away. “I know you enjoy keeping me in the dark, but if there’s truly something dangerous—”
“I have to find William. I have to.”
“Lynn, we all want to know where he is. I’ve told you time and time again that he’s a grown man now, and he’s just working his way through this—”
“He’s not. He’s hiding. And I understand why. But he can’t hide anymore. I have to tell him.”
“Tell him what?” Roxy planted her feet. “Even though I am in desperate need of air-conditioning right now, I need an explanation.”
Lynn once again touched her arm. “Then come and see.”
Moving around the boxwoods and across the lawn, Lynn led her out into the sun that hit them with the ferocity of a Tennessee summer morning. Roxy winced, pulling her “I ♥ PBS” T-shirt loose from her chest. “Can we stand in the shade at least?”
“No. Right here.” Lynn took off her binoculars and thrust them into Roxy’s hands. “Hold them up. Follow where I point.”
“Can I go get my sunglasses?”
“No.”
Roxy sighed and lifted the binoculars to her eyes. “Great. I see leaves.”
“Look up higher,” Lynn said, gently lifting the binoculars. “Follow my finger.”
“All I can see is white. I can’t see your finger through these things. Wonderful, more white. Wait. Is that a rain cloud? If I’m lucky, it will burst open and drench us and complete this marvelous morning.”
“That’s not a cloud.”
“Of course it is,” Roxy lowered the binoculars, squinting. The sky was piercingly white, awash in thin cirrus clouds. The strip of razor-thin dark could have been easily missed. “What is that? Birds?”
“No,” Lynn said, the pitch of her voice dropping. “Ladybugs.”
The dread that hit Roxy was like suddenly realizing there was a semi truck in her blind spot. While she knew little about her friend’s research, Lynn had explained to her the swarming of the beetles at the time of William’s disappearance, and how even the government kept them in canisters at the hospital in Argentum to serve as a warning of what was to come.
“Are you sure? They’re so far above trees. I didn’t think insects could fly that high.”
“Neither did I,” Lynn said, walking towards the house. “But once I saw them again in the sky this morning, I knew there was a reason I feel that awful… foreboding. It’s so much stronger this time… I feared it was finally happening.”
“You mean you’ve seen them in the sky like that before?”
“Just once.” Lynn was quickening her step. “Not long after William left. I thought at the time it was just the anxiety of realizing he was gone again, even if it was of his own choosing. I wasn’t surprised that I woke up the next day a bundle of nerves and ended up in the woods again, looking for something to help me understand what happened to us. Here, watch the stairs. They’re wet from the sprinklers.”
“At least you finally are worrying that I’m going to wipe out. But I’m fine. Go on.”
“It wasn’t even cloudy that morning,” Lynn said, holding open the screen door. “But when I entered the clearing, I immediately noticed something was casting shadows on the ground. That’s when I looked up and saw it. So many of them… far above… so thick that I didn’t understand, at first, what I was seeing. Then, I saw the ladybugs everywhere, thousands of them. I ran inside to get my phone to document it, and thankfully also grabbed Tom’s old Canon.”
Lynn ushered them through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the study. “Sit at the computer.”
“At long last.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t. I probably shouldn’t….”
“Because you think it might shock me? I think we’re past that point.”
Lynn’s hand hovered over the mouse. “I’m sorry, Roxy. Just in case I haven’t said it lately. I’m sorry for dragging you into all this.”
Roxy placed her hand on top of Lynn’s. “If you recall, I shoved and pushed and corralled my way in. You would have left me back at the train station fifteen years ago if you’d had your way. I chose this. I’ve held back on demanding answers to what you’ve been up to because I know you worry that it could end up harming me. But I want to know. So get that mouse moving.”
Lynn sighed. She reached into her pocket, withdrawing a flash drive.
“Do you routinely walk around with those in your pockets these days?”
“I keep them in Tom’s gun safe. It was the first thing I grabbed before I headed outside. I wanted it on me just in case….”
Just in case you died. That whatever is in you was activated and your ears bled and you died or went into a coma, like all those people in that terrible hospital. We would have found your body and ultimately that flash drive. Your last secret to reveal.
Roxy patted her hand. “Show me.”