Page 29 of A River of Crows

What are you talking about?

She responded with all the details this time and waited. Ten minutes later, the next text came in:

If that happened, you never told me.

Sloan sagged against her pillow. Was she going crazy? Losing her mind like her mother had always been her greatest fear.

Ok, thanks. Sorry to bother you, she typed, but deleted the sentence and tried again. Can you check the police reports tomorrow?

This time, the response came instantly. I’ll need an idea of when it happened.

Sloan tried to guess how old she might have been. The memory of looking at the Seventeen Magazine suggested it wasn’t long after her father had gone to jail. She’d gone through a phase then, trying to makeover herself—highlights, glittery purple eyeshadow, and that expensive denim jacket. As if the advice in some magazine would help her become a different person with a normal life.

But if it had been so soon after Ridge disappeared, why didn’t anyone assume the two events could be connected?

Niki Taylor, Sloan remembered. Niki Taylor had been on the magazine cover she’d been reaching for. She opened her phone’s web browser and searched “Niki Taylor Seventeen Magazine.” The image popped up right away. Sloan zoomed in on the date.

August 1989. And while you are at it, can I get copies of the reports from Ridge’s disappearance?

I’ll see what I can find.

Thank you. Sloan typed. I appreciate—

But another text popped up on her screen, interrupting her response.

Don’t contact me this late again.

Sloan pressed her lips tight. Noah was supposed to be her friend. But then again, this could have waited until morning.

Sorry, she typed, but then deleted it and read his text again. The ever-polite Noah hadn’t even prefaced his request with the word please. Sloan gathered that any text, even an apology, wasn’t welcome right now.

Sloan flopped back down into her bed. She hadn’t told Noah about that day at Leo’s. She’d never talked to the police, yet she remembered a magazine, a real magazine, she’d reached for in August 1989.

Something was going on in her hometown. Her name had almost been added to a growing list of lost children. Dylan Lawrence. Logan Pruitt. Ridge Hadfield?

Sloan needed to talk to Dylan, even if that meant going through Felicity.

She walked into the living room and plugged the phone back in long enough to get Felicity’s number off the caller ID. She decided to send the text now. She didn’t need to give herself any time to sleep on it and wake up convinced none of this was real.

This is Sloan, she typed. Sorry to text so late, but have you met with Dylan yet? If not, I’d like to join you. Text me tomorrow and let me know. Thanks!

Sloan deleted the exclamation mark and hit send.

The response came immediately. Good timing, Sloan! We are meeting tomorrow at noon for lunch at Applebee’s in Tyler! I can pick you up!

A sour taste filled Sloan’s mouth. She’d put up with Felicity in a public place if that meant talking to Dylan, but no way would she tolerate being stuck in a car with her for an hour each way.

Meet you there, Sloan typed and then turned off her phone.

Sloan drummed her fingers on the steering wheel the entire drive to Tyler. It should have been the thought of Dylan Lawrence, and whatever information he might hold, making her jittery, but it was mostly the thought of interacting with Felicity.

Sloan remembered again the first time she’d seen Felicity, in the backseat of Anna Hadfield’s station wagon, the day she’d shown up to Sloan’s school. She remembered the girl’s big red hair, smooshed down by the headphones connected to her Walkman. At the time, Sloan hadn’t thought much about the electronic, but ever since she learned it was Felicity in the backseat, it had been eating at her. Felicity was in the second grade and had a Walkman. Sloan was in sixth and had begged Daddy for one the entire year.

Obviously, their father had given his best to his real wife and his real wife’s children. Sloan and Ridge got the table scraps.

Real wife. The phrase still made Sloan’s blood pressure rise. Anna Hadfield, Daddy’s proper wife. Sweet, naïve, stand-by-your-man, Anna Hadfield. It had taken Sloan an embarrassingly long time to realize this woman taking her to visits at the prison was her father’s wife. Anna was so plain, such a contrast to Sloan’s vibrant and beautiful mother, that it made no sense the same man loved them both.

It struck Sloan now how much she hated Anna Hadfield. How she still blamed her for things that couldn’t possibly be her fault.

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