Page 25 of Trapper Road

They lead me through a living room tastefully decorated in that generic way that looks like it was copied straight out of a magazine. There’s nothing personal or unique to the room except for the far wall which is essentially a shrine to their daughter.

A large portrait of her hangs above the fireplace, with the entire mantel shelf below covered with a forest of pictures of their daughter. She’s gorgeous, glossy, as put-together as a Teen Vogue cover model, and I have no idea what alchemy of genetics produced such a perfectly proportioned face. She glows, even in the relatively dim light.

Neither Cliff nor Patty glance toward the wall as they pass quickly through the living room and dining room to the kitchen. From here, none of the portraits or pictures are visible. Maybe they don’t want to have her watching them, or me.

I glance around, taking in the room. It’s bright and modern with light grey cabinets, gleaming granite countertops, and stainless steel appliances. Every surface is immaculate, not a fingerprint or smudge in sight. I sit and take a deep breath. Nobody is cooking in this house; there’s no odor of food at all. I guess neighbors are bringing them mercy casseroles, or they’re ordering in when they feel up to it. Which, given the sharpness of Patty’s cheeks, isn’t that often.

They gesture toward a circular wooden table in a dining nook to the side of the kitchen and we sit. There’s a stack of files in the center of the table, along with a slender laptop and a phone. Cliff pushes it all toward me. “We tried to think of anything that might help. There are copies of her journal, some other papers we found in her room — notes and whatnot. We also cloned her laptop and downloaded the most recent phone backup onto a new phone. We set the passcode at 123456 just to make it easy.”

He picks up the phone to show me and the lock screen lights up with a photo of Juliette with two other girls her age. He winces and returns the phone to the table facedown.

I doubt there’s anything here that I don’t already have access to. Once I agreed to take the case, J.B. sent me everything, including extractions of her laptop and phone. Still, I appreciate the thoughtfulness. I set the stack off to the side. I’ll go through it all later just in case there’s something I missed in my initial review.

“Thank you,” I tell them. “This is helpful. Though I do want to start out by saying that I’ve read all the files we’re able to access, which is most, and I have to be up front with you, Mr. and Mrs. Larson, I don’t feel like the police, FBI, or North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation missed much, if anything. They seemed to have been very thorough. I can follow up on every single thing, try to find angles they might have overlooked, but I want to prepare you emotionally that this may be an unsuccessful effort. .”

They both nod. The mom hasn’t said a single word. That doesn’t change, because the dad says, “Yes, we understand that, but we have to try. You found that young man taken by that cult when everybody else just gave up on him. You have to find our girl too.”

It’s not at all the same thing, but I can’t say that. In the other case, nobody even investigated the young man’s disappearance, and I’d gotten lucky that he’d survived the experience until we found him. In this case Juliette has had the benefit of a full-court press from local, state, and federal agencies.

Both parents have been pretty self-contained—numb—but now, the mother looks up at me after a long pause, and I’m struck by what I see in her pale brown eyes. It’s pure suffering and a plea for someone, anyone to make it stop.

I don’t think. I reach out and take her hand, and she draws in a deep, wet breath. She still doesn’t speak. I don’t think she can articulate this place where she is. It’s hell, and there’s no exit but the hand I’ve just extended.

Finally, she speaks. “Do you have children, Ms. Proctor?”

“I do,” I tell her. “My daughter’s seventeen and my son is fifteen.”

The corner of her mouth crooks up slightly. Not in a smile, but at the notion that I have a child the same age as hers.

She stares down at where our hands are still connected. “You know, before Juliette was born, it was the strangest thing to think about the fact I had another heart beating inside me. I swore I could feel it, though doctors told me I was imagining things. But I knew that’s what it was — her tiny heart fluttering away. And I knew that if it ever stopped, before she was born or after, I’d feel that too. The world would just suddenly go silent.”

She meets my eyes again. “Do you think you’d know if something happened to one of your kids? If one of them…” She trails off, unable to give voice to the word as if that would conjure death itself.

I don’t answer her. I don’t need to.

“I can still hear her heart, Ms. Proctor.” Her voice is hoarse from all the hours she’s spent crying. “My little girl is still out there. I know she is.”

Objectively, I know there’s no way Patty can actually know that her daughter is still alive, but objectivity doesn’t matter when you’re talking about your own child. I understand the bond she’s describing. I’ve felt it myself.

And just like that, Juliette’s disappearance becomes personal. My need to find her goes beyond a paycheck and a job; it’s an obligation from one mother to another.

I can’t walk away from this woman. I’m her last hope, and I can’t take that away from her. I say, “I will do absolutely everything I can to find her,” and it has the weight of a sacred promise.

I know it’s stupid when I do it. All the odds are against me. I don’t like having the burden of being the Hail Mary on which everything depends. I already have the sinking feeling that this is going to be emotionally messy, and I’m not going to be able to keep myself clean in all this whatever happens. But neither can I look away.

For a bone-chilling second, despite counseling, I have a flashback to sitting in a locked room, watching a woman with that same overwhelming, human torture in her eyes. Holding her in my arms as she bled out in agonizing pain. Someone has to be a witness. I feel a wave of heat flash through me, then a cold surge of nausea.No. That’s the past. This is different. Stay here.

Patty squeezes my hand, bringing me back to the present. “Thank you,” she whispers. She then slips her fingers from mine, wiping under her eyes before taking a breath and forcing a polite smile. “Now, can I get y’all some iced tea?” It’s a jarring transition, but apparently a necessary one, as if falling back into mundane southern comfort is the only way to stop from sliding into the abyss of her pain.

She so clearly needs a moment to herself to regroup, and so I nod. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

While Patty gathers glasses and a pitcher from the fridge, I pull out my folders and a notepad. I hold up my phone. “Are you okay with me recording this? I find it’s easier for me when I don’t have to take notes and can focus on you and what you’re saying.” What I don’t add is that it also allows me to focus on them and how they tell the story. I can watch for any tells or tics of nervousness or obfuscation.

Cliff nods as Patty places glasses in front of us. I take a polite sip before getting started. “Okay,” I ask them both. “Tell me, in your own words, what happened.”

I know they’ve repeated this story a thousand times, and never stop reliving it. At this point I wonder how much emotional attachment still exists between the words and the event itself. Or if at this point it has become mere recitation.

“It was a pretty normal morning,” Patty begins. “Maybe Juliette was up a little earlier than usual for summer, but nothing that really stood out. She got ready to go meet up with her friends — she did that most days.”

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