Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Alaska.”

    “Is that where you’re from?”

    “Nah,” he said. “I just ended up there.”

    Archie grinned. “It was the seventies. Back when he had a truck camper. And hair.”

    Susan laughed and scribbled a sentence in her notebook. Henry’s jolly face grew serious. “No,” he said, looking between Susan and Archie. “My life is off the record. Period.”

    Susan closed the notebook.

    “Henry doesn’t want to be interviewed,” Archie said.

    “I get that,” Susan said.

    They continued walking, turning the corner along the side of the school. Susan could see in the large windows, replaced with new glass since she had been a student, where kids sat staring, in various states of repose, at the front of the room. God, she had loathed high school. “Lee Robinson hated it here, didn’t she?”

    “Why do you say that?” asked Archie peering up at the school.

    “I saw her school picture. I remember what it was like being that girl.”

    “That’s the door,” said Henry, pointing toward the metal fire doors on the side of the building. “Band rehearsal was on the first floor. She came out through there.”

    Archie stood with his hands on his hips, looking at the door. Susan could make out a gun in a leather holster clipped to the waist of his pants. He gazed up at the school and spun slowly around on his heels, absorbing every detail. Then he nodded. “Okay.”

    Henry led them down the sidewalk. “She walked this way.” Susan followed Archie, who was following Henry. They walked in silence. Susan stepped around a puddle that glittered in the light. It had been weeks since the sun had been out. Under the usual cloud cover, the world looked tamped down, flatteringly lit. Without it, every color sparkled. The conifers were a darker, richer green; the bright leaf buds on the plum trees were verdant, promising spring and roses and riverfront festivals. Even the gray sidewalk, buckling in places from the gnarled roots of trees planted a hundred years ago, looked somehow more vivid.

    Susan stepped around another puddle and squinted up at the sky. Sun in March in Portland, Oregon, was almost unheard of. It was supposed to be gloomy and overcast. It was supposed to rain.

    When they came to a spot halfway down the fifth block, Henry stopped.

    “This is it,” he said. “This is where the dogs lost the scent.”

    “So she got into a car?” asked Susan.

    “Probably,” said Henry. “Or on a bicycle. Or a motorcycle. Or she flagged down a bus. Or the rain washed her scent away. Or maybe the dogs just weren’t tracking well that day.”

Again, Archie spun slowly around. After a few minutes, he turned to Henry. “What do you think?”

    “I think he was on foot.” Henry pointed to a thick laurel hedge that framed the yard of a house just behind the point where the dogs had lost Lee Robinson’s scent. “I think he was waiting for her behind there.”

    “It would be risky,” Archie said doubtfully. He walked over to behind the hedge. “This about how thick the foliage was?”

    “It’s evergreen.”

    Archie considered this. “So he waited for her behind the hedge,” he said tracing his hand along the thick leaves of the bushes. “Appeared. Then what? Talked her into a nearby vehicle?”

    “A guy pops out from behind a bush and she gets into his car? Not when I was a teenager,” Susan said.

    “No,” Henry said. “He doesn’t pop out.”

    Archie nodded, thinking. “He sees her. He comes out on the other side of the hedge. Over here.” He walked along the hedge to the far side, almost around the corner. “Then he makes like he was just turning the corner,” he says, reenacting it. “Happens upon her.”

    “He knows her,” said Henry.

    “He knows her,” agreed Archie. They were quiet for a moment. “Or”—Archie shrugged—“maybe he popped out and held a knife to her throat and forced her into the back of a van.”

    “Or maybe that,” said Henry.

    “You look