Page 14 of Coram House

The book started to take shape, weaving together two possible stories. The man in the white van. The brother. I congratulated myself on the balanced storytelling, but all along I was sure the man in the white van was a lie.

The book was published. The prosecutor reopened the case just as Maddy’s parents had hoped, but this time they pursued Matthew Curry. Adam got sicker. Matthew Curry went to jail. His parents divorced.

Later the publisher used this as an excuse, that my husband was dying while I wroteGhost in a White Van. They said I had a breakdown. But that was just another excuse. The truth is, I’d loved writing the book. Living in someone else’s pain, it turned out, was a relief from my own. I was lucky in some ways that Adam was gone before the rest. The only mercy of what came next was I had the freedom to fall apart completely.

The summer Adam died, three months after the book came out, someone in prison stabbed Matthew Curry in the eye with a sharpened pipe. Matthew’s father died of a heart attack. And someone found a blue swim cap in the woods five miles away from the Curry house. It had two different sources of DNA on it. Madeline Curry’s and another.

It didn’t belong to Matthew Curry or some stalker in a white van. The DNA belonged to a man who’d lived three miles down the road and hunted in the woods behind the pond. He’d been convicted for aggravated rape and assault and served fifteen years, but somehow never made it onto the sex offender registry. It had been a crime of opportunity. The man had already been dead for five years. He drove a black pickup truck. I’d been wrong about everything.

The Curry family had invited me into their home, thinking I was there to help them, and instead I’d destroyed them. All along, I’d told myself my responsibility was to Maddy, to the truth. But I’d also wanted lightning to strike again.

My publisher pulled the book and dropped me. My agent was furious.You were just telling a story, she’d raged,based on the evidence. You weren’t the prosecutor who put Matthew Curry away. You didn’t stab him with a pipe.But I didn’t want to fight it. There’s a place between guilt and its opposite.

I called Matthew after he was released from prison. I offered to donate the money from the book, not much by then after Adam’s medical bills, in his name or his sister’s name. He was polite. He thanked me. He got off the phone. Relieved, I was about to hang up when his mother picked up.Devil, she’d hissed at me.You leave us alone.And she slammed the phone down.

Maybe I am a devil. Or, at least, I’m someone’s devil.

My phone rings. Stedsan. I want to let it go to voicemail, but then I think about the meeting with Father Aubry tomorrow morning.

“Hello?” I sound out of breath. A light skin of frost spreads on the inside of the windshield, a curtain between me and the outside world.

“Alex? Alan Stedsan here. I have some good news.”

He sounds buoyant. Well, I could use some good news. “Okay,” I say.

“I was at the club last night and Rob Baker, the chief of police, was there as well.”

“The club?” I will my brain to catch up.

“Golf. I told you. Anyhow, I told him about our project weeks ago. I assumed he’d forgotten, but he brought it up last night. Turns out he’s a history nut. He’s out on leave—cancer, very sad—so can’t meet youhimself, but he’s already assigned you a media liaison from the police department.”

“A media liaison?”

“I know. He must have heard it onLaw & Order. One of his officers volunteered for the job. Maybe he’s a fan of your books?”

Stedsan sounds giddy. He laughs like all this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

“Hang on, let me find his phone number.” There’s a rustling in the background. “Here we go.”

A tight ball of dread forms in my stomach like a peach pit. Somehow, I know before he says it.

“Officer Russell Parker.”

The name goes off in my brain like a foghorn, drowning out Stedsan’s voice.

“Alex? Are you still there?”

“Yeah—yes.”

“I’ll email you his information.”

My mouth is so dry I can barely croak out, “Great.”

“All right.” Stedsan sounds disappointed. Maybe he was expecting more profuse thanks. “See you tomorrow, then?”

“See you then.”

I hang up. Outside, the sky is a watercolor painting of pink and orange stripes. It’s going to be a beautiful sunset. My shirt feels clammy where the sweat has dried.

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