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that he’d been at Arrowood around one o’clock that afternoon and then went home to sleep after finishing his lunch. No one believed him, because two witnesses (myself and my friend Ben Ferris, who lived next door) placed his car there closer to four. Ben had seen it from his bedroom window, and he knew what time it was because he was supposed to be practicing his violin. No one could confirm Singer’s alibi; however, several interrogations, searches of his property, and the impounding of his car had not revealed any evidence that he’d taken the twins.
    I had always believed that Singer was the one who had abducted them, because I saw my sisters in the gold car as it sped away. It was the only solid lead we had. The car wasn’t located and searched until four days after the kidnapping. I knew how quickly Singer could have killed and disposed of Violet and Tabitha, or handed them off to someone else. In four days’ time, he could have erased all evidence of the crime.
    I opened Josh Kyle’s email.
I’m sorry to bother you,
he wrote
. First of all, I heard that you’ve returned to Keokuk. (I’m sorry, by the way, if you were hoping to keep that quiet—the caretaker told someone at the utilities office as he was preparing for your arrival, and word spread, as you can imagine.) Anyhow, I wanted to welcome you back. Second, I gather from your lack of response that you’re not interested in helping with the book, but I feel it’s only fair to inform you that I’m no longer including the Villisca and Des Moines cases in this volume—the book will focus solely on your sisters’ disappearance. I’ve done some investigating on my own and interviewed others involved in your case,
including Harold Singer
.
Based on what I’ve learned, I believe your eyewitness account to be incorrect. I’d like to speak with you about what you claimed to see the day your sisters disappeared. I know how painful this must be, but if it were me, I’d want to know the truth.
    I wasn’t sure what to think. Whatever truth Josh Kyle thought he’d unearthed, he must not have shared it with anyone officially associated with the case. No one had called me with any updates. There hadn’t been any updates in years. And his accusation stung—that I was wrong about what I saw. How would he know? He wasn’t there. What I saw that day was etched into a movie reel in my brain, and no matter how badly I wanted to forget what had happened, I couldn’t. It played on an endless loop.
    —
    The twins were taken on a bright September afternoon. I had started second grade the week before, but this was a Saturday, Labor Day weekend, and it still felt like summer. My mother was somewhere inside the house, sleeping or reading a Danielle Steel novel or staring at a pile of laundry, the outside world muffled by thick plaster walls and heavy silk drapes and all the layers of black walnut woodwork. My father was away from the house, supposedly working. At the time, I couldn’t have told you what he did or why he was working on a holiday weekend, though I’d once heard Granddad call him a snake-oil salesman. I had promised my mother I’d keep an eye on the twins for a little while, and I was happy to do it. As firstborn, I was naturally bossy, and at the age of eight, the only people I could boss around were Violet and Tabitha, who were not quite two years old.
    I’d been up late the night before with an upset stomach, vomiting in the bathroom I shared with my sisters on our side of the second floor. I had crossed to the other side of the house in the dark to wake my mother and tell her that I was sick. She was alone in bed, a slight lump under the down duvet, Dad probably still awake somewhere downstairs, watching TV or listening to his records. Prescription bottles lined Mom’s nightstand. She asked if I had a fever, and I said I wasn’t sure. I wanted her to press her palm to my forehead, burn her hand, cry out for my father. I imagined her turning