PART 2

The call ended before I could say a word.

I stared at my phone.

Jamie looked up at me.

“Was that Pepper?”

I wanted to lie.

Instead I said:

“I heard a cat.”

His eyes widened.

“Then he’s okay.”

Bishop answered before I could.

“Maybe.”

Jamie looked at him.

Bishop crouched.

“That picture proves Pepper was alive when it was taken.”

“When was it taken?”

“We don’t know.”

Jamie nodded.

Children can understand uncertainty better than adults think.

What they cannot handle is adults pretending uncertainty does not exist.

Officer Park took my phone.

“Unknown number?”

“Yes.”

He checked the call record.

Blocked.

No surprise.

Then he looked at Bishop.

“Why would somebody want you?”

Bishop’s expression closed.

“Because this started before the cat.”

Park folded his arms.

“Explain.”

Bishop looked toward Jamie.

I understood.

“Jamie, stay with Officer Park.”

My son immediately protested.

“No.”

“Please.”

“I want Pepper.”

“So do I.”

“You’re going without me?”

“No.”

That part was true.

I had no intention of walking into any abandoned building because a stranger asked.

Jamie looked at Bishop.

“You’re going?”

Bishop shook his head.

“Not where they told us.”

That seemed to calm him.

A little.

One of Bishop’s riders arrived with another recovered poster.

Then another.

Within twenty minutes, thirty-seven glossy flyers had been collected.

Every one carried the same QR code.

Every one had been distributed only in places where families gathered.

Grocery stores.

Library.

Elementary school bulletin board.

Youth baseball concession stand.

Pet supply shop.

Officer Park noticed it too.

“This wasn’t designed to find your cat.”

Bishop said:

“No.”

“It was designed to spread the address.”

“Yes.”

“And specifically to children.”

Bishop nodded.

Park looked at me.

“How did Denise find you?”

“Facebook group.”

“What group?”

“Joplin Lost Pets.”

He wrote it down.

“Profile name?”

“Denise Harper.”

“Real?”

“I don’t know.”

A patrol officer searched quickly.

The account had existed for seven weeks.

Nearly every post involved lost animals.

Helpful comments.

Search offers.

Printed flyers.

Nothing obviously threatening.

That was what made it worse.

Then a second officer called from the grocery store office.

They had Denise on security footage.

She arrived at 8:12.

Printed flyers already in her car.

Spoke with me at 8:21.

At 8:34, she walked past Jamie’s backpack.

At 8:35, she returned.

At 8:36, she bent beside it.

Camera angle blocked her hands.

At 8:38, she left the frame carrying her phone.

Two minutes later, she returned.

That could explain the photograph of the backpack.

Not the cat.

Officer Park asked:

“When did Pepper disappear?”

“Wednesday night.”

“And the backpack?”

“Jamie takes it everywhere.”

“School Wednesday?”

“Yes.”

“After school?”

“Library.”

“Then home.”

Bishop looked at me.

“Anyone help search Wednesday?”

“No. We didn’t know Pepper was missing until dinner.”

“Thursday?”

“Neighbors.”

“Friday?”

“More people.”

“Denise?”

“Not until Saturday.”

Bishop frowned.

“Then somebody else had access.”

Park nodded.

“We need school footage. Library too.”

I felt sick.

This was no longer one strange volunteer.

Somebody had watched us long enough to know Jamie’s routines.

The police told us to go home.

Bishop disagreed.

Not loudly.

That would have been easier.

He simply said:

“She shouldn’t.”

Officer Park looked at him.

“Why?”

“Because whoever has Pepper knows where Claire lives.”

“So?”

“So her home is now part of the pattern.”

Park did not like being corrected.

But he considered it.

Then Bishop added:

“The collar was placed beside the steps.”

I turned.

I had never told him that.

“How do you know?”

Jamie answered.

“I told him.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

I looked at Bishop.

“You talked to my son yesterday?”

“At the gas station.”

Jamie nodded.

“I asked him if he’d seen Pepper.”

That conversation had lasted maybe thirty seconds.

I remembered now.

Bishop had been fueling his Harley.

Jamie showed him a picture.

Bishop asked where the collar was found.

At the time, I thought it was just practical.

Now he said:

“Cats lose collars in fences. Under cars. In brush.”

His eyes met mine.

“Not neatly beside a door.”

Park said:

“You thought this was intentional yesterday?”

“I thought maybe.”

“And you didn’t call?”

“Call with what?”

That silenced him.

Suspicion was not evidence.

Again.

Always the same problem.

Bishop continued:

“Then today I saw the QR code.”

Park asked:

“What does the QR code have to do with your sister?”

Bishop stared at the old flyer.

“The man who took Mara liked invitations.”

That was the first time he said her name.

Mara.

His sister.

I asked quietly:

“What happened nineteen years ago?”

He looked at Jamie.

Then Park.

“Not here.”

We ended up at Bishop’s motorcycle shop.

Not his father’s old shop.

His current one.

Different building.

Different part of town.

Open floor.

Security cameras.

Three riders outside.

Two inside.

Officer Park agreed because the location was easier to secure than my duplex and because Bishop voluntarily handed over his phone, old flyer, and rider names.

Jamie sat at a workbench drinking orange soda.

Bishop stood beside a dented metal cabinet.

For several minutes, nobody spoke.

Then he removed a photograph.

Mara.

Same girl from the flyer.

She was twelve when her German shepherd, Roscoe, disappeared.

Roscoe had never escaped before.

Gate latched.

Collar found beside the porch.

Just like Pepper.

Three days later, flyers appeared around town.

Bishop’s father did not make them.

A volunteer did.

Different person.

Same pattern.

A “helpful” stranger.

The flyer directed Mara to Redbird Service Road.

Bishop was nineteen then.

Working construction.

Riding an old Honda because he could not afford a Harley.

Mara saw the flyer after school.

She believed someone had found Roscoe.

She went alone.

“She didn’t tell anybody?” I asked.

“She left a note.”

Bishop handed me a photocopy.

Child handwriting:

FOUND ROSCOE. BACK SOON. DON’T WORRY.

My chest tightened.

“What happened?”

“She got to Redbird.”

“And?”

“She found Roscoe’s leash.”

Not Roscoe.

“A man was there.”

“Who?”

“We never proved his name.”

Bishop’s face became distant.

“Mara called me from a pay phone two hours later.”

Officer Park asked:

“Where?”

“Bus station twenty miles away.”

“How did she get there?”

“She wouldn’t say.”

“Was she injured?”

Bishop’s jaw tightened.

“She was alive.”

That was all he wanted to say.

Fair enough.

He continued.

Mara refused to describe the man for months.

Then one day she saw him through the passenger window of their father’s truck.

She screamed.

Bishop remembered the face.

Police interviewed the man.

Name:

Thomas Keene.

No charges.

No physical evidence.

No witness besides a terrified child whose story changed under pressure.

“He disappear?”

Bishop nodded.

“Couple months later.”

“And Roscoe?”

“Found at a shelter under a fake intake name.”

“Who brought him?”

“Unknown.”

Park tapped the desk.

“What happened to Mara?”

Bishop looked down.

“She lived.”

Again.

The same careful wording.

I asked:

“Where is she now?”

He did not answer.

Then I understood.

Not dead necessarily.

Gone from him.

Before I could ask, Jamie interrupted.

“Pepper doesn’t like strangers.”

Everyone turned.

He looked embarrassed.

“But Denise gave him treats.”

My heart stopped.

“What?”

Jamie looked at me.

“At the park.”

“When?”

“Tuesday.”

Bishop’s head lifted.

“Tuesday?”

Jamie nodded.

“You never told me that.”

“She said she liked cats.”

“What park?”

“Wilson.”

I felt anger rising at myself.

“Jamie, why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were talking to Ms. Rachel.”

Rachel.

My neighbor.

Tuesday afternoon.

I had been distracted.

Denise had met my son before Pepper disappeared.

Officer Park immediately called for Wilson Park camera footage.

Bishop looked at me.

“That’s how she knew the cat.”

“And Jamie.”

“Yes.”

The room felt smaller.

Then Park’s radio crackled.

School resource officer.

They had footage.

Wednesday afternoon, after dismissal, a silver minivan parked across from the school.

Same general model Denise had used at the grocery store.

A man exited.

Cardinals cap.

Male.

Not Denise.

He watched Jamie walk with classmates.

Did not approach.

Then left.

Thursday morning, the same van appeared near our street.

Friday, near the library.

“This is organized,” Park said.

Bishop shook his head.

“Or two people.”

“Denise and the man?”

“Maybe.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

Bishop looked toward the rear of the shop.

The old part.

Storage.

Then said:

“My father worked with Keene.”

Silence.

“What?”

I asked.

Bishop opened the metal cabinet.

Inside were ledgers.

Photographs.

Old employee badges.

One showed his father beside a younger Thomas Keene.

The same man from the reflection behind Pepper.

Even with age, I could see it.

Same long face.

Same crooked left eyebrow.

Park leaned closer.

“Your father knew the man your sister identified?”

“Yes.”

“And police knew?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t.”

Bishop pulled out a payroll ledger.

Keene had worked at the family motorcycle shop for eight months.

Under another name.

Tom Kersey.

Then disappeared three weeks after Mara’s abduction.

Park whispered:

“Jesus.”

Bishop pointed toward the three blue stripes painted on an old interior wall.

“The picture of Pepper was taken here.”

“Your old shop?”

“This building used to be my father’s.”

I looked around.

“You said this wasn’t the same shop.”

“Front half isn’t.”

He pointed toward the back.

“Rear warehouse is.”

My stomach dropped.

“You mean Pepper could be here?”

“No.”

“Then how did they photograph him here?”

Bishop’s face hardened.

“I don’t know.”

We searched.

Police first.

Then a K-9 unit.

Storage rooms.

Mezzanine.

Parts cages.

Old office.

Nothing.

No Pepper.

No fresh food.

No litter.

But in the rear warehouse they found something worse.

A plastic bowl.

Water still inside.

Orange fur on the rim.

Jamie saw it.

“That’s his.”

Park crouched.

“How do you know?”

“Blue star.”

The bottom of the bowl had a blue star painted under the glaze.

Jamie made it at a pottery studio for Pepper’s birthday.

Someone had taken it from our kitchen.

I had not even noticed.

My legs went weak.

“They were inside my house.”

Park said:

“Maybe.”

“No. That bowl was beside the fridge.”

Bishop’s expression became terrifyingly still.

Then one rider called from the old office.

“Bish.”

We followed.

On the desk lay an envelope.

New.

White.

Addressed by hand.

JONAH VALE

Inside was a Polaroid.

Pepper sitting on a table.

Alive.

Behind him:

A young woman.

Maybe early thirties.

Dark hair.

Crooked smile.

Bishop stopped breathing.

I looked at the old school photograph.

Then the Polaroid.

Same face.

Older.

“Mara?”

He nodded.

His hands began shaking.

Officer Park asked:

“When did you last see your sister?”

Bishop whispered:

“Sixteen years ago.”

I stared at him.

“You said she survived.”

“She did.”

“Then where has she been?”

His eyes never left the photograph.

“She left.”

“Why?”

“Because she said staying near us made Keene dangerous.”

Park lifted the Polaroid carefully.

On the back was one sentence.

YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STOP LOOKING.

Bishop sat down.

For the first time since I met him, he looked old.

Not dangerous.

Not hard.

Just tired.

Then Park’s phone rang.

He listened.

His expression changed.

“License plate from the grocery store came back.”

“To Denise?”

“No.”

“Who?”

He looked at Bishop.

“The van is registered to Mara Vale.”

Nobody spoke.

Jamie whispered:

“Is she the bad person?”

Bishop’s head snapped up.

“No.”

It was immediate.

Certain.

Then he looked again at the photograph.

Mara beside Pepper.

Not restrained.

Not frightened.

Looking directly into the camera.

Her left hand rested on Pepper’s back.

Her right hand was raised slightly.

Two fingers extended.

Bishop stood.

“What?”

I asked.

He pointed.

“That’s a signal.”

Park frowned.

“What signal?”

“Something we used as kids.”

“What does it mean?”

Bishop grabbed the old flyer.

On Mara’s school photograph, someone had drawn two tiny lines near the corner.

Same shape.

Two fingers.

He said:

“It means don’t believe what you’re being shown.”

Park stared at the Polaroid.

“So she’s telling you the photo is staged?”

“No.”

Bishop looked toward the rear warehouse.

“She’s telling me we’re looking in the wrong place.”

Then Jamie said:

“Pepper’s scared of loud noises.”

I looked at him.

“What?”

“In the picture.”

He pointed at the cat.

“His ears.”

Pepper’s ears were flattened.

His body low.

Jamie continued:

“He only does that when trains go by.”

The room went quiet.

Bishop looked at Officer Park.

Then at me.

Redbird Service Road had an abandoned quarry.

No active rail line.

But Bishop’s father had owned another property.

A machine warehouse beside the freight yard.

Closed for twenty-two years.

Still standing.

Park asked:

“Address?”

Bishop’s face went pale.

“312 Mercer Freight Lane.”

I stared.

“Mercer?”

“Old owner.”

“Who?”

Bishop picked up the Polaroid.

“Thomas Keene’s father.”

Before anyone could move, Park’s radio came alive.

Dispatch had received a 911 hang-up from a disconnected landline at 312 Mercer Freight Lane.

Background audio was unclear.

Then dispatch replayed the last three seconds.

Metal grinding.

A freight horn.

And a woman’s voice saying:

“Jonah, don’t bring the police through the front.”

Bishop closed his eyes.

Mara.

Alive.

Then another sound came through the recording.

Jamie recognized it before any of us.

Pepper meowing.